3 AI app ideas that are goldmines (and how to grow them)

In this episode, I am joined by Dan Shipper, co-Founder and CEO of Every, as we explore a wide range of AI startup ideas and business opportunities Timestamps: 00:00 - Intro 01:12 - Startup Idea 1: Advanced Voice Notes 08:59 - Startup Idea 2: N of 1: Personalized Data Science Marketplace 16:12 - Startup Idea 3: Great Books Reimagined 28:28 - Trend to Watch: Voice-First Products 34:33 - Distribution Strategy for AI Apps 1) Advanced Voice Notes Imagine voice notes you can actually talk to! - Record your thoughts while walking • AI creates smart summaries • Team members can "interview" the recording • Get deeper context without endless follow-up questions The future of media might be media you can talk to. 2) N of 1: Personalized Data Science Marketplace Remember Netflix's $1M algorithm challenge? Now ANYONE can be a data scientist with GPT-4. - Post personal/business datasets • Set bounties for predictions • Perfect for health tracking • New way to do personalized science Market size: Think Kaggle but for everyone. 3) Great Books Reimagined Classic literature is valuable but hard to digest. The opportunity: • AI-powered modern translations • Format classics for specific audiences • Create multimedia versions • Add interactive elements Two markets: - Students (massive TAM) - Business intellectuals (high willingness to pay) 4) The Luxury AI Paradox Key insight: As AI makes things cheaper, human-made becomes luxury. Examples: • Broadway shows • Handmade clothing • Mechanical watches Opportunity: Look for what AI is making cheap, then create premium human-made alternatives. 5) Voice-First Products Huge trend: Kids growing up with voice interfaces (Apple Watch + Siri) Opportunities: • Voice-first travel booking • Conversational commerce • Voice-native discovery engines TAM: Could capture 1-5% of existing markets just by being voice-first. 6) Distribution Strategy for AI Apps Dan's approach: • Build media presence first • Target like-minded audience • Use early adopters for feedback • Start with YouTube → funnel to email • Product-led growth after initial traction Want more free ideas? I collect the best ideas from the pod and give them to you for free in a database. Most of them cost $0 to start (my fav) Get access: https://www.gregisenberg.com/30startupideas LCA helps Fortune 500s and fast-growing startups build their future - from Warner Music to Fortnite to Dropbox. We turn 'what if' into reality with AI, apps, and next-gen products https://latecheckout.agency/ BoringAds — ads agency that will build you profitable ad campaigns http://boringads.com/ BoringMarketing — SEO agency and tools to get your organic customers http://boringmarketing.com/ Startup Empire - a membership for builders who want to build cash-flowing businesses https://www.startupempire.co FIND ME ON SOCIAL X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenberg Instagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisenberg/ FIND DAN ON SOCIAL X/Twitter: https://x.com/danshipper LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danshipper/ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@EveryInc/videos Every: https://every.to Spiral: https://spiral.computer/ Sparkle: https://makeitsparkle.co

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Greg Isenberg?

  This episode is with Dan Shipper, who's incubating a bunch of AI startup ideas. And he gives a few away for free to us. He also showed me a really cool tool about data sets and how you can build startup ideas around it. I can't stop thinking about that part. Enjoy the episode. I know you're going to come up with a bunch of startup ideas just from listening.

• 0:46Greg Isenberg?

  We got Dan Shipper. He's incubating some of the most interesting AI startups right now. And he's doing it in a really interesting way. So I brought him here so that he could, he can share some of his startup ideas with everyone listening. Cause no one likes to be greedy with their startup ideas. We don't like that. So welcome.

• 1:07Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me. I'm really excited.

• 1:08Greg Isenberg?

  All right, shall we dig in?

• 1:10Speaker 01

  Let's do it. So the, the, the first idea is advanced voice notes. So ideally, I assume you're, you're aware of advanced voice mode from chat GPT. Really, really cool way to like chat back and forth with, with AI. And what I, what I notice when I'm using that is I'll often like go take a walk and I'll like, think about an issue, like, let's say it's a business issue or a strategy issue. And I'm like, having it help me like think through all the different ways I could address it and whatever. And it's really good at like helping me come to like a conclusion. And what I really want is then like, there are people I work with, like Brandon, who runs our studio, or Kate, who's our editor in chief. There are people who I want to like send that to.

• 1:54Speaker 01

  And I want them to like, get a little bit of the summary, like the high level. This is what, this is what Dan thinks about this. But I know they're going to follow up with like a bunch of questions. And what I want is for them to get a like text summary of it. And then be able to talk to the transcript of our conversation. To like, get like, maybe the, the summary is just sort of the tip of the iceberg, but like, get all the reasoning behind what I'm, what I'm, you know, why, why I decided, why I decided, or why I'm thinking, the way I'm thinking. And I think A, that'll just like, help me like, avoid like answering lots and lots and lots of questions.

• 2:34Speaker 01

  But B, it just gives everyone else like, much richer, access to much richer context. And it's sort of, it's basically like a voice note, but like, it's a voice note that you can like, talk to and have a conversation with.

• 2:45Greg Isenberg?

  That's like, just an interesting idea, which is like, if you think about media, like what, where, you know, is the future of media, media that you talk to it? Like what are, what's dumb media? And how do you make, you know, is that, is that like a theme that you, you're thinking a lot about?

• 3:01Speaker 01

  We're, we are actually. So one of the internal incubations we have is, and I think we'll probably release it, I don't know, like in the next week or two, so it might be before this podcast is out. But it's called TLDR. And what it does is it takes all of the meetings that we have, and then turns them into podcasts that are kind of like the Notebook LM podcast. So for me, like if I miss a meeting and we're out of scale now where I can't go to all the meetings, like while I'm listening, while I'm like, while I'm doing dishes, I can like, listen to a podcast that like, gives me all the key takeaways of the meeting in like, three minutes. And I think that's really cool. And like to, to sort of add on to that, one of the things we've, we've prototyped is

• 3:45Speaker 01

  the same interaction of like, you're listening to a podcast, the host is like, saying something. And then you can interrupt it and be like, wait, I didn't get that. And then it will just respond, like have a conversation with you. And it's sort of like, you know, you know that, like, you know, that meme of like, someone who's like talking to the, a wall and like, it's a print, like printout of like, their friends on the wall and they're like, this is, that's, that's what podcasting is. So it's sort of like that meme, but like, they come out of the wall and they become real people for a second. It's very cool.

• 4:17Greg Isenberg?

  I think it's human nature to want that, right? Like people listening to this podcast are probably like, whoa, wait, Dan, I want you to explain XYZ thing. So.

• 4:28Greg Isenberg?

  I think that there's probably 100 startup ideas just around that sort of concept. So, you know, people listening, one of the things I would do is just think about the media you consume. And then think about how can I turn that media into two way with AI. I would also think about how do you prioritize

• 4:50Greg Isenberg?

  the things that people are going to pay for, you know, a lot of people listening to this bootstrap founders, indie hackers.

• 4:58Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah, like

• 5:00Greg Isenberg?

  there's obviously some consumer media that they can do, but maybe they're interested in more B to B stuff, stuff that they can sell to businesses, prosumers. So with your idea, you know, that you're sort of giving, you're talking about right now, like, how do you think about monetization of it?

• 5:20Greg Isenberg?

  And how big could it be?

• 5:22Speaker 01

  That's interesting. I have to think about that. I think, I think like the, the way that I think about it is new technologies create the opportunity for new media formats. Every new technology like YouTube videos, new media format from the, just because of the internet, right? Killing Hollywood. I think the, and the, the thing that is true about this wave of AI is it's taking storytelling and it's making it way cheaper than it has ever been before. And I don't think that that replaces professional storytellers. But what it does is it allows you to tell stories in places that was way too expensive previously. So like, for example, I would never hire a really good storyteller to like go summarize our meetings for me.

• 6:08Speaker 01

  But I'll have the AI do it because it doesn't cost me any money. And so looking for places where

• 6:15Speaker 01

  there are stories to tell that were previously too expensive is like the, I think that's the total adjustable market of this sort of idea. And then in terms of charging for it, we've been, we've been thinking about this because like, like our strategy is like, everything we incubate, we bundle it into the every subscription. And but we've been thinking to ourselves like, okay, for something like this, like, would people pay more for it? And if so, like, how do we charge for it?

• 6:42Greg Isenberg?

  Quick ad break. Let me tell you about a business I invested in. It's called boringmarketing.com. So a few years ago, I met this group of people that were some of the best SEO experts in the world. They were behind getting some of the biggest companies found on Google. And the secret sauce is they've got a set of technology and AI that could help you outrank your competition. So for my own businesses, I wanted that. I didn't want to have to rely on Mark Zuckerberg. I didn't want to depend on ads to drive customers to my businesses. I wanted to rank high in Google. That's why I like SEO, and that's why I use boringmarketing.com. And that's why I invested in it. They're so confident in their approach that they

• 7:26Greg Isenberg?

  offer a 30 day sprint with 100% money back guarantee. Who does that nowadays? So check it out. Highly recommend boringmarketing.com.

• 7:35Speaker 01

  I think like the thing that, that, that I think would, would sort of work for, I mean, for the pot, for the podcast idea, maybe for the voice mode idea or voice note idea is like on number of downloads or plays or listens. Cause like, that's the, that's the amount of value that's being gotten out of this thing. And, and so, and it scales nicely with the scale of the organization. So I think that's a cool way to do it, but I don't know.

• 8:01Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah. I mean, I think people are tired of subscriptions, you know, you know what I mean? Like, I don't know about you. I see like a 999 subscription and I'm like, or even if it's like, yeah, $10, $5, $3, I'm kind of just like, ah, I know I'm going to forget to cancel this. Yeah. You know what I mean? So I think we're all kind of collectively got to this point where we're, we're, we're getting sick of it. So I do love, and you know, this, I do love kind of more novel ways of monetizing.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. I think, and I think that's a new sort of trend in the AI pricing realm is not charging. Per month, but charging like per successfully completed task or something like that.

• 8:44Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah.

• 8:45Speaker 01

  And I think, I think that's going to work really well.

• 8:47Greg Isenberg?

  Cool. I mean, it's an interesting, this isn't, you know, this is an interesting prompt, I would say.

• 8:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:53Greg Isenberg?

  This idea, I'm curious what people like in the comment section come up with. So drop it in. What's your, what's your next idea?

• 9:02Speaker 01

  My next idea is called N of one. The, the basic gist is, is, you know, are you familiar with Kaggle?

• 9:13Greg Isenberg?

  No.

• 9:14Speaker 01

  So Kaggle is this like, um, uh, it's this, uh, basically like market for data scientists where you can post a data set and a bounty, and then have data scientists like fulfill the bounty and like sort of win the prize with your data set. So like, an example is like the, you know, like the Netflix, um, the Netflix challenge where they were like, we'll give a million dollars to anyone who can like improve our, our recommendation algorithm.

• 9:41Greg Isenberg?

  Of course, that was OG. Yes, I remember, I remember that.

• 9:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. So that's really cool. Well, I think the really interesting thing now is A, there's way more interesting data sets that are like all personal ones. And B, everyone's a data scientist because like everyone, anyone can just like prompt tune like GPT four to like find some, like do something interesting with the data set. So it's a platform to post your own data sets, uh, whether that's like a personal one or a business one and then, uh, and post bounties for anyone to make predictions that are useful for you about the data set. So the place that it came from is for me, I have OCD. Um, and what I think is really interesting is I think we're getting to a place where if I,

• 10:25Speaker 01

  take whoop data and probably some amount of like voice and face facial movement data.

• 10:33Speaker 01

  I'm pretty sure, and I've been working on this, but I'm pretty sure I can get, um, I can get it to label whether or not I'm having symptoms and then at any, on any given day. And if it can accurately label that, my next question is like, can something predict when I'm going to be symptomatic or not?

• 10:53Speaker 01

  And so what I'm going to do is, or what I want to do is basically like post a big data set of, you know, all of like, all of my biometrics and whether or not I was having OCD on that particular day. And, uh, and then post a bounty and have, you know, it's like 10, 10 K for anyone who can predict my OCD.

• 11:15Speaker 01

  And, um, and then I think if that works, and I think it will, then I can get people like you or like anyone else who has like an interesting problem like that to like post their own bounties and share it with their audience and like sort of start to bootstrap a little bit of like a market there. And the reason I think it's interesting is, uh, one OCD sucks and be really fun if someone could predict it for me. But two is, um, it's a new way of doing science, actually. Because the, the way that like science proceeds right now is like, you're trying to find like underlying, underlying explanations for things by like doing high end studies on like lots

• 11:57Speaker 01

  and lots and lots of people and like doing like a linear regression to like, understand like how, like how things work at a group level. And I think instead what we should be doing is, um, uh, making predictive models for individuals for N of one, um, that just like solve the problem and just help us like basically predict the problem and, and worry about the generalized scientific explanation later. And I think this, this is like a platform to do that.

• 12:24Greg Isenberg?

  All right, let's get into this. First of all, I, I just pulled up, uh, Kaggle. I realize I've actually been on this website. This is a gift because there's probably, there's probably tons of startup ideas that you can come up with just by hanging out on Kaggle, right?

• 12:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

• 12:45Greg Isenberg?

  Like just pulling it up right now, like looking at the different data sets. It says 406,000 high quality public data sets, everything from avocado prices to video game sales. And then you can, there's all these like ready to deploy ML models on top of it. It just feels like this is a goldmine for coming up with startup ideas.

• 13:10Speaker 01

  It definitely is. And I think the, the, the important thing is that Kaggle was built for a time when the people who could do this stuff were people who like had, had like PhDs in data science.

• 13:23Greg Isenberg?

  Yep.

• 13:24Speaker 01

  And it's like totally changed now where like anyone can enter one of these competitions and like do better than a PhD could five years ago, just with GPT four probably. And so I think that opens up a ton of opportunities.

• 13:39Greg Isenberg?

  I'm looking at, check this out. I'm gonna share my screen real quick. We're gonna, we're derailing a bit. Need to show what's happening here. There's literally a data set called open source data for Hacker Noon's Startup of the Year votes, over 623,000 total votes, 30,000 startups, 4,000 cities. Think about what you can do with that data if you're trying to come up with startup ideas, trying to sell to startups, right?

• 14:07Speaker 01

  Totally. Um, yeah, I guess, yeah, what, what would you do with it?

• 14:14Greg Isenberg?

  I would be interested in,

• 14:18Greg Isenberg?

  well, I think, I think people who are building startups, like probably people listening to this show would be interested to know like what,

• 14:27Greg Isenberg?

  what, what is this community? You know, what are people in, like I call it Sydney, Australia? What, what do they find interesting from a startup perspective? And then contrast that from Austin, Texas and be like, maybe there's some interesting startups coming out of Sydney.

• 14:45Greg Isenberg?

  And in Austin, everyone's building AI startups, but in Sydney, they're building marketplaces. And there's actually like a lot of opportunity to build some marketplace idea for, for Austin. That's, that's just like one example.

• 14:58Speaker 01

  Or maybe there's like a, like some sort of like real estate or community building play for a city that has a surprisingly high density of a certain kind of company.

• 15:08Greg Isenberg?

  Right. Yes.

• 15:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:11Greg Isenberg?

  Yes. Um, so.

• 15:16Greg Isenberg?

  I love, I think people should just go on Kaggle and just look at some of their data sets and just ask themselves, okay, here's a random data set. What are some startup ideas? I can come with it. And I think the easiest startup ideas with some of these data sets is database as a service. So I've seen that trend pop up more and more, DAS, database as a service, which basically, what does that mean? It's a fancy way of saying, you're taking some data, you're curating the data, you're putting a paywall against it, you're putting a Stripe link and you're selling it, often to, to social audiences. So either

• 15:57Greg Isenberg?

  organic, you're building Twitter account, TikTok, you're paying creators to post about it, or you're throwing some paid ads behind it.

• 16:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, I like that.

• 16:11Greg Isenberg?

  Cool. You got, you got, you got more ideas?

• 16:17Speaker 01

  I got plenty of ideas. Let's keep going. One, one, like, one idea that's sort of like on this, like, new media format train is, there are, I think there's this, like, social aspiration around the great books. It's like Marcus Aurelius, or like Plato, or like Moby Dick, or whatever. It's like, books that form the, like, Western canon. People feel like they should have read them, but like, they're kind of a drag to read in a lot of cases. And, and I also think they're actually, like, really useful. Like, they're really, they're really great if you actually can get into them. But like, you have to

• 17:00Speaker 01

  kind of be in like, an English class or something to like, really get something out of it. And even then, a lot of English classes are like, not that great. And what's really interesting about AI is it can make those, those stories available in new formats and in new translations that are like tailored for specific types of people or specific situations. So a really, like, easy example is, you know, if you try to read Plato, like, most of the Most of the Play-Doh translations are like really trying to like get the historical, like what would be like the right word, like, like the historical context, right? And they're not really like trying to make it like engaging and interesting for a specific,

• 17:45Speaker 01

  you know, for like someone who's in their 30s, speaks English, like is into tech, right? Like they're just, that's just not on their mind. And I think you can basically create new versions of great books that are like translated specifically for particular types of people are super easy to read, are super engaging. And you can even do it in like a multimodal type way where you do like, you can have a Play-Doh movie where you watch a like a platonic dialogue and it's like, it's probably mostly AI generated, but like probably you need like an editor to like put it together. But I think you can like create a new great books library where you can consume these

• 18:29Speaker 01

  out of copyright books in really digestible translations in audio and video formats. And even maybe like you can add some, you know, advanced voice mode interactivity type stuff. And I think one, there's tons and tons and tons and tons of students that like need to like read this for school. And there are all these like sites like CliffsNotes or whatever, or SparkNotes that like are just so last generation. And I think that market is like very capturable. And then two, I just think that there's like a lot of people who are kind of in the like business, like intellectual space that I would, I would probably like put myself in

• 19:09Speaker 01

  the stuff that we make every in that, in that place, who aspire to like be familiar with that canon, who would like pay for this.

• 19:19Greg Isenberg?

  So, okay, question, question before I get into this.

• 19:24Greg Isenberg?

  Would you sell, like sell these books? Like, how do you monetize it?

• 19:29Speaker 01

  I would, I would probably sell either like one-off access or a subscription. And/or I would create a like beautiful, physical version. This is more, less for the students and more for the like business thing. I would create like a really beautiful, physical version that I would charge a lot for. And then have a companion like digital version that like can help you kind of like get into it. And like, you know, gives you commentary or, or, you know, you can listen to it or you can watch it or whatever as like a, um, yeah, a digital component that makes it easier to consume.

• 20:09Speaker 01

  But I think, I think books, I think like books started out as luxury goods. And then because of the printing press, they became like, there is this push to make them cheaper because you needed ways to get more information into people's hands. And they're no longer necessary as, um, as cheap forms of like information dispersal because we have the internet. And I think that they need to go back to being really well, beautiful, well-made, beautiful, like luxury goods and that you charge a lot for. And I think that's, I mean, that's a slightly different idea, but it's like, I think that's a great business.

• 20:46Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah, I mean, it's a great business because it's repeatable. It's a good customer base that you can chart, you know, you, the lifetime value is high.

• 20:59Greg Isenberg?

  Shh, don't tell anyone, but I've got 30 plus startup ideas that could make you millions. And I'm giving them away for free. These aren't just random guesses. They're validated concepts from entrepreneurs who've built $100 million plus businesses. I've compiled them into a one simple database compiled from hundreds of conversations I've had on my podcast. But the main thing is, most of these ideas don't need a single investor. Some cost nothing to start. I'm pretty much handing you a cheat sheet. The idea bank is your startup shortcut.

• 21:42Greg Isenberg?

  Just click below to get access. Your next cash flowing business is waiting for you. It could be a business of one realistically, maybe with some contractors. Spark notes and Cliff Notes, I was just perplexing them to see like what their revenue is. It's private, they don't say what it is, but both, I think they sold, I think I was saying that one of them got acquired by, Cliff Notes got acquired by IDG Books for $14.2 million in 1998. So you've got to think that these businesses are, I mean, 1998 was like hundreds of years ago.

• 22:25Speaker 01

  That's a lot of money.

• 22:27Greg Isenberg?

  And $20, $24. Yeah, exactly. So you've got to think that, you know, these businesses are making millions of dollars a year. So I, you know, I tend to think that the more interesting idea is like the luxury piece of it.

• 22:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:45Greg Isenberg?

  And the prompt being like, what's something that's not luxury today, it could be luxury, is really interesting. And then if you can use AI to go and create that thing, then you're looking, you're looking good.

• 22:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, and I think the, the, the place to look or the way to ask that question is, I think there's, there's an interesting effect where as technology makes things cheaper, the things that they end up making really cheap, end up becoming luxury status goods. So like, an example would be like Broadway, right? Like plays where like the, and musicals and stuff are like the way that people would like see live, see entertainment in a lot of ways. They were, they were very cheap a long time ago. Everyone would go. And now it's like, because we have TVs and phones and whatever, like you go to Broadway and

• 23:43Speaker 01

  it's like a special, special, special night out. That's very expensive. So it doesn't go away. It just gets less popular and becomes more of a, more of a luxury good. And I think, I think that trend will continue with AI stuff. So I'd look at what is AI making cheaper and then look at what like that thing will become more expensive just for a smaller percent of the population.

• 24:06Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah. And it becomes more like a status symbol. It's like, oh, I'm going to Broadway. I'm going to this play, right?

• 24:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. Or I have a handmade shirt artisanal, you know, like that people, you know, this shirt is super cheap, but like people pay a lot of money for like something that's handmade.

• 24:23Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah. Also, you know, limited edition things. There's only a hundred versions of that T-shirt. So if you're listening to this, like this, we gave you, we gave you a goldmine before, but this is a goldmine because I think like luxury, limited edition, AI-generated stuff, you know, it's, it's in our nature to always to, to think about, let's build things for the masses. It's like, you know, I'm wearing a Kirkland T-shirt under here, you know, the epitome of, you know, to the masses. And I love it, but you know, I don't

• 25:03Greg Isenberg?

  feel special when I wear it. You know what I mean? So feeling special, status, luxury, lot of opportunity.

• 25:12Speaker 01

  I would, I would revise that slightly, which is like, I, I think all that is true, except I think in this specific space, you need to like key on like human made and handmade rather than AI made. And that's the thing that, that gives it status. Like a good example is like, I like this watch, right? Like this watch isn't that expensive, but like watches are get really fucking expensive. And this is like more expensive probably than it should be. And it's because it's like a handmade thing.

• 25:41Greg Isenberg?

  What is that? What kind of watch is it?

• 25:42Speaker 01

  Oh, it's a, it's a Zen. This is, this is like, this is not like Super Bowl or anything like that, but it's a.

• 25:47Greg Isenberg?

  I think it was, I think it's a Zen.

• 25:50Speaker 01

  It is a Zen, but it's not a Zen, like not, not what you're thinking. S I N N. It's a German, it's a German brand.

• 25:57Greg Isenberg?

  Got it.

• 26:00Greg Isenberg?

  I have to say, cause someone else is, you know, gonna be like, you let him say Zen, but you didn't question him on it, you know?

• 26:09Speaker 01

  The the watch nerds will know what I'm talking about.

• 26:12Greg Isenberg?

  Got it.

• 26:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. So but like, you know, I could tell the time for a lot cheaper than this. Or like, it's on my, it's on my phone, you know, like, I don't need to have this. I just think it's cool. And that's because it's like, it's it's crafted. It's like, it's a thing. It's different. It's different from like the sort of like mass produced like everyone has it thing. Yeah, there you go.

• 26:37Speaker 01

  And so I think there's always room for that. And it's it's easy to overlook it in the kind of like AI technology race, but like it it creates more opportunities for those kinds of things.

• 26:47Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah, I agree. I think.

• 26:50Greg Isenberg?

  So there's a really interesting trend that's happening right now, which is a lot of college students are anti AI. Have you been seeing this?

• 27:00Speaker 01

  No.

• 27:01Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah, really, really. It was surprising at first.

• 27:06Greg Isenberg?

  Because I was like, thinking like, oh, come on, like, early adopters, right?

• 27:10Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 27:11Greg Isenberg?

  But turns out that a lot of them, for for a variety of reasons, if you if you actually do like, do some market research, like, they're just they they tried chat GPT a year and a half ago, wasn't as good as it is now. They are are entering a job market that's highly competitive, and they're worried that the junior jobs are going to AI. So they kind of just see it as like, you know, oh, I don't like this thing because like it might, I'm competing against it. All that to say, there's a huge opportunity to build anti AI products. Just in general.

• 27:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, or like, I have this, I have this, I'm not being paid for this. I have this thing called the called the brick. Which you probably see on the Instagram ads. And I really like it. Like, it just locks me out of my phone. I tap it, it locks me out of my phone. I leave it somewhere and then I can't get in my phone.

• 28:08Speaker 01

  And I'm an investor in Light Phone. It's sort of like a, you know, weekend phone that doesn't doesn't have all the smart stuff in it. And yeah, I think I think that's a huge thing. I did not know about the anti AI thing. I thought I thought it was really big for like doing your homework. So I'm surprised to hear that.

• 28:26Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah, it is surprising.

• 28:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. What the what I've heard recently, I was at a dinner last night, and it wasn't about college students, but it was about. Kids and voice mode and that voice is becoming this like really, really natural interface for that generation of like, let's say like three to like 12 year olds. Specifically because even before chat GPT, because parents didn't want to give their kids phones for obvious reasons. And so the compromise position was an Apple Watch. And the thing that Apple Watch has is like, obviously like the screen is like, it's really hard to do anything on the screen. So kids just figured out how to like, get them like

• 29:11Speaker 01

  the absolute max out of Siri, like they're just like Siri masters. And, and, and now with advanced voice mode, like even kids who like can't really read yet, they can interact with advanced voice mode and they can just spend hours and hours and hours asking question after question after question. And advanced voice mode will like answer in a way that like an adult like will probably just get tired, you know? And so there's a lot of like, there was just a lot of conversation last night about whether we're kind of like entering a new like oral culture where you're going to do a lot more interacting with computers and everything around you in, in, in voice instead

• 29:56Speaker 01

  of in text. I think that's a really interesting thing to think about. And I think in particular, if you think about starting businesses, thinking about voice first interfaces is a really interesting place to explore. We've already kind of talked about that a little bit, but like just as a, as a broader theme, I feel like that'll be way more prevalent soon.

• 30:16Greg Isenberg?

  So, yes, I agree. And I also think that like, if all these kids grow up and they're, and they're, you know, they're used to voice, they're going to want to continue using voice. Even, you know, right? They're just going to be used to it. It's going to be natural. So, look at, I would say like, what's the opportunity, what's the startup opportunity? Looking at discovery engines, like content discovery engines, like for example, maybe that, maybe the voice first version of Expedia is a huge opportunity. I like, you know, Expedia.

• 30:55Greg Isenberg?

  Let's just check their market cap, $24 million company. And it's like, yeah, could you get 1%, 2%, 5% of Expedia just focusing on voice first and making it for voice first? Like, not crazy.

• 31:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, I wonder like what the, what the features of a particular kind of product are that make it more likely to be good, like better voice first, right? Like, for example, like I always get like annoyed at like IVRs, like those phone systems, because like they list like 15 options and then I can't remember all the options. Whereas like if I'm having a conversation with someone, I can like pretty much keep the conversation in my head. So there's something like that for like that, that kind of dynamic, like a more conversational dynamic is better for voice versus like, I don't know, like logistics or something like that, maybe is like not as good, you know, because you have to, you have to hold all the like stuff in your head. I don't know.

• 31:55Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah, it's a good, it's a good question. You know, I gotta think about it. I think

• 32:02Greg Isenberg?

  you're right, though, like voice, voice does, you know, lend itself to certain spaces better than others. I also think that one thing I was thinking about is like, how do you integrate with Siri? Like you can integrate with Siri, right?

• 32:18Speaker 01

  I don't know. I think that you can, you can like make it available as an action on Siri or something like that, but I don't really, to be honest, I don't really know.

• 32:27Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah. Well, I think what matters is as a lot of these platforms grow, Siri, Alexa, ChatGPT, a lot of them are adding voice, there's going to be ways for developers to embed themselves into that workflow. And if you could be known as the voice version of XYZ, assuming that that audience of people really want to use voice and it lends itself well to it, like there's a lot of opportunity there. And, you know, someone's going to be listening to this and they're going to say, Oh, but Expedia could add voice at any time, right? And it's like, yeah, you could have said the same thing about mobile.

• 33:12Greg Isenberg?

  You know, there was a whole generation of mobile-first companies that came out, created literally trillions of dollars of of market cap and value. And it happened because there was an opportunity from a UX perspective to create something that was just really, really dialed in for that use case and for that UX. The same is true with with voice.

• 33:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I just think that whole thing, like, there was that whole thing of, like, for the last couple of years of like, oh, yeah, every big company is just gonna like integrate AI and like, no startup is gonna be able to compete. And it's just like, pretty much, all of those integrations suck. Like, maybe, maybe a couple of them are okay, you know? But really, it's a totally new paradigm and like way of using computers. And the, like, big companies are really limited in the risk, the amount of risks that they can take to like make their actual interface good for that specific thing because they can't risk like pissing off their regular users. And that's a tremendous advantage for startups to like actually figure out what the future of this is like

• 34:25Speaker 01

  and start with the early adopters of people who really want to use it that way. And then slowly they just get into the mass market after that.

• 34:32Greg Isenberg?

  Totally. Okay, I want to end with one last thing, which I know I don't prep you with anything. So you're you're out there, you're building AI apps, you're getting traction on them. How do you think about distribution for those apps? How should people, how should someone who's building an AI app think about, you know, getting their first? Thousand, 10,000, 25,000 users.

• 35:02Speaker 01

  Uh, well, this is a, this is quite a layup because I just send it out to my newsletter.

• 35:08Speaker 01

  Basically, like, I spent five years building a media business of people that like are really, like, really engaged and hopefully like really, really love the brand and really love the, the writing and the videos and all that kind of stuff that we, that we put out. And so when we have an idea like this, um, we can just push it out to those people and we pretty much immediately get like, you know, hundreds, two thousands of people try it on the first day, um, which is really amazing. And I, I think, um, the things that I've learned about that, that have been really useful is I and everyone else at every, like, we basically write about things that we care about, um, that we genuinely like, that are about things

• 35:53Speaker 01

  that are sort of like in our lives or things that we think about. And that has attracted an audience of people who are like us and sort of have a lot of the same characteristics. And that allows us to, I think one of the interesting things about the AI wave right now is it sort of resets the playing field where there's a lot of low hanging fruit of things to build. And so it becomes, uh, that, that's a real opportunity to build things for yourself. That like was not true a couple of years ago because all the low hanging fruit had been picked and everyone had built their like, I built this for myself app. Um, and so what's been really nice for us is like, we build things for ourselves and then we have an audience of people who are like us, so they probably want it. Um, and that becomes

• 36:36Speaker 01

  the like first, you know, thousand, 5,000, 10,000 users. And then, um, obviously like that, that runs out and you have to like scale from there. But like, that's, that's how we think about it, uh, is actually distribution first and then build something second.

• 36:51Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah. And then, you know, once you have your first users, then you can do some product led growth stuff. Like, it could be like, okay, how, I've got a thousand DAUs. How do I get these people to share this? And maybe it's like incentivizing them for like a free, for, you know, free three months or six months, or maybe it, you get access to these early features to share, or maybe it's, you know, come to this event in New York for, you know, so I think, uh,

• 37:21Greg Isenberg?

  Every, which you guys, you guys cover like AI and startups, right? And stuff like that. So I think like everyone should be thinking about creating their own version of every, right? So what is the media? What is the media distribution arm for whatever it is you're creating? I actually tend to think that like, and I'm curious your thoughts on this, like, I don't know if I would, you know, in 2025, start with like essentially a blog and a newsletter as, as the way to get traffic. Like, why, why, why do you recommend starting there?

• 38:01Speaker 01

  That's a good question. I actually, I was not thinking about that from like, uh, what I would do in 2025. It's a really interesting one. Um, definitely like we got lucky because when we started every, it was like right before the big Substack wave. And so we got a lot of subscribers and like, that was the whole thing. And I do think that like email is just really powerful to have. Um, but it's much harder to grow a newsletter now than it was five years ago. I'd probably start with YouTube, actually, um, I think, and yeah, funnel people into from YouTube into a newsletter. Um, that feels like the right move. Um, and we have a YouTube channel and it's growing really fast and it's, it's

• 38:43Speaker 01

  been really great. It's like, it's definitely a little bit less effective to like get a YouTube subscriber to like, read an email, like that, that conversion is not, not nearly as good as it was like back in the day and like old Twitter, you know, the heyday of Substack. Um, but, uh, yeah, I'd probably start with YouTube.

• 39:03Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah, I'm all honestly, I'm, I gotta say I'm subscribed. I'm, I'm subscribed. No, I'm surprised that how many people subscribe to my newsletter via the YouTube description? Like I put like a little lead magnet slash Greg Eisenberg.com, which is where people sign up. And I literally get hundreds of people per day.

• 39:27Greg Isenberg?

  Coming and signing up to the newsletter from that. And the cool thing, what you can do on kit.com, formerly known as ConvertKit, is you can segment those people. So you can say, okay, here's all the people that came from YouTube. And, and you can even do it. So here's all the people, there's ways to do it. So here's all the people that came from this video. So there's really interesting ways to segment your audience so that you send out invitations to the app to the right people, right time. Cause you know, it's not just about getting users to your app. It's about getting the right users initially. Cause you like the insights, the feedback that you're going to get from them.

• 40:10Greg Isenberg?

  The fan base, the community that you're going to build like is important. And so anyways, I like, I like, I like your style, Dan. I like your style.

• 40:20Speaker 01

  Thank you. Great, great minds think alike.

• 40:24Greg Isenberg?

  Dan, thanks for coming on. Besides every, is there any, anything else you want to plug?

• 40:32Speaker 01

  Definitely. I mean, obviously subscribe to every, every to. If you're interested in some of the products we build, you should check out Spiral, which helps automate a lot of your repetitive creative work, like doing tweets and LinkedIn posts and YouTube descriptions and all that kind of stuff. That's spiral computer. And you should also check out Sparkle, which is another product that we built that automatically organizes your file system with AI for you. And that's make it sparkle.co.

• 41:01Greg Isenberg?

  Cool. And yeah, I encourage people to check it out, have fun and just see, see like how Dan's thinking about shipping these, these products, you know, and, and how he's building it. It'll give you inspiration and, and it's just cool to see. If you liked this episode, you didn't like it until you click like on YouTube, of course. That's how I know to keep making videos, keep making podcasts. I'll see you in the comment section. Dan, thanks again for coming on. I'll see you around.

• 41:34Speaker 01

  See ya.

• 41:35Greg Isenberg?

  Later.