Ask HN: Is there any founder building non AI startup in 2026?

13 points by daudmalik06 93 days ago | 9 comments

Ask HN: Is there any founder building non AI startup in 2026 ?

Just curious to know what other founders are building around and what are current challenges.

danieka 91 days ago |

Certainly! We’re building https://repejo.se/en/ which is a fundraising platform for NGO’s. So far we’ve been focusing on the Swedish market and local payment methods.

We’re looking for use cases where AI makes sense, but for some reason determinism seems to be a highly valued trait when moving money around. I feel a bit of FOMO around AI features in our product, but not enough to shoehorn in AI where it doesn’t fit.

I don’t think end users will start building their own SaaS using Claude Code. They don’t want the hassle and it’s not their core expertise. But I think that SaaS prices will decrease since fewer developers can provide more value, which leaves room for new businesses to enter the market.

kathir05 91 days ago |

Yes. We are building huntyourtribe.com , portfolio-first ATS for startups and lean teams.

We are only ATS, making it easier for people to showcase real work and for startups to spot better candidates faster.

We are not building AI heavy/AI-native tool. We have integrated AI as tool wherever is necessary.

We believe you can't built customer-centric tool if AI is thrown everywhere. Our tool is meant for real human connections and discovery.

TJHXPCB 93 days ago |

Building hardware manufacturing infrastructure in China — PCB design and assembly. Very much non-AI, very much physical atoms. The supply chain complexity alone keeps us busy without needing to add LLMs to the mix.

convexly 93 days ago |

Yeah, decision tracking tool. Helps people log predictions with probability estimates and see if their judgment is actually getting better over time. Not a single LLM in the core product. The math is all classical stats.

dhruv3006 91 days ago |

We are building https://voiden.md/ - an API client - think jupyter notebook but for APIs.

moomoo11 92 days ago |

I'm building a startup using AI.

There are some AI features, but basically it is just me calling OpenAI api's.

anuk123 92 days ago |

Nope, I'm building An AI startup called Nexra AI for solo founders

tomm-wei 92 days ago |

Yeap, It's me.I am building a cross-patform tiny NAS app -- egos. Ancient-style programming. AI can do fantastic thing but when you transfer and backup files and photos it can make it. I don't even use AI agents to write code. Because if I spend 15 minutes writing code with an AI agent, I end up spending a week debugging it. I've put a file server into the browser, desktop, and mobile apps. Each platform runs its own file server with identical logic (because the file systems are different and local data varies, they can't share the same codebase). Debugging across all these platforms is extremely tedious. If I don't have a clear understanding of every line of code, once a problem occurs, I have to spend ten times to fixing it. Here's how I test a feature: Browser A → Browser B Browser A → Desktop Windows C1, Mac C2, Linux C3 Browser A → iOS D Browser A → Android E Desktop C1 → Browser A Desktop C1 → Desktop C2 → Desktop C3 Desktop C1 → iOS D Desktop C1 → Android E ...

asxndu 93 days ago |

Yes. I'm working on a fintech project that has completely zero AI.