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From Idea Overload to Market Fit: How One AI Founder Found Focus (and Hypergrowth)

In the tech world, ideas are rarely in short supply. What’s scarce is the discipline to choose the right one, prove it fast, and build the team to scale it.

Alberto Rizzoli, co-founder and CEO of V7, has lived that journey—navigating pivots, dead-end prototypes, and hard market choices before landing on a winning niche in computer vision AI. His path offers a playbook for tech founders wrestling with the same challenge: turning promising tech into a product the right buyers actually want.

The Temptation Trap: Starting With Tech Instead of the Buyer

Rizzoli’s first venture, Aipoly, built groundbreaking AI that could run deep neural networks directly on smartphones, helping blind users identify objects in real time. The tech was impressive, but as he tells it, the market was “incredibly hard to break into” and even harder to monetize.

“We were making the classic mistake technical founders make—starting with the technology and then hunting for a problem,” Rizzoli says.

When V7 began, the founders refused to repeat that error. They set a three-day rule: if they were still excited about a market opportunity 72 hours later, they’d explore it. If not, they’d drop it and move on. It was a simple way to kill “shiny object syndrome” before it consumed months of dev time.

Finding the Buyer You Want to Have Dinner With

Early on, V7 experimented in multiple industries—retail automation, laboratory robotics, even autonomous store concepts—before zeroing in on their ideal customer: the head of a machine learning team.

The deciding factor wasn’t just market size or technical challenge. It was people.

“We asked ourselves: after talking to these folks, do we want to have dinner with them? These were people we enjoyed, respected, and could see ourselves building with long-term.”

That human filter kept them energized through the grind of enterprise sales and product iteration—something every founder should consider when evaluating market fit.

B2B Validation Means Picking Up the Phone

In B2C, you can self-validate an idea with your own habits. In B2B, that’s a recipe for disaster. Rizzoli recalls cold-calling experts in industries he barely understood—often embarrassing himself—to pressure-test ideas.

The lesson for other tech founders:

  • Don’t validate in a vacuum.

  • Seek out the deeply informed buyers in your target market.

  • If they can talk you out of your idea with clear logic, listen.

The opportunities that survive that scrutiny often have the richest problems to solve.

The Product Upstream Advantage

V7 found its winning position not by building end-products, but by moving upstream in the value chain—becoming essential infrastructure for AI teams across multiple industries. Rather than making the “robot picking the apple,” they built the platform for training it.

This model—being the “Stripe” for a sector instead of running your own storefront—let them serve many markets while owning a defensible, high-switching-cost niche.

For tech founders, it’s a reminder: you don’t always have to be the visible brand to own the critical layer of the stack.

Why Your Co-Founder Choice is a Market Decision

Rizzoli’s co-founder, Simon, had been programming since age six. That technical depth let them prototype quickly, own their IP, and make investor conversations credible.

Investors know this—many won’t fund product-heavy startups without a technical co-founder. If you don’t have one, finding that partner can be as critical to market success as the idea itself.

Hiring Early: The Multiplier Effect

One of Rizzoli’s biggest “do-over” wishes: Once investors show interest, stop trying to do everything yourself. Spend half your time hiring exceptional people—especially early, when it’s easier to convince them to join.

“When there’s fewer of you, ironically it’s easier to hire unicorns. Later, you’re busier, the pitch gets harder, and the role is less fluid.”

Mental Load and Founder Energy

Rizzoli is candid about the toll: “Three years later, I look twenty years older.” The mental side isn’t discussed enough in tech founder circles, yet it directly impacts decision quality and company health.

His coping strategies:

  • Maintain a circle of other founders who understand the stakes.

  • Have a co-founder who shares the emotional burden.

  • Avoid constant comparison—your journey is your own.

Positioning Takeaways for Tech Founders

From V7’s story, here are key positioning, marketing, and sales lessons tech leaders can use:

  1. Filter Ideas Fast – Adopt a 72-hour excitement test to kill distractions before they burn resources.

  2. Choose Buyers You Respect – Relationships drive endurance through long sales cycles.

  3. Validate Through Experts – Get out of your comfort zone and talk to industry insiders early.

  4. Consider the Upstream Play – Sometimes the infrastructure position beats the end-product fight.

  5. Hire Early, Hire Exceptional – The right early hires multiply your reach and accelerate growth.

  6. Protect Founder Energy – Build mental resilience systems as deliberately as your tech stack.

Alberto Rizzoli’s V7 may be in hypergrowth today, but its path there was anything but linear. For founders navigating the chaos between an exciting tech breakthrough and a scalable, market-fit business, his experience offers a rare, inside look at how to choose, focus, and win in the markets that matter.