I challenged Manus AI to find $1M+ AI Startup Ideas - It Actually Delivered

In this episode, host I test Manus AI's ability to function as an AI co-founder by asking it to develop a million-dollar business idea focused on AI. The system analyzes Y Combinator startups and Reddit trends to identify opportunities, ultimately recommending an AI-powered micro-consulting platform for small businesses. Manus delivers a comprehensive business proposal including market validation, pricing strategy, and even designs a functional landing page. Timestamps: 00:00 - Intro 01:41 - Initial Prompt: Ideas for $1M Startup in 18 Months 03:24 - Manus AI Processing Prompt 06:25 - Alternative Use Cases of Manus AI 13:14 - Results from First Prompt 15:19 - Prompt 2: Focus on Niche Startup Opportunities 17:46 - Results from Second Prompt 23:15 - Prompt 3: Validate Ideas with data and trend analysis 27:00 - Prompt 4: Refining data and trend analysis 29:0` - Prompt 5: Creating a Landing Page with Manus 34:23 - Reviewing results from Business Proposal 37:35 - Results from Fifth Prompt 39:25 - Final Thoughts on Manus AI and Startup Ideas Key Points: • I explore Manus AI's multi-agent capabilities to generate a viable startup idea that could make $1 million in 18 months • Manus AI analyzes YC's latest batch, Reddit trends, and market opportunities to identify niche AI business concepts • The AI recommends "AI-powered micro-consulting for SMBs" as the most promising opportunity • Manus creates a complete business proposal including landing page design, pricing strategy, and go-to-market plan 1) I challenged Manus AI (a multi-agent AI system) to develop a complete business plan for an AI startup that could make $1M in 18 months. The goal: See if AI can identify REAL market trends and opportunities better than humans can. 2) What makes Manus different from ChatGPT? • Multi-agent capabilities (can browse while chatting) • Can analyze multiple sources simultaneously • Performs complex research tasks independently • Creates actual code/designs, not just concepts 3) The COOLEST use cases Greg discovered while testing Manus: • Converting unstructured data into organized tables • Analyzing financial reports like a JP Morgan analyst • Contract review (saving $1500+ lawyer fees) • Creating highlight reels from podcast audio • Building websites from scratch 4) The AI identified these KEY TRENDS in the AI startup landscape: • Vertical-specific AI solutions for regulated industries • AI agents for specialized workflows • Infrastructure tools helping others deploy AI • No-code/low-code AI accessibility solutions 5) The WINNING IDEA Manus proposed: "Spark Console AI" - an AI-powered micro-consulting platform for small businesses. The problem it solves? SMBs need expert consulting but can't afford $150-500/hour traditional services. The solution? $49-500/month AI consulting agents. 6) What impressed me most: Manus VALIDATED the idea with ACTUAL DATA: • 47% growth in r/smallbusiness subscribers • Direct quotes from Reddit showing pain points: "I'd love expert advice but can't justify $200 consultants" "Generic AI tools don't understand my industry challenges" 7) Manus even built a COMPLETE landing page with: • Eye-catching design • Lead generation forms • Interactive business assessment • Pricing tiers All without Greg needing to write a single line of code! 8) The LIMITATIONS Greg found: • You still need to ask the right questions • It's more like a "junior employee" than a true co-founder • Takes 10-15 minutes for complex tasks • You need to push back on some recommendations 9) My takeaway: We're entering an era where the COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE isn't coding ability - it's knowing which QUESTIONS to ask AI. The winners will be those who can identify trends and direct AI to build solutions that ride those tailwinds. Notable Quotes: "In a world where anyone could create software... figuring out what is the brand, what is the landing page, what is the product, and what is the trend... is gonna help you actually build a business, not just build a product." - Greg 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/

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

• 0:00Greg Isenberg?

  Can Manus AI build you a million dollar business within 18 months? Let's find out. Now, I've been playing a little bit with Manus, but I wanted to just sort of get to know it more, learn more in public. So this episode is basically you coming along with me to learn if Manus could give us an idea to make us a million dollars in 18 months. And I want to lean towards an AI idea.

• 0:53Greg Isenberg?

  You know, if you've been a long listener of the pod, you know, I've built and sold three venture-backed businesses before the age of 30. I spend most of my time thinking about ideas and I want to see if Manus could actually do something worthwhile. And I'll be honest with you, if I think the idea sucks. But I think the reason I care about actually playing with this is if it could figure out what trends matter and if it could figure out what, you know, problems that we should go after, this is going to be huge. And if it can't, then it can't. I have played with Manus before and came into some challenges.

• 1:35Greg Isenberg?

  So let's see if it's changed and let's just go right, right to it. So Manus, okay, we are here. Let's give it a task. So I want to create a business that's going to make me $1 million and call it 18 months. I think that YC's latest batch, Y Combinator's latest batch is really interesting. I bet that there are other AI agent or AI startups that are more niche that could be created.

• 2:22Greg Isenberg?

  That isn't in this batch. I also love looking at Reddit to find trends for business ideas to create. I want you to act as my AI co-founder for this process. In fact, I'm actually live recording this. Actually, it's not live. I'm recording this whole process on my pod startup ideas podcast. So don't mess it up. Best case is you give me entire

• 3:04Greg Isenberg?

  plan, maybe an MVP design, a product of the business of my dreams that'll actually work. And let's just see what the hell happens next. So it says, I'll help you create a business plan that could potentially reach a million dollars in 18 months. I understand your interest in AI startups, particularly more niche opportunities than what's in the YC's latest batch. And you'd like to like me to act as your AI co-founder. Let me start working on this right away for your podcast. I'll research YC's latest batch, look for niche AI opportunity,

• 3:47Greg Isenberg?

  analyze Reddit trends and develop and develop a comprehensive business plan with MVP design. So the Reddit trends, you know, if you've listened to the to the channel before, like, I'm obsessed with looking at Reddit as a way to figure out if there's startup ideas. So I'm really curious to see if Manus has the ability to go through Reddit and just comb through and give us, you know, give us some great ideas of subreddits that could be.

• 4:19Greg Isenberg?

  That we, yeah, we can just surface some, some great ideas from subreddit. So if you're watching my screen right now, you can see that Manus is actually using a browser. And it's check, it's at ycombinator.com. It's looking at all the AI companies. It's looking at 2016, 2014. You know, so what I don't like about this is, you know, I want recent. Oh, okay. So it says it's researching YC's latest batch. So it's actually going through the website and it's looking what's new, what's old. So that's really, really cool. I was, I was thinking that it was, it was gonna just take all the old ones. But it's great that it's only looking at the new ones. So just, uh, let me make this, can I make this bigger? Oh, interesting.

• 5:01Greg Isenberg?

  So there is a button that if you wanted, you can take control of Manus. And you can actually use Manus's computer. Really cool. So what I've noticed about Manus is if you want to do a, a prompt like this, it's going to take 10 to 15 minutes. So just so you know, like, it's not gonna take a minute or 30 seconds. Like, this generally takes 10 to 15 minutes. But, you know, we'll see if it's worth it. Okay, so now it's looking at AI assisted startups funded by Y Combinator, YC 2025. Quick break in the pod to tell you a little bit about Startup Empire.

• 5:39Greg Isenberg?

  So Startup Empire is my private membership where it's a bunch of people like me, like you, who want to build out their startup ideas. Now, they're looking for content to help accelerate that. They're looking for potential co-founders. They're looking for tutorials from people like me to come in and tell them, how do you do email marketing? How do you build an audience? How do you go viral on Twitter? All these different things. That's exactly what Startup Empire is. And it's for people who want to start a startup but are looking for ideas. Or it's for people who have a startup, but just they're not seeing the traction that they need.

• 6:19Greg Isenberg?

  So you can check out the link to startupempire.co in the description. Okay, so while it's browsing and figuring that stuff out, I want to show you a few use cases of Manus. And, and it'll just get your creative juices flowing. So when I log into Manus, I noticed that they included basically these use cases of how to use Manus.

• 6:48Greg Isenberg?

  So for example, oh, list of YC companies. Let's check this out. So if you're looking, if you're looking at my screen, basically, it's, it's showing a prior prompt. So this is 18 days ago. Visit the official YC website and compile all enterprise information under the W25, winter 2025, B2B tag into a clear, well-structured table. Be sure to find all of it. So what it, what it is doing is it's, you know, it's basically taking all this unstructured data, making it structured. And this is super helpful information because like, let's say you want to reach out and do cold DMs, for example, or honestly, this would have been useful to, to actually use this.

• 7:33Greg Isenberg?

  You can download this as a PDF and actually upload it to, to our prompt around. And we might, we, you know, we might end up using this. We might want to actually use this in the end. But basically like using this and uploading it to our, you know, million dollar, 18 month idea. So really cool that you can take unstructured data and make it structured data. Let's see a few other use cases of Manus while we're, while we're waiting for our business plan to finish.

• 8:04Greg Isenberg?

  See if anything, I know a trip to Japan, like, you know, chat, TBT could do that. I'm looking for really, really interesting stuff. Nvidia earnings report analysis, like using Manus as a financial analyst. That's pretty interesting because like that will help people make money. So what is it's doing? So you upload four financial annual reports to Manus, and it's analyzing it. It's examining the revenue composition for each year and creating a comprehensive table as well as analyzing the changes in Nvidia's cost structure. Cool. So it's analyzing here. This is something that an analyst would do, right?

• 8:48Greg Isenberg?

  Like, um, at a big bank.

• 8:53Greg Isenberg?

  You know, at JP Morgan, you're paying people hundreds of thousands of dollars to do this. And look, you know, look what's happening. This is crazy. Okay, so it's showing the revenue by reportable segments. It in a pretty like clean table. And then it does an analysis on it, right? So the compute and networking has has grown, has shown extraordinary growth. 215% increase graphics, data center, gaming. It goes into each category. And I guess, how can you use this to make a trading decisions?

• 9:31Greg Isenberg?

  Well, you, you can then prompt it and be like, um, you know, historically speaking, you know, is this stock expensive or cheap? So I think that's an interesting use case for sure. Let's do two more use cases before we check out what's happening with our business idea. Contract review is an interesting one. I'm like afraid to send things to my lawyer because I'm like, every time I send him something, I get a bill for like $1,500. So, um, of course, you're not supposed to make Manus or ChatGPT your lawyer. But let's be real, a lot of us are already doing that.

• 10:13Greg Isenberg?

  So you upload a contract example, please review this contract or you upload a contract. Please review this contract thoroughly, identify all errors and provide both the revision history and corrected version. Wow, so you can actually do an analysis of any error. So, you know, what it says here, Manus says, after reviewing the sales and purchase agreement between Tech Vision Dynamics and Midwest Industrial, I've identified several errors and inconsistencies. And it's just, what are you noticing about Manus is it feels like just a little more horsepower than ChatGPT, a little more horsepower than perplexity, a little more horsepower than Claude. So, um, it's because of this like multi-agent browsing.

• 11:04Greg Isenberg?

  Sort of capabilities, I think. I mean, again, I'm going through this for the first time with you all and learning. It just feels like that's the case. I also really like that it has like, here's all the documents for review. Like, it feels like I'm actually working with an AI coworker. Okay, should we do one more? Let's do one more. Okay. So this prompt is, please convert my API input and output Excel file to a Word doc API documentation.

• 11:42Greg Isenberg?

  So basically, crazy that you can use Vannus on a conversion basis. So basically, I mean, not the most sexy prompt, but the fact that you can actually use it for conversion, that's pretty damn cool. Okay, we're gonna do one more, because that one was just boring, but is, you know, boring but useful. Let's do one more. We'll put in the WTF podcast editing. Ooh, let's do two more from WTF, and then we'll go back to the business. Please cut the podcast audio into a two-minute highlight reel of key quotes. Select sentences with clear viewpoints of interesting content, ensuring smooth transition.

• 12:27Greg Isenberg?

  So basically, you can up, this is crazy. You can upload a WAV file, and it's gonna create a two-minute highlight reel from it. So it's analyzing the audio to identify key quotes, clear viewpoints, and interesting content, then extracting complete sentences that flow well together. Like, let me get started on this right away. Whoa, this is, this is, this is wild. This is, you know, I gotta take a sip of this, this non-alcoholic beer.

• 12:54Greg Isenberg?

  Okay, so it's basically showing you the quotes and all the different timestamps.

• 13:00Greg Isenberg?

  And you know, the most interesting stuff. So I think that's really cool. And then at the bottom, you have, you know, the, the, the actual audio file and the transcript for you. So that's really cool. All right. Now, no more waiting. Let's go check and see how our, how our business is doing. Were they able to find trends? Okay, here's where we're at. So interesting patterns I've observed. Many YC startups are focusing on vertical specific AI solutions and legal healthcare, finance and retail. This is music to my ears. Why? Because I wanted to, I know, I know this, I know this, but you know, I wanted it to tell me this. I wanted it to pick up that pattern. And I find that in a lot of

• 13:46Greg Isenberg?

  the other AI products, I haven't, I haven't gotten that from them. AI agents and automations are amazing, a major trend with companies building specialized assistance for specific workflows. Significant investment in AI infrastructure and tools help others deploy AI. General AI applications are being applied to video production, app development and document processing. Several startups are focusing on making AI accessible through no code and low code solutions. I'm now, I'm moving on to analyze the broader AI startup landscape beyond YC's portfolio. Would you like me to focus on any particular aspect of the AI landscape as I continue my research? So I didn't say yes. So let's just see what happened. So two minutes ago,

• 14:32Greg Isenberg?

  Manus has completed the analysis of, you know, the broader analysis. They've got some key findings. Number one, vertical specific AI solutions. Number two, agents and automation. Okay. So, okay, so I've identified several promising market opportunities. AI solutions tailored for industries with limited AI penetration. Okay, this is interesting. Making powerful AI tools accessible for small, medium-sized businesses. Services that help AI integrate into their workflow. So, these are good. These are really good. I've, I've seen portions of that, this on other AI, unlike the chat GPTs of the world.

• 15:13Greg Isenberg?

  So, I really, I really want to see if they're, you know, if they can go deeper here.

• 15:20Greg Isenberg?

  So, right now, it's, I'm, I'm now moving on to specify niche AI opportunities not currently covered by YC startups, which will help us pinpoint potential gaps in the market for our business concept. After that, I'll research Reddit trends, thank God, excited about that, to identify emerging consumer needs and pain points. Would you like me to focus on any particular aspect of these as I continue my research? So, I'm gonna say Manus, you don't need to just do consumer. It could be B2B too. When you're on Reddit, I want you to focus on trends and pain points that exist within subreddits.

• 16:06Greg Isenberg?

  The best businesses do well because of the

• 16:15Greg Isenberg?

  tailwinds of a trend. So, I'm particularly interested in building businesses

• 16:25Greg Isenberg?

  based on trends.

• 16:29Greg Isenberg?

  So, the other cool thing about Manus is when you, when you use something like ChatGPT

• 16:36Greg Isenberg?

  or Claude, when you

• 16:39Greg Isenberg?

  When you type it, you had the LLM is thinking. And if you wanna just, you know, say like, say something else, you have to stop the prompt. But what's really cool about Manus is you can, it's multi-agent, right? So it's doing its things and it's able to listen to you and multitask, basically. Okay, so Manus says, I understand completely. We're gonna focus on B2B and B2C. And it's starting to research now to identify trending topics, recurring pain points, and emerging needs across various communities. Now, one thing I've noticed is you do, you do have to tell Manus this stuff, right?

• 17:24Greg Isenberg?

  So I know just, I know that Reddit is a good source of this, of this information. I know that the alpha exists within Reddit. A lot of people don't know that. So I will say that you can't rely on Manus to basically say, hey, build me a million-dollar business and just like say, go wild. You do have to do the right prompts here. Okay, so I'm looking at a document that Manus has created. Niche AI Opportunities Analysis 2025. So it says, here's some key niche opportunities. So AI co-founder for specialized industries. Why it's a niche opportunity. While general AI, you know, assistance exists, there's a gap for deeply specialized AI partners. So that's really cool.

• 18:09Greg Isenberg?

  Current YC startups focus on general assistance or narrow task automation on comprehensive business partnerships. Okay, and then it tells you an implementation approach. Start with specific vertical, train on specific data, provide comprehensive support across marketing, $50 to $100 for basic features. Okay. I mean, these are, these are interesting ideas. Silent refactoring as a service for legacy systems. Too technical for me. Too technical. Number three, let's see.

• 18:45Greg Isenberg?

  This is interesting. So personalized information chains for professionals in highly regulated industries, using AI to curate, summarize, and deliver relevant content about regulatory change and compliance requirements. This is like a really good, this is a really good idea. So you basically focus on professionals in regulated industries, healthcare for information overload.

• 19:10Greg Isenberg?

  And you just create a media company around it. This is, yeah, this is, this is good.

• 19:21Greg Isenberg?

  That's a really good one. I like this, I like that one because like the why, you know, when you're building a business, you have to ask yourself, why now? Why should this business, you know, exist now? And the why now is a lot of these, well, it's actually a few reasons. One is you don't want to open up like a magazine or a journal. If you're in a regulated industry, like you want an email or text about things, you know, things that you should know about.

• 19:54Greg Isenberg?

  And so there's that, like changing of how people consume media. These, these industries are getting more and more complex. And the why now, most important why now is the AI allows you to, you know, to track everything, right? So you can do this, what used to cost a lot of money to go and, you know, hire a team, specialized team who understands all these regulatory changes. Now you can just use something like Manus to actually go and figure all these stuff, this stuff out.

• 20:29Greg Isenberg?

  So that's like my, that's my favorite idea.

• 20:34Greg Isenberg?

  From this, it's cool. It does, it does do an evaluation of opportunities against the YC portfolio. I think that's really interesting.

• 20:43Greg Isenberg?

  And then it gives you a recommendation for the highest potential opportunity. And it says, "The AI-powered micro consulting for SMB is the most promised, promising." So I didn't even go through that one, but it says it addresses a clear market need, has a straightforward path to monetization.

• 21:02Greg Isenberg?

  I actually think the most interesting one is...

• 21:07Greg Isenberg?

  Niche specific AI information aggregation for regulated industries.

• 21:14Greg Isenberg?

  So

• 21:17Greg Isenberg?

  me and Manus,

• 21:20Greg Isenberg?

  we're, you know, we don't agree all the time, but I'm happy it gave me multiple ideas. Now, let's see where we're at with the Reddit analysis. I've completed my analysis of Reddit channels for potential business ideas. Okay, cool. Key insights. So it gave, it gave five key insights.

• 21:40Greg Isenberg?

  And then it says, the most promising opportunity that continues to emerge from our research is AI powered micro consulting for SMBs. An AI solution that provides expert level consulting for small to medium sized businesses at a fraction of traditional costs. Addresses a clear market need across multiple Reddit discussions, has a clear, clear path to monetization, leverage existing AI technology and offers natural expansion opportunities across business functions and industries. Rides the tailwind of increasing AI adoption by small business. I mean, this is obviously not a bad idea. It's, it's a good idea and the truth is it's, it's the easiest to get going. Right? Like in that sense, you know, small to medium sized businesses want to understand what is

• 22:24Greg Isenberg?

  happening with, you know, AI technologies specific to their industries.

• 22:33Greg Isenberg?

  And if you can help them figure that out,

• 22:36Greg Isenberg?

  you know, you do a pretty, you would do pretty well. Okay, so it gives us a text file, which we can check out.

• 22:48Greg Isenberg?

  And this is the text file of the trends, the pain points and business opportunities. So you can see AI automation for small businesses. So it's giving all the trends, it's giving the pain points, it's giving the opportunities. This is interesting, but I think that what I would do if I were you, or me honestly, is I would, I would try to figure out, okay, like, I believe you, Manus, but what makes you say, and maybe we should ask it, like, what makes you say that this is a key trend?

• 23:27Greg Isenberg?

  So I'm gonna ask it. So Manus, I believe you with what you're saying with these key Reddit trends.

• 23:42Greg Isenberg?

  But I need to know if these trends are supported by data, keyword,

• 23:54Greg Isenberg?

  you know, or I'll say like Google trend like data, or, you know, subreddit growth data. What sort of data can you give me to make sure this is legit? I mean, I'm asking the tough questions here, you know, I think when I read this, like, it makes a lot of sense.

• 24:24Greg Isenberg?

  But I need to know, I think one of the reasons why I like some other tools like Google Trends is, I mean, when I go on Google Trends, or Ahrefs, or whatever, or Gummy Search, or any of these tools,

• 24:39Greg Isenberg?

  I could see some data to support some of these trends. So, you know, it's abstracting, what Manus is doing is abstracting away the data for me. I like to see the data. I don't know about you, I like to see the data.

• 24:53Greg Isenberg?

  So if this can figure out, you know, with some Google Trends data, and subreddit growth data, and just metrics, I would be, like, this would be a goldmine.

• 25:11Greg Isenberg?

  And while that's figuring that out, three minutes ago, Manus says, "I've developed a comprehensive business concept for smart console AI, an AI-powered micro consulting platform for SMBs that can do a million in revenue within 18 months. It addresses a clear market gap, small business need expert consulting, but can't afford traditional services that cost $150 to $500 an hour. AI-powered consulting agents specialize in key business functions at a fraction of the cost, $49 to $500 a month." It's kind of interesting, right? Like, you saw this with the commoditization of service businesses. You know, Design Pickle, for example, I think they were selling,

• 25:52Greg Isenberg?

  I don't know, $40 million a year, $80 million a year, some large amount of revenue. And we probably can ask Manus, where they were saying, okay, it's $500 a month, unlimited design. And I assume that that's going to happen in this space as well. Like, you'll be, someone is going to create the Design Pickle, but for, you know, AI and agents. So if you can do that, there's a path to a million dollars, that's for sure. Maybe even more. Okay, so I've compiled, Manus has compiled the data to validate the Reddit trends.

• 26:34Greg Isenberg?

  So it's looking at McKinsey, Salesforce, US Census Bureau. Like, no, I don't care about that stuff. Like, I actually care about Google Trends stuff and subreddit stuff. Okay, so here we go. r/smallbusiness, 47% growth in subscribers. AI, like, that's not helpful to me. AI agents, 312,000, yes. That's interesting to me. But I need more, I need more. I think, I don't know about you, but I feel like, I feel like I'm still hungry for more data around the trends. And I'm going to say that I feel like I'm still hungry for more data around the trends.

• 27:21Greg Isenberg?

  Give me Google Trends like data.

• 27:29Greg Isenberg?

  And give me insights as to which keywords are most interesting to build the business around. And let's see what Manus says. You know,

• 27:46Greg Isenberg?

  I think the most interesting data here is just like the subreddit growth stuff. I mean, it's, it is interesting to see. Google Trends shows industry-specific AI searches growing 2.5 faster than generic business AI searches. Searches, I know. So it's like, so tell me, tell me more about that, right? And maybe this isn't a Manus issue. It's just, you know, again, it's a prompting issue.

• 28:13Greg Isenberg?

  You're as, you know, I guess you're only as good as the prompts that you're going to do. I will say though, I am loving, I don't know about you, but I am loving the fact that we've got a browser going. We've got multiple browsers going. Things are happening.

• 28:27Greg Isenberg?

  And I do feel like I'm making progress on this idea.

• 28:38Greg Isenberg?

  So what happens when we click here? So you can, when you click over here, you can see the different, the task progress. So we're at eight on 10.

• 28:47Greg Isenberg?

  So it says, we basically, you know, we're in the comprehensive keyword trend analysis. Then we have design minimal viable MVP strategy. Prevent comprehensive business proposal to user. I feel like what's missing from this Manus is I like to see, I've never seen Manus design a landing page. I don't know if it can do it. I'd like to see you design a landing page that

• 29:20Greg Isenberg?

  you think is the highest, you think.

• 29:26Greg Isenberg?

  Has a lot of taste and will get people talking about the business. I don't want your average website. People forget about those. Can you design something for me and be my AI product designer? Do you do that?

• 29:57Greg Isenberg?

  And let's see.

• 30:00Greg Isenberg?

  So Manus is typing. Absolutely. I'd be happy to design a landing page with a unique eye catching aesthetic. So what's interesting here is that, you know, traditionally you'd go to V0 if you want like an AI product designer. Now is Manus able to create something beautiful, better than V0, worse than V0, as good as V0? Who knows? That's what we're, we're going to look for.

• 30:31Greg Isenberg?

  But you can do, you see here that Manus is using Terminal right now and building a landing page. Like this is crazy.

• 30:53Greg Isenberg?

  Manus is gathering keyword trend data to inform MVP design implementation strategy for smart consult AI.

• 31:11Greg Isenberg?

  What happens if I click use Manus's computer? Like I don't, I just want to click and see what happens. Okay. Select an application to use so you can go into VS Code or the browser. Interesting.

• 31:26Greg Isenberg?

  So what's happening here on screen is Manus is building the landing page. I'm actually surprised that it's not giving us the designs before building it. It's just building it, but let's see. Maybe they'll, maybe they'll build something nice. I don't know.

• 31:49Greg Isenberg?

  So I just clicked, it said, knowledge suggestions, five pending. I had no idea what that meant, so I clicked it. It says, suggested, sorry, suggested knowledge. Knowledge enables Manus to learn your preferences and task-specific best practices. Manus will automatically recall relevant knowledge when needed. Interesting.

• 32:13Greg Isenberg?

  So

• 32:17Greg Isenberg?

  this is just to make things go faster, I guess, and more efficient. You can say, you know, when researching Reddit for business ideas and validating trends with data, here's what the content, user wants trend identification. So you could make, you know, for example, in the before, when I was unhappy with the trend data, we could change that for future prompts, which is pretty cool.

• 32:45Greg Isenberg?

  Okay, so we see, let's see what Manus is up to. So it's, it's still creating the file. I will say, I do love that you can just watch what's happening live. This is a great trend that's happening across all, most AI products. With V0, for example, you can see what's happening live.

• 33:07Greg Isenberg?

  Perplexity, ChatGPT, so we're starting to see some of the, the copy. You can see expert consulting without the expert price. Honestly, pretty, pretty, pretty awesome tagline.

• 33:24Greg Isenberg?

  Pretty awesome tagline.

• 33:35Greg Isenberg?

  Healthcare Services, Construction and Trades. This is cool because it's going into the niche ideas that it gathered from Reddit. And some of the YC companies. Okay, so it looks like right now it's designing it. It's taking a while, three minutes, almost four minutes. I mean, if we would go into V0, it would take a minute. So, you know, I hope it's, I hope it's, maybe it would take two minutes, but you know, I hope it's nice.

• 34:20Greg Isenberg?

  I hope it's nice. So while it's figuring out the landing page, it did come up with a business concept validation, executive summary. So this is kind of like a one pager. So it talks about, you know, the idea, providing expert level consulting, the target market, a million dollars recurring revenue, that's cool. The competitive landscape, the tools that you'll use to create this. The validation from Reddit and market research. For example, "Cost barriers, quote unquote.

• 35:00Greg Isenberg?

  As a small business owner, I'd love to get expert advice but can't justify $200 consultants from our small business." Really, this is really cool. This is my favorite part that I've seen. Wow. Need for, so it's taking what it's seen, it's taking literal comments from subreddits and validating your idea. Generic AI tools don't understand my industry-specific challenges from our entrepreneur. Information overload, there's too much business advice out there. I need something that cuts through the noise with actionable steps. Implementation challenges. I know what I should be doing, but I need help with the how. Again, from a subreddit, small business. This is really cool. It gives you the business model.

• 35:44Greg Isenberg?

  I think that if I was actually building this business, I would try to like, go back and forth with it and be like, well, why are you charging $49 a month? Like, what makes you, why 49? Like, I think pushing back on Manus is helpful. We learned that from the Google Trends data. The customer acquisition strategy, let's see what they say. Content marketing, paid and social. Again, this is like, yes, I agree. This is probably what you do, but tell me exactly how to do these things. Like, give me the actual tactics for how to do these things.

• 36:21Greg Isenberg?

  Core platform features, AI consulting agents.

• 36:26Greg Isenberg?

  I think the other thing to note here is this is too big of a minimal viable product to start with. When you're building a startup, you want,

• 36:39Greg Isenberg?

  you want a minimal viable product that you can, that is attainable. Like, you're not going to do this from day one. Marketing consultant, operations consultant, financial consultant, strategy consultant. You might do that over time, but I think the most interesting thing here is being niche. So I wish that that wouldn't have happened and you would have to push back here.

• 37:02Greg Isenberg?

  Okay, it gives you the tech stack, the competitive advantages, and the go-to-market. Okay. Gives you risk, conclusion.

• 37:15Greg Isenberg?

  Overall, I don't know, 7.8 on 10, 7.7 on 10 is like a pretty good one-pager. And I guess my only, like I said, the only thing that matters that you really need to do is you kind of have to push it a little bit more. Okay, so it seems like it's done. Seems like it's done. So we're going to scroll, scroll down. And, okay, so it's designed a eye-catching landing page with an animated hero section. Interactive business. Okay. Can I look at it? So it's just in a zip file. I can't, I can't preview it. It's kind of lame. Manus. Okay, let me open up this zip file.

• 38:01Greg Isenberg?

  By the way, downloading from like a Chinese website, zip file with code, do be careful. All right, I'm gonna do it. I'm doing this for the, I'm doing this for the Startup Ideas Podcast channel. I'm doing this, you know, I'm opening it up, making sure, hopefully it works. Okay. Yo, this is crazy. This actually is beautiful. It actually, it's a beautiful, nice website.

• 38:29Greg Isenberg?

  This is, this is actually, the fact that it has a free assessment, like a lead magnet. Wow. This is legit, like amazing. What happens if you put, put, okay. Late checkout, Greg at Gmail. Okay, retail and e-commerce, my top business challenge, growing revenue, what happens? Okay, interesting. So then, a business assessment. I just think that's really interesting. They did a pretty good job. And then at the end, finally, it presents the business, complete business proposal.

• 39:12Greg Isenberg?

  And let's see, would you like me to elaborate? Let's see. Oh, it's basically just what we talked about. So that's the business proposal. So, okay. I don't know about you, but that was pretty impressive. We got like multiple good ideas, multiple trends on the positive side. I think that if you just continue pushing it on the trend side, I think that, you know, that's what this game is about, right? If in a world where anyone could create software, you saw how easy it is to create software, figuring out what is the brand, what is the landing page, what is the product? And what is the trend? How do you build something that's in a growing trend?

• 39:57Greg Isenberg?

  Is gonna be, I mean, that's gonna help you actually build a business, not just build a product. So.

• 40:06Greg Isenberg?

  I think that on the positive side, Manus, you know, you did pretty good here. On the negative side, you do have to know the right questions to ask. I wish it would just kind of, I wish you can just one prompt your way into, into winning. And, and at this point, you can't.

• 40:26Greg Isenberg?

  I think you need to have taste. You have to know the right questions to ask. And, and that's kind of the state where we're in. I think that, you know, you, with, with Manus, you have an AI co-founder. You have someone who can go and build things, research things. It does, it really does feel like an AI employee. But it's kind of like when you have a, you know, junior-ish employee. You do have to manage them, mentor them and get them to be smart. And that's what this is. So I feel like here's a business idea.

• 41:04Greg Isenberg?

  It's like helping, how do you get Manus from being like a junior, a junior analyst to a senior IC? And I think that's what this is, that's what it's missing currently. That's, that's where I'm at with this. I wanted to just do this publicly because, you know, I'm learning just like you're learning. Manus today is still, I still invite only. I don't have any invite codes yet. And I know people in the comment section are going to be like, this is a Chinese company. I have no affiliation with Manus.

• 41:43Greg Isenberg?

  I just think it's cool and it could be a tool to, to help you build your business. I mean, we're, we're seeing it and like, okay, maybe I shouldn't have downloaded the HTML and run it locally on my computer, but.

• 41:59Greg Isenberg?

  You know, if I was actually launching this, I probably would want a developer just to look at the code. And I wouldn't be giving it sensitive information like, you know, I wouldn't be storing any payment information and stuff like that. So I hope you've enjoyed this. If you have, please let me know in the comment section. I literally read every single comment. You can like this video. And what that do is it'll give you more episodes like this in your feed. And let me know, let me know what you think. Cheers to you.

• 42:42Greg Isenberg?

  Hope you enjoyed this SIP episode Startup Ideas Podcast. And I'll see you on the next one.