Founder Snapshot
- Founder: Ben Collins, Co-founder & CEO
- Company: Woz
- Stage: Seed
- Investors: Cervin Ventures, Y Combinator, Burst Capital
- Founded: 2024
“Historically, the ability to write code and architect software served as a massive barrier to business building,” says Ben Collins. For over a decade, the divide between those who could build and those who could only imagine was absolute. But that era is ending.
Ben and his co-founder, former roommates at MIT more than 12 years ago, watched the software landscape shift beneath their feet. While his co-founder went on to raise over $40 million for a previous venture and Ben spent years incubating companies at a venture fund, they both spotted the same signal in the noise.
“If you’re in the tech ecosystem over the last couple years, it’s just abundantly clear that there is an inflection in terms of AI code generation,” Ben explains. They realized this wasn’t just about faster coding - it was about democratization. “We can actually build a platform that enables anyone to build a business.”
Solving the Entropy of AI
The promise of AI coding agents is vast, but the reality often hits a ceiling. Ben describes this limitation with a physicist’s precision. When a non-technical founder lets an AI “run wild,” saying yes to every suggestion, they unwittingly introduce chaos into their codebase.
“Every time you ask the AI to do something, you’re introducing more entropy into this system,” Ben notes. “The more entropy is in the system, the less and less stable it becomes, and eventually you kind of hit a ceiling for the complexity of that system.”
This is where Woz diverges from standard coding assistants. Instead of just generating code, Woz provides a rigid architectural foundation - guardrails that keep the chaos in check. “We’ve created a lot of rules and a lot of structure so that AI can be creative within our system while still limiting that entropy,” Ben says. This approach allows builders to push past the usual limits of AI-generated software and create complex, business-quality applications.
From Obvious AI to Novel Workflows
Ben sees the industry moving into a new phase. If 2025 was the year of “obvious AI” - using models to replace existing human labor in law, accounting, or insurance - the next chapter is far more exciting.
“2026 is going to blow our brains because we’re going to see totally novel workflows that would have never ever existed before,” he predicts.
For Woz, this means enabling entrepreneurs to do more than just build a product. It means layering on the services needed to grow it. “That’s doing the viral marketing and running experimentation on top of your product,” Ben explains. The goal is a platform where the friction of starting a company dissolves, leaving only the idea and execution strategy.
Building on High Trust
Despite the focus on AI, Ben’s philosophy on team building remains deeply human. “We’re just solving for a really high trust team, high trust work environment,” he says. Many of the current team members have worked together for over a decade, creating a shorthand and reliability that speeds up execution.
When bringing in new engineering talent, Ben holds a contrarian view on modern coding education. He values the struggle of the pre-AI era. “The way you learn the fundamentals of software development is by banging your head against the wall and trying to learn something over and over again until eventually it’s ingrained.”
For core engineering roles, he looks for people who have those deep, hard-won fundamentals. But for the builders using the platform? That’s a different story.
The Founder in Residence
Woz is currently hiring for a unique role that bridges the gap between user and team member: the Founder in Residence. This isn’t a traditional job; it’s an entry ramp into entrepreneurship for the “new school” of builders: young, hungry, and AI-native.
“It’s a role I wish existed for me like 10 years ago,” Ben admits.
The premise is simple but powerful: come to San Francisco for three months, work out of the Woz office, and build. You get access to the team’s internal tools, capital to launch experiments, and the mentorship of experienced product designers and engineers. In exchange, Woz learns from how these founders push the platform to its limits.
“If you’re a hungry, kind of scrappy, technical or semi-technical person… and have a lot of energy to try to make something work, I think it’s an awesome role,” Ben says.
He views it as a potential precursor to programs like Y Combinator. “If I saw that I launched these apps and grew revenue… and I did it with one or two people, I feel like that would be a huge green flag for the partners at YC.”
For those willing to grind (the “first ones in the office”) it’s a chance to bypass the traditional gatekeepers and start building the future immediately.
“Business building is a difficult and strenuous journey, and building the product is only a small, small part of that journey,” Ben reflects. But with Woz, the hardest technical barriers are crumbling, leaving the path open for anyone with the drive to walk it.
Learn More
Woz is an AI platform that enables anyone to build and scale software businesses without a technical co-founder.
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Website: https://withwoz.com
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Connect with Ben: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bentcollins/
