Last week, I talked to two founders — one that spent $200k to get an MVP built in 8 months, and another that got a similarly sized MVP built for $10k in 20 days thanks to AI. Welcome to the era of centaur agencies.

Those types of dramatic efficiency gains aren't just random outliers. They're early signals of a massive shift in how products get built. And while it's true that AI is making code more accessible to everyone, this won't kill the agency model — it will reinvent it. In fact, I'm betting that by 2027, the majority of venture-backed MVPs will be built by a new breed of AI-augmented teams available for hire.

What is a Centaur Agency?

A centaur agency scales through technology, not headcount. Think of DesignJoy, where a single designer (Brett Williams) makes millions yearly by “productizing himself.” Or Marble, which is revolutionizing legal services by automating immigration and family law processes, reaching hundreds of millions in revenue in just two years.

This isn't entirely new — companies like Deel and Pilot have been productizing services previously billed hourly (HR and accounting) for years. But AI changes everything because it can now handle creative work where quality is subjective. That means centaurs can now disrupt creative industries that have been the most resistant to automation: design, content marketing, legal services, and now, product development.

Centaurs in Product Development

The more creative the work, the smaller and more specialized the centaurs. While Marble can scale quickly by automating routine legal work (immigration and family law), product development will be different – expect a sea of specialized and highly augmented teams, each compounding leverage on their unique expertise.

Why aren't these centaurs dominating the product outsourcing market yet? The simple answer is that AI coding tools are still maturing. Devin or Cursor might make good engineers 2X more productive, with rare cases hitting 10X or 100X. But watch the buzz around Replit Agent, where people are building in 15 minutes what used to take days. That’s where we're headed.

Won't this automation reduce the need for engineers? Paradoxically, no. History suggests that when resources get dramatically more efficient, demand increases. And as AI makes basic development accessible to everyone, standing out by hiring experts will be even more important.

Why MVPs will be first

Just like with Marble and DesignJoy, product development centaurs will focus first on work that is small, repeatable, and where speed and cost is paramount — areas where AI can provide a dramatically better product. I would expect the centaur wave to crash first for MVPs (minimum viable products) where teams are testing demand for a new product before investing more fully.

Of course, teams with their own engineers will use AI to build MVPs on their own, and the people at YC will rightly tell you that building something yourself is the best way to learn about it. That said, I think the pendulum will swing proportionally towards outsourcing for a two primary reasons:

The economics finally make sense. When an MVP costs $5-10k, the relative cost of training your internal team or hiring new developers becomes much harder to justify.
The market will expand dramatically. As development costs plummet, we'll see a surge of non-technical founders who previously couldn't get funding for an idea or afford to bootstrap.

Each of those points could be its own essay. Personally, I'm most excited about helping non-technical subject matter experts launch companies — I believe unlocking new areas of domain expertise is the lowest hanging fruit for accelerating innovation. And we're already seeing this transformation begin.

The Next Wave is Coming

The shift to centaur agencies in product development isn't just a prediction – we're seeing it firsthand. At Grids, we're working with agencies that are pushing the envelope with AI, and connecting them with startups ready to move fast.

Are you:

Building a centaur agency? We’d love to connect you with founders we’re actively working with.
Looking to build your MVP? We can help you get it built much more efficiently without sacrificing quality.

Reach out to me at joey@grids.co if so, or if you have thoughts on this topic I missed or got wrong!

Flying Penguins

Centaur Agencies Are Coming for Your MVP