"Y Combinator Is Overrated" - Inside the brain of this 20-Year-Old Who Built Multiple Viral Products

Join me as I chat with Avi Schiffmann, Founder and CEO of friend.com, as we discuss technical challenges in AI memory systems and broader startup philosophy. Avi emphasizes the importance of creating new categories rather than competing in existing ones, while advocating for personal growth and confidence as crucial elements of entrepreneurial success. The discussion covers both technical aspects of AI development and philosophical approaches to startup building. Episode Timestamps: • 00:00 - Introduction and discussion of memory systems • 02:04 - Advice for Founders, Competition, Critique of YC • 06:02 - Entrepreneurship vs Innovation • 15:52 - Thoughts on Raising VC Funding and Bootstrapping • 18:52 - Discussion on Confidence and Personal Growth • 27:58 - Work Life Balance Discussion • 31:18 - Startup Idea 1: Memory as a Service Key Points: • Discussion of memory systems for AI chatbots and the need for "memory as a service" • Exploration of startup philosophy and the importance of creating new categories • Emphasis on personal confidence as a key factor in startup success • Critique of conventional startup wisdom and YC methodology 1) First, a HUGE opportunity in AI: Memory as a Service (MaaS) for AI chatbots • Current memory systems rely on RAG • No good solution exists yet • Companies would pay $$$ to solve this • Critical for AI relationship products 2) On building in existing categories: The real advantage of startups? • Fresh slate in people's minds • Ability to define new categories • Instant category leadership 3) MINDSHARE is the only true moat Example: • Claude is better than ChatGPT in quality • But ChatGPT owns mindshare • Google trends: ChatGPT = 100, Claude = ~0 Lesson: Better product ≠ Winning product 4) On raising VC: "The real way you raise is when it becomes about the deal, not what you're working on" • VCs invest in YOU, not your product • It's a social game • They care about who else is in • Focus on being good at "yapping" 5) The REAL key to startup success: Personal confidence over YC advice How to build it: • Get out of tech bubble • Build real relationships • Have experiences • Travel • Live life "No one great ever thought they couldn't be great" 6) On working style: "You don't need to be at your computer to be working" • Best ideas come in shower/walks • Live life, let ideas brew • Focus on right direction not working hard • Think through ideas in different places 7) Final wisdom: "You have a short bubble of consciousness while alive. Don't waste it working on something you're not confidently proud about." Stop preparing. Start building. Be confident. Make art. Notable Quotes: "If you view your work as art, you have no competition and you have no fear of failure." "It's easier to create a new category than to try and win in an existing category because if you create your own category, you immediately crown yourself king." 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 AVI ON SOCIAL Friend: https://friend.com X/Twitter: https://x.com/AviSchiffmann

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

• 0:00Greg Isenberg?

  This is one of our more crazy startup ideas podcast episodes. It's with Avi Schiffman, the founder of Friend.com. He was all over the news for raising a few million dollars and spending most of it on buying a domain. He's got some spicy takes.

• 0:17Speaker 01

  You know, if you, if you view your work as art, you have no competition and you have no fear of failure. Like move, move, yeah, like, like, like move fast and break things, I think is the thing I hate the most. I mean, I think maybe it works for shitty software, but like, I think, let's say in my situation, I'm trying to build hardware. You know, I only really get like one real first impression. Any business really does. Yeah, you know, no one, no one great ever thought they, they couldn't be great. You know, you really need to have instilled in yourself a deep rooted self. You know, just, you know, you need to just believe you are the listen out guy in a sense. And I think it will take you further than anything you'll ever hear from someone else.

• 0:55Greg Isenberg?

  He also gives away a free startup idea in the AI space. It's highly technical. So many of you might not understand it, but for those of you who do, he gives a playbook on how to create this technical AI app that he thinks could make millions. You might not agree with everything Avi says, but it makes for a very interesting conversation. And it probably will get your creative juices flowing.

• 1:44Greg Isenberg?

  We got Avi Schiffman on the pod, founder of Friend.com, 22 years old, Harvard dropout. He makes a lot of noise on Twitter and places like that. So thanks for coming on, man.

• 1:56Speaker 01

  For sure. Thanks, Greg. Yeah, it's, it's cool to be on a podcast to just talk about ideas, I guess. Big idea guy here, of course.

• 2:05Speaker 01

  I think I definitely have large tunnel vision. I think what I usually think about maybe more is. Like why people are usually failing at their startups or why a lot of people's ideas don't work or like?

• 2:17Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah.

• 2:17Speaker 01

  I think.

• 2:18Greg Isenberg?

  About that.

• 2:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that a lot of, I mean, there's like a very famous maxim, right? Where like most people's startups die from suicide rather than competition. And I, you know, I really believe, I mean, let's say, let's say in my situation, right? Like I've been building this AI pendant, okay, this AI wearable pendant. For a while now, I started this company back when it's called TAB, right? In May of, of May of last year in 2023. Um, and since then, there's been a gazillion, you know, large companies and, and random kids and idiots and all, everyone all alike, all trying to build their own version of this. And many, more than half of the ones that I remember being started have all failed or, you know, not, you know, maybe I'm not going to be too harsh on them, although, um, you know, they're trying to copy me still, but you know, they moved on to like other ideas.

• 3:04Speaker 01

  But, um, you know, if I was so worried about all those competitors, which I never once was, uh, you know, I think that would have ruined my startup a lot more. Maybe I would have eventually, you know, killed my own startup. Um, I think people are far too worried about that. And I think the, the true reason, but the true, true way that you get over that is if you truly have confidence in yourself, where you know that you are entirely acting off your own intuition. Um, well, I guess, you know, to, to entirely act off your own intuition, again, you really do need to be confident in your abilities as an idea guy, I guess. Um, but, uh,

• 3:42Speaker 01

  you know, if you, if you view your work as art, you have no competition and you have no fear of failure. And I think it just removes this anxiety that you have over it needing to be perfect or, or anything like that. Well, I mean, at, at the same time, like, you know, it's, it's not perfect. It may be in other people's eyes. I think it's, it's perfect to your eyes, which, which might be a bit harder. But, um, you know, I think that's the way to go. I, I also think that, uh, Y Combinator is, is evil and has ruined startups. I think it's turned it into this absolute slop. Um, and, uh, Like move, move, yeah, like, like, like move fast and break things, I think is the thing I, I hate the most. I mean, I think maybe it works for shitty software, but like, I think, let's say in my situation, I'm trying to build hardware. You know, I only really get like one real first impression. Any business really does.

• 4:27Speaker 01

  Um, and like, you know, do you think like the guy painting the Mona Lisa was like, oh, you know what? Okay, it's, you know, it's good enough. It was never, no artist has ever said their, their work is good enough. And I, I think, you know, there is a line, you, you, you know, you, you shouldn't, you know, go too far away from, but, um, I, I think people should just ship when they, when they [BLEEP] ship. And, uh, you know, maybe if you do also want to kill your startup, then kill it. But, uh, I think like just truly freeing your mind away from competition like that. Um, and truly just building what you truly want to build and not being impacted by like, I don't know, this like, Y C pocket advice book, I see all these founders like pinned to their, uh. Yeah, yeah, I don't know. I mean, like, I guess it's helpful for some people.

• 5:10Speaker 01

  And I think like, you know, there is definitely a genre of startups these days where a lot of people are building SaaS and it's, it's very templated. And, and I guess if you need to be, you know, have your hand held, I mean, go for it. But, um, there, there was, there was one more point I wanted to make. Okay. I, I, I think there is a huge difference between entrepreneurship and innovation. And, and I think this is, uh, something that a lot of people maybe get kind of in not unknowingly stuck in where like, I think a lot of what I'm saying maybe applies a lot more to people trying to build something new and, and innovate. And, uh, maybe in that sense, it's a lot easier to view your work as art because you are truly creating something new. Um, I think for a lot of people that are maybe not inherently motivated by fulfillment in that sense

• 5:54Speaker 01

  and are really just trying to make a, a quick buck, which, you know, if you want to do that, that's fine. Um, I, I think it's probably fine to follow advice like that.

• 6:03Greg Isenberg?

  What do you think of founders who aren't trying to reinvent the wheel, who? Who, you know, they're trying to create a SaaS business that is five, 10 million bucks a year.

• 6:13Speaker 01

  I just think like, we're on the cusp of AGI. You're really going to spend your time doing that? Like, there's only so many things you'll ever work on in your entire life. And I think what I hate the most about most people I meet around the world is everyone always is trying to prepare for something. You know, some people are trying to work at some startup for 10 years or whatever, so they can gain startup experience. Or, you know, I mean, it's not even just in the tech industry and our little scene. It's like, just people out there, a lot of people are maybe stuck in college, or a lot of people just don't know what they want to do. And I think one that boils down to, that's, you know, skill issue, I would say again, like, it's your fucking problem if you haven't figured out what you want to do by then. And, uh.

• 6:52Greg Isenberg?

  Quick break in the pod to tell you a little bit about Startup Empire. 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.

• 7:37Greg Isenberg?

  So you can check out the link to startupempire.co in the description.

• 7:42Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, I think it's easier, you know, to create something new than it is to make something better. Um, and I, I think maybe it's scarier, let's say, to, to do something unknown, for sure. But like, okay, like, let's say, let's say what I'm really trying to do, which is to build like an embodied AI friend. That is something new, um, rather than necessarily trying to build a, a better chatbot. Although, I know I did launch friend.com, but I kind of ignored that for a second.

• 8:09Speaker 01

  Right? Like, if I was truly trying to compete with building a chatbot chatbot, like, it's kind of existed since the 60s with Eliza, you know, you're, you're trying to build something. Better, right? You're trying to build a better user interface that looks nicer. And you know, the chats are a little nicer, maybe, which is kind of like what I went through, actually, you know, with building, let's say, friend.com, right? I'm trying to build something that is going to be compared against all these other web-based chatbots, like Replica and Character AI and, you know, even, let's say, ChatGPT, right? Or just all these, all these chatbots. But, you know, if I'm trying to build

• 8:44Speaker 01

  something entirely new, that's like a embodied AI friend, you just, it's entirely new and there's nothing to really compare it with, except, I don't know, maybe like a dog or like a Tamagotchi or something like that. You know, I don't really have to make it so, so fancy. I don't necessarily have to have the best user interface or any of these things. It's, it's a bit easier to just have this, this novel thing that is, I don't know, like this, yeah, there's nothing to compare it to and it stands on its own and it's, it creates new categories. It's, it's, it's easier to create a new category than to try and, you know, win in an existing category. Because if you create your own category, you immediately crown yourself king.

• 9:28Speaker 01

  And I don't know why anyone builds in, in categories that already exists unless you're like a, like a cuck. You know, you're truly cucking yourself if you're, if you're building in a existing category. There's already a king.

• 9:40Greg Isenberg?

  What, what, what would you say to people who would say that everything is an existing category? Like what you're building is in an existing category?

• 9:47Speaker 01

  I mean, I don't know. You can make different levels of scopes, sure. I mean, yeah, I think there's an argument that, yeah, all startups are startups or some bullshit like that. But like, I, I don't know what to tell you. Uh, I think there still is clear differential, like categories for sure. I, I will, maybe, you know, when you truly, uh, it needs to truly be like a new category. Look, you can't just build a slightly better note-taking app, you know? I don't know. It's still a category of productivity even.

• 10:12Greg Isenberg?

  And, and let's say the consumer social category. What, is TikTok a new, in a new category? Or is it, you know, like, how, how would you see TikTok versus Instagram?

• 10:25Speaker 01

  You know, that's a good point, right? Like, there's definitely situations where you can dethrone a king of an existing category. I think TikTok is the only consumer social product that came out after, you know, the OG ones in the, in the early 2010s that actually succeeded. And I think truly be kind of becoming king in a way, like I, TikTok is great.

• 10:48Speaker 01

  But I think that's very hard. I guess like, yeah, I mean, like you can go for it. You could build a new car, like let's say Tesla, right? Like they entered, they are, okay, in some ways slightly different category, but overall it is still the same category of like cars.

• 11:02Speaker 01

  You know, they they dethroned Ford and a lot of these other existing automobiles. But again, I feel like they still did something slightly different, right? Like they still are entering a category of, let's say automobiles, but they still are doing it in a large enough of a different way. And I think there is a large enough of a difference between like ICE cars and, you know, electric vehicles. And there is, you know, a no taking up than like a no taking up powered by AI or something like that. That's not really enough of a change, a categorical change, right?

• 11:34Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah, I think what you're saying is kind of like try to try to try to build and be a category of one, so to speak, so.

• 11:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's easier.

• 11:42Greg Isenberg?

  Is that, yeah.

• 11:43Speaker 01

  I don't know. I truly think it's easier because again, you have back to like what I was mentioning earlier, where people are so afraid of competition. I think, you know, when you create your own category, you have less competition in a sense, because there's less people building in that space. And I would really encourage people to also zoom out a little bit with these categories, right? Like, let's say, you know, in my opinion, productivity as a category is over and boring and done. And, you know, in conference like Apple, Google, or, you know, even beyond technology startups in a sense, too. It's it's done. It's over. Like build something in entirely new category. Like to me, the the new category that I'm really trying to to truly spearhead and grow is just like

• 12:27Speaker 01

  digital companionship or just kind of companionship as a category overall. I don't think that, I think when most people have thought about technology, this has always been very utilitarian. And, you know, not not focused on emotions and and love and intimacy and companionship and like these things.

• 12:45Speaker 01

  Oh, and at one point I always like to mention is, you know, I think that the only real moat is consumer mindshare or just, you know, mindshare as a concept of, you know, when people think of a certain category. Or topic, you know, their mind immediately goes to just one project or one company, right? Like, for example, if you think of ChatGPT versus Claude, I use Claude, you know, I don't use ChatGPT anymore. Maybe you're you're the same. I'm sure you've seen on Twitter and our scene, almost everyone loves Claude, right? More than ChatGPT. But if you look at like, let's say, Google search trends, ChatGPT is literally at like a hundred and Claude is literally a zero, right? Like Claude is an anthropic is insignificant. Nobody knows about them at all.

• 13:24Speaker 01

  They win on mindshare more than, you know, they win unnecessarily a better technical product or a better team or financials or anything like that. Mindshare is the only thing that matters, but it can be a very double edged sword, right? Like, when you think about, um, let's say, Apple TV versus Netflix, when you think about Apple, you think of them as a computing or productivity company, right? You do not think of them as an entertainment company. Um, but when you think of Netflix, you think of them as a, you know, entertainment streaming company, right? And I think that's why Netflix will still always beat something like Apple TV. Or, you know, let's say in my situation, I know that Meta, Facebook, whatever you want to call them, has been venturing a lot into like AI companions and digital relationships, you know, they've got little AI friends on Messenger

• 14:07Speaker 01

  or they've got a character AI clone actually on Instagram on the web version of it. But when you think of Meta, you know, I think you truly think of like human to human relationships. And I think it's a very unique situation you're in as a startup to create like a new POV. Um, in my case, which is, I think, like, human to AI relationships like that is what, you know, my mindshare concept is. Uh, I think it's very, very hard for existing encumbrance to like, as I said, it's a double edged sword, you know, they might have a lot of mindshare in that in that category then, right? Um, but then to like, really change that and build from a new POV, I I think it's really, you know, it takes really strong marketing campaigns or a long period of time, you know, like, let's say, let's say.

• 14:50Speaker 01

  I don't know, ChatGPT is inherently known as utilitarian and productivity, but you know, I think Sam maybe has a hard on for still trying to build like her, or maybe her still kind of an assistant, but like, let's say a true AI girlfriend type of thing. I just think they would really struggle with that ultimately because like their brand is so solidified and being known as productivity. And I think this is, this is the only real advantage startups have. I always, I always hear people say that your advantage of a startup is that like, you know, you can be focused or like you can move fast or like, you know, you're competing, I guess, maybe against just a small team at Google, even though they're a giant company. And like, sure, I guess these are kind of only skill issue reasons, but like the only real thing that you have an advantage of is, is a fresh slate in like

• 15:34Speaker 01

  people's minds, right? Of like what your company's values are and what your, what your category, I guess, in a sense really is. I think that is, is also only really applicable if you're trying to build something big and real. But um, you know, again, still, I think the real, uh, the real advantage you have, right?

• 15:53Greg Isenberg?

  Could you create, you know, a new category without raising venture capital? Or is this something that you need to raise money to go and do?

• 16:01Speaker 01

  Um, you probably could without raising venture capital. I don't know. Maybe you're, you're really rich already. You can bootstrap it or, um, you know, I don't know. Maybe you've got some sketchy deal going. I don't know. Sure. I'm not, there's definitely, yeah, it's definitely not an absolute that you need to raise VC capital. VC capital is definitely useful, you know, to spend on domains and stuff like that for sure. But, um, you know, I think if you care about innovation instead of entrepreneurship in a sense, and you really are trying to build something to last a long time, I think you should care a lot about, you know, your equity. Um, and, and you know, be careful about that to not raise too much venture capital. But, you know, you don't need to raise a hundred million dollars. You

• 16:44Speaker 01

  can still raise like five million dollars or $250,000, right? Like you don't need to go extreme with it.

• 16:51Greg Isenberg?

  Cool. Yeah. I asked just because a lot of people listening here. A lot of people, I presume you live in San Francisco or the Bay Area?

• 17:00Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 17:01Greg Isenberg?

  Just like a lot of people listening here, like that world is so alien to them, you know? Like they, they, yeah, venture capital and stuff like that. So a lot of people listening are, are just building products, um, bootstrapping it themselves. And so, you know, just question.

• 17:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think, I think the topic of like raising VC capital for people that are not, uh, you know, and so networked as well as I guess you are, I don't know where you live, LA, New York?

• 17:32Greg Isenberg?

  I'm in Miami.

• 17:33Speaker 01

  Okay. Fancy, fancy, fancy. Um, but yeah, you know, I do live in San Francisco and I am on, on, you know, tech Twitter quite a lot. And, uh, you know, I'm very networked of course, but like ultimately I think to raise venture capital, the more you talk about your products and what you're working on, I actually think the harder it really is. Um, because I don't think any seed or lower investor gives a fuck about what you're working on. I think it's almost entirely, um, you know, investing in you and your ability to yap. Um, and therefore I think it's honestly quite easy to raise VC in a sense. You just, you truly just need to be good at yapping. And I also think that the real way you raise is when it becomes about the deal and not about, uh, what you're actually working on in a sense.

• 18:17Speaker 01

  Um, I don't know how to explain that particularly, but just like everything, VC is a social game. Um, and these VCs are inherently just kinda trying to get a better, you know, they're competing against their, their coworkers and their friends at other funds. And like, that's what they really care about. They care about who's involved in, in certain deals. Um, you know, when you're, when your fundraiser is about the deal and not about your product, I guess, or your company, that's I think when it becomes so easy. Um, how to get to that point, I don't know. You just, you either know how to do it or you don't. It's not like anyone will really give you some specific advice like that. Um, all, all I think that the only thing that people should really be optimizing for is personal confidence. I think it bleeds into everything from how good you are at yapping, how good you are at recruiting,

• 19:02Speaker 01

  how good you are at, um, following your own intuition, which. Makes it easier to make, you know, major product decisions or just any decisions at all. And, uh, you know, how also it it removes your fear of of competition, I would say strongly. I I truly think that, like, i- i- if I succeed in stuff one day, like, I really want to write a lot more and instill more of this underlying sense of personal confidence is what most founders should be working towards rather than like Y C advice. Because if you are confident enough in yourself, and again, you need to act like, like, I think the thing is that you still need to actually have good ideas and you need to be smart. But like, if that's where you're at, I I have no advice to give you. That's that's your fucking problem. But assuming you meet, you know, the the bare, you know, bar minimum requirements.

• 19:47Speaker 01

  You should be maximizing to just believe in yourself having good ideas essentially.

• 19:54Speaker 01

  And and if you have that, you don't need to follow advice from Y Combinator. Or whatever I'm saying to you as a startup or anything like that, because you just, you know, you believe in yourself. And I think, you know, not, there is a difference between arrogance and and confidence in a sense, although I think it's only arrogance and hindsight is something I believe in for sure. I think a lot of people probably think I'm arrogant, but I think that's only, you know, until I succeed, I suppose, then it's then it's viewed as, you know, confidence. Uh, I would not be bothered by by those perceptions now if I was someone.

• 20:26Speaker 01

  But, uh, yeah.

• 20:27Greg Isenberg?

  How how does someone gain confidence, you know? Is that, is that something that, you know, you can learn or?

• 20:35Speaker 01

  Um, I think your V C funding should be spent on trips to Y B's or something. No, not not not seriously, you know, but I think a lot of people should be focusing a lot more on their personal life outside of their work. Because it ultimately actually ends up, um, improving their their work life, actually, quite significantly. I feel like this is also very, a a much more strong point I'm trying to hit home for, I think, probably more so younger founders. Again, I I'm I'm twenty two, you know, when I started working on this project, I think I'd only recently turned twenty one. This is the first time I've even, you know, lived in my own real place outside of home and like.

• 21:12Speaker 01

  You know, I'm basically still a, you know, and you're all so weird if you're in tech. Like I'm, you know, I, I think you just, I've, I've, I've grown so much from my own personal confidence and my own, you know, sense of self. And I think that's because I've spent so much time, uh, not necessarily working, although you are kind of working, maybe if you view it that way, um, to just like travel a little bit, like go do things outside of your comfort zone a little bit. I mean, I think that, that, that phrasing is cringe. I don't, I don't really know what to tell people. Like earlier this year, I, for example, I was in, I was in Berlin at one point, um, and I went to like Berghain actually with one of my prototypes. Crazy, you know, it's crazy experiences, but like, I think these are the kind of things that have instilled maybe like, just it's, it's cool, it's, it's

• 21:57Speaker 01

  confidence, it makes you grow as a person. And as a result, I've noticed that 100% bleed into how good I am, maybe at fundraising or hiring or, you know, convincing people of ideas. Um, and, uh, you know, I think that's had more of an impact than any advice someone's given me or, you know, anything I've read online or, you know, just really anything else at all. I, I don't even really know why not many people talk about this because any founder that people look up to, or it doesn't have to be founder, you know, artists, let's say the Beatles or something like that. Um, they, uh, that, that is like their number one skill in a sense is that they're very confident in themselves. And that's, you know, you think you, you, you cross a threshold of confidence where everything

• 22:40Speaker 01

  you do really does become an expression of who you are because it's so in tune with who you are, that it truly is, you know, artwork. Uh, I think that is the, the ultimate intrinsically valuable thing to, to work on as well. Um, and, and what will truly make you feel confidently proud about yourself, which I think is the, the optimal emotion to truly feel. Um, and, uh, yeah, you know, no one, no one great ever thought they, they couldn't be great. You know, you really need to have instilled in yourself a deep rooted self, uh, you know, just, you know, you need to just believe you are the listen agaid, um, in a sense. And I think it will take you further than anything you'll ever hear from someone else.

• 23:19Greg Isenberg?

  I saw this really good tweet by this guy, Aaron Alto. He tweeted, visualization is the first step. And, you know, I was thinking, I think that's true in a lot of ways, like, you know, for startup ideas, you know, it once. You know, step zero is visualization. Or maybe step, yeah, maybe actually upon a prime reflection, maybe steps, you know, step, step one is find your startup idea. Step two is visualization.

• 23:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, you know, this concept of manifesting and stuff is is actually real in a sense, right? Um, you know, and I think maybe if you relate this to like your, again, like your personal self, um, a lot of people want to visualize like the kind of person they want to be, right? Like, I know a lot of girls or something like that, like take photos of these kind of women that they want to end up being, right? And you just kind of embody that over time. Um, you do need to kind of turn yourself into a, you know, schizophrenic. Um, but, you know, pulling you towards where you want to go. Um, I will say, I think people that are like trying to come up with startup ideas, though, it's like, I don't really know how to approach saying this and or like saying anything to say, but like,

• 24:33Speaker 01

  I don't know, I feel like you just gotta live and like ideas just kind of come to you. Um, because, you know, okay, it's great to have like one startup idea, but like,

• 24:44Speaker 01

  your idea will change. Like, let's say what I'm working on right now, it's it's friend, right? It started out as TAB and it was originally made because I was fundraising for a nonprofit and I wanted to keep track of the people I was meeting. So I felt that if I wore like an always on microphone, you know, and use L L M's and transcribe all the data, you could like automatically build a person's schema, right? That is completely different than building an embodied AI friend, but the underlying tech is actually still the same. Um, you know, you will go down in idea maze and you will make thousands and thousands of more ideas. You'll make a billion ideas all day, every day. I think you just need to, again, I would say, work on your own self-confidence and do things in the real world. And when the real ideas come to you, you will feel confident enough to spring on them.

• 25:25Speaker 01

  And you will feel confident enough to actually go down the entire idea maze and continue to believe in your own ideas and and truly see it to fruition. Um, and you know, you need to have confidence to allow yourself to actually work on something for, you know, a year or two, or how long it takes to like truly bring something to market. You think Sam Altman had no confidence in himself while he toiled away at OpenAI for a billion years until they launched ChatGPT? Um, you know, I. Yeah, I think, I think confidence is the real, basically, skill issue. It is the clear biggest divide between anyone that does anything at all outside. You know, I'm not even talking about startups. I'm talking about, again, like, just, just anything worthwhile. It is the biggest blocker. I can't think of anyone that wasn't confident that went on to do something that anyone cares about.

• 26:09Greg Isenberg?

  That could be, that's actually a good tip. So, you know, for, for people listening, it's like, if you're, if you're feeling low confidence, maybe ask yourself, like, what would Tim Altman do in this case? If that's something to look up to, right?

• 26:23Speaker 01

  Smoke some weed, I don't know, chill out a little bit. That's what I would recommend.

• 26:27Greg Isenberg?

  There you go.

• 26:28Speaker 01

  I'm serious, I'm serious. People are way too, like, I, I mean, I, everyone's different. I, I honestly, this advice I'm giving is, is not for, maybe it's not really relevant. But, um, I just implore people to do things in the real world and, and grow as a person outside of, you know, I, I'd say focus on real world relationships, too. I think that is how you grow more than, than anything in, in the world. You know, not just girlfriends, friends, too, you know, family, things like that. You grow so much from these things, it is incredible. It's, I think it's a great way to focus on basically your personal growth and maybe a slightly more structured way that can lead to basically what I'm saying.

• 27:05Greg 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.

• 27:47Greg Isenberg?

  They're so confident in their approach that they offer a 30-day sprint with 100% money-back guarantee. Who does that nowadays? So, check it out, highly recommend, boringmarketing.com. There, there's some people who work 120 hours a week, who don't leave their house. They just work, work, work, work. And... I'm not of that belief. I think that you come up with good ideas and clarity of thought when when you work a bit more, when you're more balanced.

• 28:15Speaker 01

  You just gotta, yeah, you just gotta kind of like putter around, honestly, and like just kind of walk around in new environments especially and just kind of make sure that you're right. Like again, I think people think I work very hard. Maybe I give that impression off Twitter, although I don't think I really do. I'm mostly posting pictures and motorcycles, but um, like, um, I feel like I, the, how I work hard is in trying to make sure that I'm going to work hard for the right thing, right? Like, I think there was this famous, I entirely, I feel like I switched my mind on this because I, I heard this, this thing about, I think Einstein back in the day where he's like, if you gave me 20 hours to solve a problem, I'd spend 19 hours defining it

• 28:54Speaker 01

  or something like that. Um, and it's like kind of true, right? Like, it's so easy to go forwards in the right direction when you're sure that is the right direction, I guess. And like, I think almost everyone that I know, honestly, works really hard on like the first, like, it's not even the first direction, it's like the first, like, because you can, you can keep the same direction, it's just like, I think the first angle or the first like starting point of that direction, like people just, um, people just immediately send it. And I think like you do get to a point where you're very again in tune with your intuition and you're able to really send it in the right direction at the, uh, you know, uh, uh, in the correct place, but like,

• 29:34Speaker 01

  I, I just would implore people to, uh, like go to the club or something, like do other things to like, just, um,

• 29:43Speaker 01

  just keep thinking about your idea in, in different places. Um, I think you'll, uh, realize how much of your past stuff has been, you know, just, um,

• 29:54Speaker 01

  I don't know how to describe it, like just, uh, not, you know, I thought, you know, you don't want to think things through too, too much, right? But, um,

• 30:02Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah, one thing I've noticed is that like if I'm brewing on an idea and I like when I step out of the house and I just like let it brew in the back burner, I'm still like kinda working, but I'm not really like I'm on a walk or I'm riding my bike or doing something. Those moments I find are just as key as the moments I'm in front of my computer.

• 30:23Speaker 01

  Exactly. I think people need to get over this anxiety of feeling that they're not working hard enough because they're not at their computer, right? Like as you were just saying, I feel like you as a founder are like always working, right? Like I feel like I'm always working because I'm not, you don't really view your work as work, right? For the most part, but you know, right now I am working in a sense and I'm still technically thinking through my ideas. And I'm still open to change, you know, my perspectives and my ideas, no matter what I'm doing. And again, as most people, the way you probably came up with your stupid startup idea in the first place is probably because you were like, you know, in the shower, you were doing something else, right? And the idea came to you. But as I was saying earlier, you know, a startup is a billion

• 31:07Speaker 01

  ideas anyways. You will go down a fat idea maze. I think it's important for you to, you know, just keep, keep thinking through some of these, these things in your mind. Yeah, I guess what I wanted to kind of bring to the table, I guess, kind of like a request for startups, I see that YC does this pretty often, is I'm obviously trying to build a chatbot that you form a relationship with. And I think this is like a category that's, that's very popular right now, you know, regarding AI companionship. But I think like, there's a broad use case of chatbots that aren't just like, you know, AI girlfriends, right? I think might be what people are going in their minds immediately to. But you know, there's a lot of people trying to build therapist bots, assistants, you know, mentor things, just fun little games,

• 31:51Speaker 01

  you know, toys, even kind of more what I'm doing, which is this kind of like embodied Tamagotchi friend type thing. Regardless, you know, to, to have a chatbot that you send more than a couple messages to, you want it to, you know, have a good memory system. And there's a couple of ways people are trying to build memory systems these days. I think at the end of the day. It's really just rag, which is still honestly kind of a fake way to build a memory system, but it works for the time being and you know, I for the near future for sure. Um, and what I really want to see is like memory as a service, essentially, I want to see more people build tools that make it easier for you to extract memories from conversations and uh, you know, have a very good eval system for your own kind of conversations that happen with your bot.

• 32:36Speaker 01

  Um, to make sure it's, you know, generating those memories and um, you know, a very quick, low latency query system for these memories. Um, you know, I think people would probably be worried about maybe offloading uh, such a such a crucial part of their application, but I I honestly think it's enough of an issue. That has just not been solved that um, people, people should really be focusing on this, you know, I I've I've taken a look now at nearly every way of doing this and every project out there. And I honestly think the only, the only people doing a semi good job of this is, I would say, Dot from New Computer. Um, they've really nailed uh, like the whole memory system because the tricky is part about this, I would say is um,

• 33:18Speaker 01

  updating old memories and and having everything be connected to each other because very often I might um, you know, well, for starters, you know, you you're of obvious often changing your old memories. Like one day you might like a Ferrari, the next day you might like a Porsche, whatever, these things change. But um, more importantly, you want to be able to connect memories that are not semantically related to each other because I might say I like, I don't know, I I like cars, but somehow there is like a a memory that's not really semantically related to cars or Ferrari or something like that, but it's still relevant to the conversation we're hap- having right now. Like maybe, I don't know, like my girlfriend uh, got in this car accident ages ago, like somehow that's like relevant. Um,

• 34:03Speaker 01

  basically, it's a really complicated problem, but uh, you know, I'm sure people can solve this and I I've taken a look online at some tools and I think the only real open source projects that exist for this is like uh, MemGPT and MemZera, which are okay, simple implementations, but you know, I would, I think there's many people that would gladly pay for for a service like this. So I'd like to discuss that with you, Greg.

• 34:26Greg Isenberg?

  Cool. So I think a lot of, you know, a bunch of people listening don't even know what the rag memory system is. So I'd love you to walk through. I'd actually really love you to walk through um.

• 34:41Greg Isenberg?

  What that is?

• 34:42Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 34:42Greg Isenberg?

  Um, just like at a high level, because a lot of people aren't super technical.

• 34:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:47Greg Isenberg?

  And then how to think about, like, is this a good idea or not? Because there are competitors out there, like, how do you know? How do you think about, like, oh, my God, this is something someone should do and it would work?

• 34:59Speaker 01

  What do you mean competitors out there?

• 35:01Greg Isenberg?

  Like, you you mentioned two competitors, meaning?

• 35:05Speaker 01

  Well, I don't know, you know, they're building like, you know, they're building personalities, like they're building these niche. Uh, I don't know, I'd say niche, but like, you know, they're building chatbots. And like, honestly, if you're worried about competition, then that's your problem. You shouldn't be building a startup in the first place. I don't know what to tell you. You know, if you if you view your work as art, you have no competition, you have no fear of failure. Um, that is entirely your problem. I'm not I'm not here to discuss your fears of competition. But, um, RAG stands for, I believe, Retrieval Augmented Generation, I think. Um, which just means that, you know, you give member, like, just, uh, like, facts or memories or whatever as part of, like, your system prompt or user prompt.

• 35:47Speaker 01

  And those memories obviously change the output, right? Like, if I ask a question to, uh, you know, you have a system prompt that just says, like, I am a helpful assistant. And then I ask a question, you know, what is my favorite car? Um, obviously, that bot is not going to have any memory of that and is just going to say, well, I don't know. You never told me that. But, uh, if you have a system where, when I say, what is my favorite car? It's able to take basically what I said. And then I I believe the way it kind of works right now is you would basically embed that. So you would kind of, uh, I don't know how to explain embeddings necessarily. Um, you kind of just create like a like a semantic, like relational map, I guess, of like that sentence that I said.

• 36:32Speaker 01

  So, you know, you would basically just take like car, right? And find something that, you know, is the closest match to car, right? But you would you would you would take that.

• 36:43Speaker 01

  Well, I guess before you would do that, you you would say to the assistant, you know, my favorite car is is a Porsche, okay? A Porsche nine eleven and it would just kind of that, you know, the the the models have a concept of automobiles and cars, right? And like a Porsche nine eleven is like kind of close to that concept of a car. So if you imagine just like a three D space, right? Those are they're kind of just close to each other, okay? And then so later on, um, if I ask like, what is my favorite car? It'll, you know, see the word car and like look for something kind of similar. And, you know, it's not gonna be a perfect match, right? You know, Porsche nine eleven is not the word car, but it's close enough. Maybe it's like a point eight, point nine match, right? Something like that, like a ninety percent match. Um, so it's close enough.

• 37:27Speaker 01

  So you would just choose like some of these closest memories. Right now, let's say we only have that one memory. Um, we would take that memory and we might put that in, let's say, the I don't know, let's say the user message that gets sent to this this um, this bot where, you know, the system prompt is I'm a helpful assistant. Then your user message is what is my favorite car? Then maybe you have underneath that, you know, you augment this message and you say like, you know, in brackets, like the user's favorite, uh, the user's favorite car is a Porsche nine eleven. Or you maybe don't even need to, you know, augment the way that's written. You can just say my user chat message that I sent ages ago, like my favorite car is a Porsche nine eleven, right?

• 38:07Speaker 01

  And so when the system prompt sees, you know, your question and then, you know, the little context that you have there, um, it'll be able to say like, oh, you know, your favorite car is a Porsche nine eleven, right? So that's like kind of how it works. Um, you would kind of store all of these memories and probably some kind of like vector database, right? Um, you don't really need to use a standalone tool and, you know, a lot of people are probably using Superbase as their database. And you can just kind of, you know, use like PG vector in there. They make it all pretty simple. But, um, you know, to set up a system like this that that can extract those memories and put those memories back into your chats uh, alone is already, you know, pretty technical. But then again, building a true memory system, like I was mentioning earlier, your memory is a lot more.

• 38:52Speaker 01

  Or adaptive, right? Like, you know, you need to update existing memories. What if now my favorite car is a, you know, a, I don't know, a Pagani, something, whatever, right? Now, now that needs to be updated. And if you think about the way your, your brain's working too, right? Like you have, like, the importance of these memories matters a lot. Uh, and that will degrade over time as well. Um, you know, recency matters a lot for some of these memories because if it's trying to maybe, maybe you're trying to build a system that updates existing memories. And maybe I said my favorite car was a Porsche nine eleven, but that was five years ago or five months ago, whatever. And, and only yesterday that I said that my favorite car was, you know, uh, I guess I don't know.

• 39:35Speaker 01

  You know, fuck cars. I, I like motorcycles more. I'd say I'd like a Ducati nine sixteen. You know, is now my favorite, my favorite transportation thing, right? Like you need to update that memory, which means that you really need to have like a a backend system for doing this. And, and I think like the real way that you would build this is, is with like a like a graph network, right? Which gets pretty complicated, but that way you can fix this issue I mentioned earlier of connecting non-semantically related things with each other. Like, in a sense, you know, you probably would want to include that I like a Ducati nine sixteen, even if I ask like, what is my favorite car, right? But, you know, Ducati is, is a motorcycle. It's not a car. They're not inherently

• 40:17Speaker 01

  connected. Um, you know, it still might be, let's say how I mentioned earlier, you know, if I mentioned Porsche nine eleven, that is like, you know, point eight, point nine similarity, right? And a Ducati is still generally closer to a car than if I mentioned, you know, a horse, right? This is my favorite color horse. That's obviously going to be maybe like, you know, point zero one, let's say. It's just so far away. But a Ducati nine sixteen is still maybe going to be like, you know, point four, point three, let's say. Um, but, uh, but yeah, does that, does that work for you, Greg?

• 40:46Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah, I think, uh, Okay, so I'll be honest, I I don't feel personally like I would be able to execute this particular idea and and when that's because I'm just not super technical, but I can I'm tech I'm tech I'm technical enough to hear what you're saying and be like, that's a real problem.

• 41:07Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 41:07Greg Isenberg?

  Someone is going to do really well to fix it.

• 41:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:11Greg Isenberg?

  And and the time is now, you know?

• 41:13Speaker 01

  Oh, for sure. I mean, I don't know how much longer, you know, rag is necessarily going to be an issue. Um, but I know for sure that memory is is going to be something that all of these bots need. And, you know, I think it is, again, pretty, pretty broad, because I know a billion people. You know, there's a lot of people trying to build chatbots and a lot of these people need memory systems. And I have, uh, looked at all of these people startups, and I know that everyone is struggling with memory as well. No one has truly cracked it, even Dot, I mentioned earlier from New Computer. They get pretty close, but you know, nothing's perfect.

• 41:45Speaker 01

  I think memory is essential for bringing users back into, you know, having higher retention with any of these bots. So it is, you know, a a top priority. And I think any founder that is stuck with, you know, their memory system would, uh, would go to great lengths to make sure it works really well, you know, myself included. This is a request for, you know, I need help myself.

• 42:04Greg Isenberg?

  Totally. It gets me thinking that, you know, if you want to build a startup, maybe one, and you're looking for startup ideas that are going to work, maybe a good way is to just ask a particular type of founder, i.e. AI hardware founders or e-commerce founders and be like, what are the five biggest problems that you would pay money for to solve? What do you think about that?

• 42:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, honestly, this is the problem I would pay the most money to solve. It is my real problem. Like, you know, I've got a team and we are working on it, and I've been thinking about this for a while. I think the reason why I'm bringing it up as maybe a very strong priority is I have a lot more context and memories to deal with than, you know, just a web-based chatbot, given that I have an always-on microphone that is listening to everything you say. And that's a lot. That's just a lot of data, um, to parse through, especially because think of how often you change your mind, right, in real life. And if you're listening to those and trying to form memories off of that, well, man, I mean, you you need a really robust memory system.

• 43:07Speaker 01

  I think, you know, it's great that all these great ideas are hampered by, um, you know, these are kind of just like simple technical problems that I think will be solved, but,

• 43:18Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah.

• 43:19Speaker 01

  And I guess it is a technical problem, but I think it's more, I mean,

• 43:24Speaker 01

  I don't know if to tell you, I mean, skill issue, like every, every real idea is going to be technical.

• 43:30Greg Isenberg?

  Every real idea is going to be technical. What do you mean by that?

• 43:34Speaker 01

  I mean, I, I can't think of any startup ideas that would be inherently, I mean, like, okay, like, no matter what you're working on, even if it's like a shovel, you know, a really good shovel, somebody is going to need to engineer it. And like, sure, your role, if you're listening to this, might be, okay, you really know how to pitch this as a problem and you find some engineers that you hire and you know, your, your job is, you know, you raise funding and everything like that, you know? I'm not necessarily saying that you need to be the technical person working on it, but um, I mean, yeah, like I'm looking at a billion objects around me and I, I don't think any, anything of this is, is not inherently technical to have built in the first place.

• 44:11Greg Isenberg?

  But you don't think, you don't think that uh, business creation has like a spectrum of how technical things are? So for example, you know, Morning Brew, for example, is, I think they make like a hundred million dollars a year or something like that. And, but it's a newsletter business. They're not, they're just built on top of, you know, existing infrastructure versus, you know, building this memory idea.

• 44:37Speaker 01

  Uh, to me, technical is not like technology, like, like, like high technology necessarily, you know, like, uh, like programming, okay? Like, I'm looking around me, uh, there's a whiteboard over there, there's a air purifier, and there's a rug over here, a water bottle, an SD card, a rock that's shaped like a pyramid. Um, I don't know, all these things are inherently technical in, in many aspects. And like, even if you are business oriented, right? Like you still, there's still technical aspects to setting up a business and, you know, pitching in a sense, like these are, everything is, I mean, technical, just, I don't even know the definition of that is, just like, like details? I, I don't know how to describe it, just.

• 45:18Greg Isenberg?

  No, I love, I love, I love hearing, because you know, it's different than how I think, you know?

• 45:23Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 45:24Greg Isenberg?

  So.

• 45:26Greg Isenberg?

  And I, you know, it's part of the pod, like I want to bring on diversity of people, right? So if, I just want to make sure I was understanding you correctly. Basically, what you're saying is all businesses are technical. Therefore, in order to be like you need to be.

• 45:43Speaker 01

  Let me just like, like that all businesses are technical because business is technical. Is it not?

• 45:48Greg Isenberg?

  I think that some businesses are more technical than other businesses. So if you're gonna go in, like if I were to go to create Varda, which is like building like.

• 45:58Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 45:58Greg Isenberg?

  Warehouses and in space or whatever. I think that's way harder than building a newsletter, for example.

• 46:05Speaker 01

  I, I do agree with you. Sure. Sure. I think, um, yeah, I don't think like startup success also is correlated with like how technical, you know, your thing is right. Like, let's say morning brew, I guess you were mentioning is not, you know, inherently technical and maybe the same way that a lot of people perceive that definition. But, um, they, you know, might still succeed a lot more than someone that's building something so high tech. Like someone that's trying to build fusion reactors, let's say, or something really deep tech and weird and crazy. Or some, you know, mad scientist trying to come up with some weird idea.

• 46:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know, tech technical does not necessarily correlate with, with success. And maybe I think that's the path some people might mistakenly go down, you know? They think it needs to be more complicated than it really needs to be. But I, isn't the whole point of engineering too to simplify complexity anyways?

• 46:57Greg Isenberg?

  Totally. I think that's a beautiful place to end.

• 47:01Speaker 01

  Sure. Yeah.

• 47:04Greg Isenberg?

  Any, uh, anything, any last words for, for people? And, and, and where could people get to follow your thoughts?

• 47:12Speaker 01

  I don't know. Just don't be boring and don't work on something stupid. And you're, again, you're only going to work on so many things in your life. You know, you have a short bubble of consciousness while we're alive right now. Or who knows, maybe we'll extend that during our lifetimes. But, um, you know, in the short bubble of consciousness, just, just don't waste it. Something you don't feel confidently proud about. And, uh, if you, if you're.

• 47:34Speaker 01

  If you are, then I don't know. I think that's just your problem and no one else is gonna tell you anything otherwise. Um, in terms of where you can find me, uh, definitely friend.com for now, or if you have some pop-up thingy, I mean, sure, you can go to my Twitter, I would highly recommend. If you want to see me post videos about motorcycles for the most part, but um, yeah, thank you. Thank you, Greg. This is definitely great.

• 47:56Greg Isenberg?

  Avi, this is, yeah. I, I think this is, we'll go down as probably, we've never had an episode like this. Let's put it that way. We've never had an episode like this. So, uh, the comment section will be buzzing. And I think some people will be excited by what you say, and then some people will be like, I don't want that.

• 48:18Speaker 01

  As usual.

• 48:19Greg Isenberg?

  And, yeah.

• 48:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. I, I, I guess I would implore people that are familiar with who I am and what I'm working on to see that this is why I am completely unaffected by what you have to say about what I have to say. Um, for the most part, you know, I, I've been in the media now for like four or five years. And with a specifically friend, I will say that it has significantly upticked the amount of people that just do not like who I am and do not like what I'm working on. I get it's a very controversial industry, but 100% the way I view a lot of people's feedback is, it allows me to experience my own artwork from a different person's perspective and I, I love that. So, you know, I implore people to, uh, view it from that angle, but thank you, Greg.

• 48:58Greg Isenberg?

  Thank you, Avi. Appreciate it. See ya.

• 49:00Speaker 01

  See ya.