A content manager built in two days what took a founder three weeks to hire for
The HOLYWATER co-founder offers it as his own account of why a quick build with feedback can beat a long hiring search.
Entrepreneur · Are AI-First Teams the Secret Ingredient Behind the Next Billion-Dollar Startups?In an opinion column, the co-founder of HOLYWATER, a technology firm, describes watching another startup founder spend three weeks last month trying to hire a senior developer, an experienced programmer, to build a simple feature. The founder posted on job boards, sorted resumes, and ran technical interviews, and after three weeks was still searching. The account comes entirely from the co-founder's own telling, and he does not name the founder or the feature.
At his own company, the co-founder writes, a content manager finished the work within two days with help from AI software. While the other founder was still posting and interviewing, the HOLYWATER team was already trying the result with users and revising it.
The lesson the co-founder draws is direct. A fast, rough build that reaches users and gets feedback beats a slow search for the perfect specialist. In his view, speed matters because testing sooner lets a startup learn and revise sooner.
He presents the contrast as an example of a wider hiring mistake. In his telling, founders insist every task demands narrow experts, wasting time and cash, while flexible staff aided by AI move faster. The difference he credits in this case was AI tools.
That is why, he argues, startups should hire curious people who learn new tools quickly rather than chase credentials alone. What mattered here, in his account, was not a job title but the willingness to try the tools and keep revising once users responded.
In his telling, the hiring search was still going in week three. The two day build was already being tested.
Questions people ask
What does a content manager normally do?
A content manager plans, edits, and publishes articles, posts, and other media for a company. The job usually centers on writing and organization, not writing software. In this account, the manager used AI tools to do coding work outside that usual role.
How can AI tools help a nonprogrammer ship software?
AI coding assistants can draft code from plain language descriptions and help revise it. A beginner can describe a simple feature, test the result, and ask the tool to fix errors. The author credits this kind of assistance for the two day turnaround, though he does not detail the steps.
Does this mean startups no longer need senior developers?
No. Experienced developers are still needed for complex systems, security, and reviewing AI written code. The co-founder's argument is that many simple features and early prototypes can be built by general staff with AI, saving specialists for harder work.