You build the product.
We bring the customers.
14,000 advisors. 150,000 affiliates. 16M subscribers.
Powered by
Stripe, CrowdStrike, Monday.com, and Snyk sell through AppDirect.
~$0B ARR, $0B+ in transactions, and growing. AD1 plugs you in.
Building software is no longer the bottleneck because AI has commoditized production. What remains hard is getting it into the hands of buyers.
AD1 is AppDirect's AI Product studio. We invest $250K–$500K, co-build and develop ideas, then plug you into a channel of 14,000 technology advisors and 150,000 affiliates who already sell software to millions of businesses.
The shift
Before AI, the atomic unit of a business was the job. One person, one function, one tool. AI collapses those handoffs. The atomic unit flips from jobs to processes.
Customers no longer buy tools.
They buy outcomes.
A business doesn't want an invoicing app, a compliance checker, and a sales CRM. It wants the deal closed, the customer onboarded, and the invoice paid.
What you'd build for today
The companies that win in an AI-first world will sell whole processes, not point solutions. If your product replaces a fragmented tool stack with a single service, the buyer already exists and the advisor can already close the deal.
The only thing missing is the AI-first product.
Super Bowl Ads, as a service
Broadcast-quality AI ads for under $50K, every quarter.
AI-IT Ops
Continuous, automated IT for businesses without an IT team.
AI spokesperson for every storefront
Custom voice and video for the businesses that can't afford a brand agency.
A marketplace for co-located data centers
Capacity discovery for the build-out of the AI age.
Accounts receivable, end-to-end
Not a copilot for AR. The whole function, run as a service.
The kind of company we'd fund
Our first cohort is building now. Products that collapse multi-step processes into single services, sold to businesses that already buy from an AppDirect advisor.
Builders
Operations productized for everyday businesses, sold through the channel.
Endless tasks, run by an agent. The execution layer for the small business operator.
Accounts receivable automation. Navigates the finance and legal challenges of getting paid.
AI gets better when it gets more data, more compute, and better raw materials. These are the only three moats that will matter. Most of what AI needs to improve exists in places no dataset has reached. In the heads of commodity traders. In operational practice. In knowledge that has never been recorded.
Firsthand exists to capture it. We back founders building toward the scarce inputs AI depends on, in the places no one else is looking.
The kind of company we'd fund
Proprietary data pipelines. Energy infrastructure for compute. Tools that capture expertise from professionals who have never been digitized. If you are building where the data doesn't exist yet, this is your arm.
Builders
AI data labeling powered by college-educated mothers. The workforce is the moat.
Capturing the unrecorded operational knowledge of tradespeople and industrial suppliers.
A new substrate for conversation. Built for the moments AI can finally hold.
What you'd build for tomorrow
What you get
$250K–$500K
Our investment
Pre-seed and seed. We invest and co-build alongside you.
14,000+
Your advisors
Technology advisors already recommending and selling software to SMBs.
150,000+
Your affiliates
Channel partners driving demand across verticals and geographies.
16M+
Your user base
End customers already buying through the AppDirect ecosystem.
Full stack
Your studio
Product, engineering, and go-to-market support — scoped to what you actually need.
1,000+
Your distribution network
Software providers already selling through the AppDirect marketplace.
Rolling applications. Remote-friendly. Technical and non-technical founders welcome.
How it works
Where World-Class Builders Meet
Accelerated Distribution
01
Apply
Tell us what you're building and why it matters.
02
Build
We co-build with you. Your product, your IP, our resources.
03
Sell
Your product goes live in the channel. 14,000 advisors start selling.
Questions
AppDirect’s advisors recommend and sell software to SMBs. If we back you, your product gets listed on the marketplace, advisors are briefed on your value prop, and you get active co-selling support.
$250K–$500K at the pre-seed or seed stage. Structure varies by company. We’ll walk through it in our first conversation.
We can co-build: product development, engineering support, go-to-market strategy. Not every company needs all of it. Some founders just need the channel and capital.
Anyone with a thesis on AI products or services for businesses. Technical and non-technical founders. Solo founders welcome. We’re global — no geographic restriction.
Yes. We’ll connect you with founders in the portfolio during the process.
You build the product.
We bring the customers.
Get started
Ready to build?
We back, build, and distribute AI companies through AppDirect's channel. If you have a wedge into a process, a thesis on unrecorded data, or a product the SMB world has never been able to afford we want to hear from you.
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