The Case for Sustainability Metrics (or Don’t Be Kennan Frost)
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The Case for Sustainability Metrics (or Don’t Be Kennan Frost)<br>The story of the admaker startup Icon is a warning tale for prioritizing growth over sustainability.
Pawel Brodzinski<br>Jul 01, 2026
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The default startup dream is to hack an idea, get some early interest, secure funding (preferably a fat round), and grow like hell till you become a unicorn while seeing the VC money pouring in.<br>That’s the dream the VC fueled for decades. That’s also what most startup success stories are. No wonder so many founders default to such aspirations.<br>AI, if anything, made the whole cycle shorter and growth even more rapid. Last year, we were following Lovable’s race to become the fastest-growing startup ever. We’ve seen obscene seed rounds given to AI celebrities. Everything has become even more reckless.<br>The basic pattern has remained the same, though. Grow fast. Secure a ton of money. Do and say anything to make the previous two possible.
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A Warning Tale of Icon
I first became aware of Icon, the ad-making company, early in 2025. It was at the top of the wave of founders one-upping each other on who expects a longer workweek from their employees.
Kennan Frost (then using the name Kennan Davison) outbid everyone, saying that ”996 (working 12 hours, 6 days a week) results in defeat. Why do 6 when you can do 7.”<br>That couldn’t have possibly worked. TL;DR: It didn’t.<br>I could argue that the reason was the plain toxicity of the work environment Frost created. I bet it played a role. Yet the pivotal thing was the product that was all hype and little value.<br>The Rise and Fall of the Hype Cycle
It took one viral video to trigger some early traction. Once you have that, sprinkle AI all over the place, and you’re the next nugget. The hype wave lifts you instantly.<br>I have zero reasons to believe Kennan Frost’s numbers (he claimed $5M ARR in the first month; see above). Yet even if they were roughly correct, they would translate to around 400 early sign-ups. Definitely a success, but far from proof that you’d make a hundred million a year in record time.<br>Especially when you can’t deliver the value you promise. And the promise was huge. It was literally creating multiple high-quality ads from a prompt. I doubt Anthropic would have been able to deliver on that promise a year ago. Hell, I doubt they’d be able to do it today.<br>The value-promise gap will bring the hype wave down as rapidly as it rose in the first place. No amount of borrowed Peter Thiel’s authority, ego projection (I really regret that I didn’t save this creepy video with competitors bowing before Icon), retweet counts, or made-up numbers will create tens of millions of dollars in revenue.<br>And the value wasn’t there. The videos looked robotic. Copy was bland. The outcome missed the human touch. Not to mention that OpenAI shutting Sora down would likely be a grave blow, even if everything else worked fine.<br>Validation Doesn’t End with the First Hundred Customers
Once the initial “AI admaker” business turned out to be way beyond Icon’s reach, they pivoted. And the pivot is actually the most hilarious thing in this story.
Compare the pictures. Find 5 differences.<br>With their 2025 ride, Icon learned enough about their domain to change the plan and become the very thing they wanted to disrupt—a human admaker. You have to pardon me for the Star Wars reference here.
I guess the new business doesn’t require developers working around the clock, 7 days a week. It won’t make hypergrowth possible. Most of all, a $12M domain bill now looks way more than extravaganza. It looks dumb.<br>Oh, and I don’t think this pivot will survive either.<br>Sustainability Is the Game
As comical as it is to watch these overhyped startups kick the bucket, there is always a lesson to be learned. In Icon’s case, at no point in their story was there any sign of sustainability.<br>The first few hundred customers do not guarantee more will come.
The first months of subscriptions do not guarantee it will be recurring.
The first round of funding does not guarantee any further investments.
The first wave of hype/virality does not guarantee regular followers.
Yes, we see companies rise at an unprecedented pace (Lovable, anyone?). But these are outliers. And even then, I’d default to betting against them, since everything they share is about growth, not sustainability.<br>A smart startup would first track sustainability metrics:<br>Churn rate
Customer lifetime value to customer acquisition cost
Time to profit
Future plateau
Runway length
If they show red and the trend line does not show a path to green, no amount of hype and early growth will fix it.<br>And yes, I know that it’s not advice you’d hear from a VC. They care about growth dynamics, and annual recurring revenue (ARR) is their psalm. In case you asked, they also want your startup dead. Statistically speaking, that is.<br>In an early-stage startup, you can hardly...