The AI Gold Rush Has Officially Started

Join me as I chat with Riley Brown to explore various opportunities in AI, from image generation to rebuilding essential software tools, while debating the future of content creation, customer support automation, and the concept of "vibe coding/marketing." Timestamps: 00:00 - Intro 02:05 - ChatGPT 4.0 image generation capabilities 07:30 - Rebuilding calendars, inboxes and CRMs 11:02 - Component Animation Library 12:59 - The "spaghetti video" and AI video progression 19:41 - Customer support automation 22:01 - The biggest trap for founders 24:43 - Sketching is the future of AI building 26:15 - Build Consumer AI Mobile Apps 27:42 - AI Market Dynamics 29:01 - Rebuilding traditional products with AI advantages 30:51 - AI tools and AI Agents will be cheaper than humans 31:56 - Vibe Marketing is a huge opportunity 35:41 - AI will replace the homepage 36:56 - AI's impact on education and entrepreneurship Key Points: • ChatGPT 4.0's image generation capabilities will birth thousands of vertical software businesses • Calendars, inboxes, and CRMs will be completely rebuilt with AI within three years • AI-generated video has progressed dramatically and will transform content creation • Most customer support will be fully automated within 36 months, including complex issues • Mobile-first AI apps represent the next wave of $100M+ consumer applications 1) ChatGPT 4.0 ImageGen is as REVOLUTIONARY as the original ChatGPT launch It will birth 1000+ vertical software businesses worth $1-100M each. Riley: "It's incredible for generating gradients, components, character sprite sheets..." The window to build these businesses is NOW. 2) Every calendar, inbox, and CRM will be COMPLETELY REBUILT in the next 3 years Not just AI-enhanced — fully rethought from scratch. We're talking about a $700B+ industry transformation. Look at Micro HQ approach: turning email into a smart dashboard with intelligence baked in. 3) The "Will Smith eating spaghetti" video evolution shows how FAST AI video is advancing 739 days ago: Hilariously bad AI video Today: Nearly perfect realism In another 739 days? Full movies created with prompts, perfect dialogue, and integrated music. The content creation landscape is about to be UNRECOGNIZABLE. 4) Most customer support will be fully automated within 36 months Not just basic tier-one tickets — we're talking complex, multi-step resolutions that currently require senior staff. The days of frustrating support calls may finally be ending as AI gets better at solving our problems instantly. 5) "The worst thing that can happen to your startup is mediocre success" Enough to keep you going, but not enough to change your life. Many founders get trapped in routines with projects they aren't passionate about. The key? Pivot to something that excites you to wake up every day. 6) The SKETCHING economy is the real AI revolution When anyone can turn rough sketches into production-ready designs, taste and ideation become the only scarce resources. Greg's insight: "I've been sketching more myself... if I sketch a thumbnail and throw it into GPT-4.0, I might get twice the engagement.” 7) Consumer mobile is BACK in full swing We went from: • Desktop-first apps (Facebook) • Mobile-first apps (Instagram) • Now AI-first mobile apps (Cal AI) The next wave of $100M+ apps will start mobile-first with AI baked in from day one. 8) AI is creating winner-take-most markets OVERNIGHT The window to establish yourself as the go-to solution in a specific vertical? 9) AI will kill the homepage as we know it Interfaces will be replaced by entry points that change based on who you are, what you need, and when you show up. Just as ads became hyper-personalized, websites and apps will adapt to each visitor in real-time. 10) Schools won't be disrupted by AI — they'll be DISINTERMEDIATED Smart teens will skip formal education to build audiences and run experiments. Kids say they want to be creators, but creators are becoming entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship is becoming the safest "job" in an AI-powered world. 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 RILEY ON SOCIAL Vibe Code App: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/vibecode/id6742912146 X/Twitter: https://x.com/rileybrown_ai Instagram: https://x.com/rileybrown_ai

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

• 0:00Greg Isenberg?

  I gotta be honest, I haven't been sleeping well and you probably haven't either. This AI gold rush is happening right now. ChatGPT 4.0 image search comes out, all these vibe coding tools. What do you do? And all the opportunity there is to build cash flowing businesses, profitable businesses has got me just chilling in my bed and looking up at the ceiling. So I have about 40 plus thoughts of where the world is going and where the opportunities are. And I brought my friend Riley Brown, one of the top AI vibe coders, content creators,

• 0:41Greg Isenberg?

  has hundreds of thousands of followers to come and just chat with me and just let it let it out there. And so I think that for anyone who feels a bit overwhelmed, knows that there's opportunity right now in the whole AI space that wants to just to just be here and just learn what we're thinking about and how we're thinking about things, where we see the opportunities. You're going to love this episode. So Startup Ideas Podcast, let's do it.

• 1:23Greg Isenberg?

  We got Riley Brown on the pod and today we're going to talk about what's been keeping me up at night these days. So there's been a ton of AI announcements over the last few weeks, few months. Riley's my go to guy when I just need, I need him to give me some sanity and I want his opinion on this. And I wrote this, you know, long thread. I think it's 40 some odd, different hot takes about AI and why it's keeping me up at night, why there's a tremendous amount of opportunity right now. And Riley, we're going to go through each of these and hopefully I can get your opinion on it so I can get a good night's sleep tonight.

• 2:03Speaker 01

  Let's do it. I'm in.

• 2:05Greg Isenberg?

  So the first one, and we're not going to get through all of them. Maybe we'll just go through a few today. And if people like this sort of thing, comment and let us know if we should continue, you know, doing this sort of stuff. The first one is ChatGPT 4O Image Gen is as big as a ChatGPT launch. Probably will birth 1,000 plus, 1 to 100 million dollar a year of vertical software businesses. Riley, what do you think about that?

• 2:30Speaker 01

  All I know, all I know is I'm very excited to use it for design in my, both web apps and mobile apps. It is incredible at generating like gradients and really cool components, little characters. It can generate sprite sheets because I think a lot of people are super into games. And I was using it to create little character sprite sheets. So you can actually control the character and you can like animate characters. And so there's so many use cases, so 100% agree on the first one.

• 3:02Greg Isenberg?

  So why this is keeping me up at night is because, basically, I think that there's like a window of time that these businesses could be spun up. And I think that we just saw this week ChatGPT where OpenAI raised. How much did they raise again?

• 3:23Speaker 01

  At a $300 billion valuation, 40 billion, I think.

• 3:28Greg Isenberg?

  40 billion. So OpenAI is going to be everything to everyone. They're going to be that platform. I think that there's an opportunity to build, you know, the something for a very specific niche. So I just, I think that right now, you know, playing with 4O Image, totally worth it. Trying to figure out what are some interesting weird use cases for it. It's keeping me up at night.

• 3:52Speaker 01

  What's one, what do you think one, like, do you have any weird use case for GPT 4O that like you think not a lot of people are thinking about?

• 4:02Greg Isenberg?

  So I had this guy on the, on this pod, on the pod, what's his name? Just had him, Jacob Posel, that's it. And I've just been following what, have you been following this guy?

• 4:16Speaker 01

  I have not been following him.

• 4:18Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah, so I've just been, there's a picture of him. Oh no, that's not him. He's retweeting a Jim Bro turned tech nerd, not AI generated.

• 4:29Speaker 01

  That's necessary now. Oh, that's hilarious.

• 4:32Greg Isenberg?

  So I'm, yeah, so.

• 4:34Speaker 01

  Oh, wow. Okay.

• 4:37Greg Isenberg?

  Let's, so what are you seeing on the screen for the audio, for the audio listeners?

• 4:41Speaker 01

  So for the, yeah, for the audio listeners, we're seeing presumably a GPT-4O image of a can of energy water. So it's like an energy drink with arms and legs riding a surfboard. And just if it were, like, pause it for a sec, like, just that image is fire. And does it say what model they're using to turn it into a video? I don't see that, but I'm assuming that they're just using one of those video generators to turn a still image, a really high, high-quality studio image. Like, if you, three years ago, if you got a design agency to do this, I mean, just this GIF,

• 5:26Speaker 01

  you're looking at thousands of dollars. But yeah, that's really cool.

• 5:32Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah, so I'm pretty sure they're using Hendra or, and/or Kling to do this.

• 5:40Greg Isenberg?

  So let's just talk about this as one example. Like, you can create, I mean, you can do a service business that is like, hey, like, we'll, you know, do GIFs on demand for e-commerce companies. That itself is probably a really big business.

• 5:57Greg Isenberg?

  I think that, you know, 4O just for CPG companies, like, hey, you know, we're the place where,

• 6:06Greg Isenberg?

  where if you want to, like, come up with ideas for packaging, like, Orca is a startup. So, yeah, maybe they hired an agency, paid half a million dollars for, you know, this really cool design that they later put into 4O. But I think that, you know, 4O is getting good enough that you can just use it to mock up CPG design. So I just, you know, I think that.

• 6:35Greg Isenberg?

  There's probably an opportunity there.

• 6:37Speaker 01

  Totally. Hundred percent agree.

• 6:40Greg 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.

• 7:25Greg Isenberg?

  So you can check out the link to startupempire.co in the description. All right, let's continue back on the list. I want to talk about this one, number three. "Every calendar inbox in CRM will be rebuilt from scratch in the next three years. Not AI-enhanced, fully rethought." What do you think?

• 7:49Speaker 01

  I want, yeah, I want all of these to be rebuilt. And I want it, I want every, I want all of my communication channels to be in one feed. And I definitely, like, it's insane. I have like six emails. I'm in 30 Slack groups.

• 8:08Speaker 01

  I just really think if people really want to keep up with like online communication, we need, I need this. So I need that to happen. And so I've talked to a lot of people who agree. So I definitely think there's a huge demand for it. And so I definitely agree with that.

• 8:29Greg Isenberg?

  I saw my buddy Brad Goldstein launch Micro HQ this week.

• 8:35Speaker 01

  I saw this. Very good. Did they do like a video demo for it?

• 8:40Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah, yeah, they did.

• 8:42Speaker 01

  It was really good.

• 8:44Greg Isenberg?

  So here it is.

• 8:46Speaker 01

  And so it's the basic premise is like you just have your different inbox on the side view.

• 8:53Speaker 01

  It looks clean, actually.

• 8:55Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah, I think, I think, I think the basic premise, I haven't gone deep in it, but I think the basic premise is like going into email is daunting and it's really in within email like it hasn't really changed that much. It's got a list of like, like your email is your to do list, to do list app. It is your everything app, as he calls it. So it's like, how do you use AI and intelligence and also just like good design to, to, to, I guess, bring email to the next level?

• 9:27Speaker 01

  Totally. And like categorize things, prioritize things. I think there's a huge need for it. I think, I mean, Notion created their own email platform and I've heard some people like it, some people don't. I think there's just gonna be like, I think all of the email clients should build this, but I'm excited for it to like include more than just email, like debt, like one that really prioritizes calendar. Superhuman's pretty good at that as well. It's just doesn't have that dashboard feel that this product looks like it has. I don't know if you use Superhuman at all?

• 10:04Greg Isenberg?

  No, I don't. I don't. I probably should, but I, I'm a Gmail guy and Gmail, like, I'm looking at this and this is interesting to me, you know, like the idea that like my calendar is there, that it's like being smart. Like, I like the idea of something like this. And that just goes back to my

• 10:28Greg Isenberg?

  My tweet, which is, I think that now with intelligence, AKA AI, there's just an opportunity to look at calendar, inbox, any CRM. And by the way, this is like literally like a $700 billion plus industry will be rebuilt from scratch. So from a startup idea perspective is like, okay, how many niche CRM tools are there? How many niche inbox tools are there? How could you think about integrating intelligence, making it more of a dashboard, making it more beautiful, vibe coding it? By the way, side note, have you played with 21st.dev?

• 11:07Speaker 01

  21st.dev? It's the component library. Yes, I've seen this. I haven't used it.

• 11:14Greg Isenberg?

  Also keeping me up at night, which is like, you can just use, you can like, look at these animations. I think that what makes a great web app is a lot of the animations and the movements of it. And now you can go and just like grab these components and implement it super easily. So not only are you adding intelligence to your startup, but you're adding like delightfulness and beauty, the dashboard nature. This is, this is what's keeping me up.

• 11:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I think, I think component libraries are huge for just design in general, especially. I think vibe coding as a whole needs a lot more component libraries. And I think eventually AI agents will have access to component libraries like this. So they'll be able to just select really cool components like this and place them on your web apps, your mobile apps and things like that. So yeah, definitely super bullish on component libraries in general.

• 12:21Greg Isenberg?

  Like, look at this pricing page.

• 12:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's fire.

• 12:25Greg Isenberg?

  It's fire.

• 12:26Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 12:27Greg Isenberg?

  Like, I need to implement this on every single one of my SaaS apps for like yesterday.

• 12:34Greg Isenberg?

  And by the way, you can charge more when you like implement stuff like this.

• 12:38Speaker 01

  Hundred percent. I mean, this is no easy feat, though, like to build this library. I can't, I don't, I wonder how many hours it took to create all these. I bet thousands, honestly.

• 12:49Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah. So people looking for startup ideas, think about inboxes, calendars and CRMs.

• 12:59Greg Isenberg?

  What other one here looks interesting to you?

• 13:02Speaker 01

  Ooh, let's talk about the spaghetti video.

• 13:05Greg Isenberg?

  Okay, give us the rundown about, you know, remind people what the spaghetti video is and what, you know, which was 739 days ago, and give us a prediction of what do you think could happen in 739 more days?

• 13:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, I think there's always been a battle between the AI hype guys. And if you think about it on a spectrum, I'm pretty far towards the AI hype versus AI cynicism. And the AI cynicism crowd posted this video, I think, very early on, or someone, uh, someone hyped up in video generator and posted it on Twitter. And it was Will Smith eating spaghetti and it looked hilariously bad. Like, it was so bad, it was unreal. And, um, yeah. And then over time, and then the, the AI cynics use that as an example of like, okay,

• 13:58Speaker 01

  AI is so bad, it's never going to get good at creating AI-generated video. And anytime you have that, like, even balance between positive and negative, you're going to get a ton of virality. It's just going to be a part of the culture. And then slowly but surely, like a lot of other things in AI, the goalposts just keep getting moved back because slowly but surely, people kept posting Will Smith eating spaghetti. And then I think around the VO3 era, maybe, I don't know, six months ago, someone posted a Will Smith video and it was perfect. It was Will Smith eating spaghetti and it looked... Like ninety-five percent there, like realistic down to the noodle, I'm telling you.

• 14:39Speaker 01

  And so seven hundred and so like if you look back and it was seven hundred and thirty-nine days ago, seems like a lot, but it's really not, you know, that's, um, what is that? I mean, that's not even two years, not even two years. And yeah, I mean, if we think like people are going to be creating movies with prompts of seven hundred and thirty-nine days from now with perfect dialogue, with perfect speech, with great background music, like all of the models are going to be integrated into these videos, um, and it's going to completely disrupt social media. I mean, do you think anything I said there was far-fetched?

• 15:18Greg Isenberg?

  No, to me, not at all. To me, I'm kind of thinking about like, is there going to be a rise of faceless video, right? Like if I, if I could direct a twenty-five-minute incredible, uh, story about a particular topic in a niche I understand, um, why, why wouldn't I just like run a content farm?

• 15:42Speaker 01

  The pro, I have, I think there's a lot of problems with this. Uh, this theory, because I think a hundred percent it's possible. My thing about this is I think social media platforms are going to start de-boosting faceless accounts, because I don't think people want faceless accounts. If you think about social media, people, people think they want social media to just see like content, but there's something like about human nature, about why we watch videos. People want to feel connected to other humans. And you also will like, you're like, why don't I start a content farm? The content farms are going to be won by content farmers.

• 16:26Speaker 01

  Once you read, once you meet a real content farmer who's running hundreds of thousands accounts at once, you realize that this is an like winner-take-all type situation. It's the same people who run the Instagram bots on the accounts. They're going to create algorithmic stories. Stories that people enjoy because the content farmers have a data advantage. Right. If you think about this like from a content creation, you have your script, you have your visuals, you have everything. And these content farmers, every single account that posts, they're going to learn from that. And so these like, think about it like Mr. Beast, you know how he learns from the retention metrics on all of his videos?

• 17:06Speaker 01

  Imagine having a content farm, but every video informs the next video and these accounts are doing it at scale. And so in my opinion, like Gary Vee has this quote where he's just like, AI influencers are going to be the next big thing, like Sally Jones is going to be running account for some AI avatar. I'm like, that's not how it's going to work at all. It's going to be a group of 10 people overseas somewhere who are running millions of accounts to the point where it floods social media. Where Mark Zuckerberg is going to be like, oh, like we have to tone this back like, or else it's just going to flood the internet with brain rot. And maybe that's the end game, but like, I think people would go somewhere else if that was the end game.

• 17:49Speaker 01

  So that's what goes through my head there. Maybe that's somewhat cynical. But when I met a real content farmer and he showed me the quality of videos he was making already with AI video. I was like, I was like, this is going to get bad. So.

• 18:07Greg Isenberg?

  But in 739 more days, when all these tools, all these content creation tools are so good, won't 99% of content be AI generated? Like even, even your mom might,

• 18:25Greg Isenberg?

  you know, take a picture of herself or something and be like, I want to make this like a one minute movie or whatever.

• 18:31Speaker 01

  Totally. Anyone will be able to create them. And I think there's going to be a market for these videos. My question is, will it be on the popular social media platforms? That's my question. I'm, if I could bet, I would bet on your podcast. That is real humans coming together, talking about things in real life. I would bet on Joe Rogan. I would bet on unscripted content that feels real. If I could put my money on anything, I'm actually not focused on AI video really that much.

• 19:10Speaker 01

  That's just like, I only have a finite amount of attention. And so like, I would rather focus on like, the human long form podcasting. Like, that is genuinely what I am super bullish on. And I, yeah, I just really think, like, it's like being, I just, I don't know. I just think it's going to be mass produced and it's going to be hypnotizingly good content. And so I just think the rules are going to be adjusted in that era. And so, yeah.

• 19:42Greg Isenberg?

  Uh, number 10, most customer support will be automated within 36 months. Not just tier one tickets, complex, multi-step resolution that previously required senior support staff. What do you think?

• 19:55Speaker 01

  No brainer. Yeah. For sure. I mean, no doubt.

• 20:01Greg Isenberg?

  And honestly, like, I don't know about you, but it feels like customer service in general has just gone like, post-COVID has gone so, it's like in the toilet. So if,

• 20:15Greg Isenberg?

  if instead of like, I'm calling this, this hotline and someone who like barely speaks English is talking to me, and it's frustrating for them, and it's frustrating for me, if AI actually helps me get to what I need quickly,

• 20:31Greg Isenberg?

  that would be dope. Obviously, there's the downside of like, I don't know where those people, like, those people are going to lose their jobs.

• 20:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, we could say that for a lot of things in the near term. Like, we could be worried about people losing their jobs, but like, at the end of the day, we're trying to talk about what we think is actually going to happen.

• 20:49Greg Isenberg?

  Right.

• 20:50Speaker 01

  And

• 20:50Greg Isenberg?

  Okay, so we get, we get a pass. If you're listening to this, we're just talking about the opportunities here. We know that people are going to lose their jobs and some people are going to evolve. Like, that, like, that customer service agent might evolve into another job, right? So like,

• 21:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I, yeah, at the end of the day, you have to be truthful. Like, neither Greg nor I in this episode are going to change what's going to happen. We're talking about what is not what ought to happen. And yes, what I'm excited about in general is just the, kind of the, the same way that, Books were completely changed with AI. Instead of having to swipe through the pages to find anything, you could immediately get your answer by talking to AI. The same thing's going to happen to websites and frequently asked questions for websites. Like, you're going to be able to get your answer right away. So a lot of the community service is just going to be, you know, going to a website and chatting with a chatbot. It's going to know exactly what you need right away.

• 21:47Speaker 01

  So I don't think there's going to be too much of a need for as many of the calls. A lot of it's just going to be solved at the chatbot level, especially as people get used to talking to a chatbot more, which is, we've seen recently, it's massively growing.

• 22:01Greg Isenberg?

  Okay, let's do this one. This one's not so much AI, but I'm throwing it in there as a bonus. "The worst thing that can happen to your startup is mediocre success. Enough to keep you going, but not enough to change your life. Most founders are trapped there, thinking about this a lot with respect to shutting down or doubling down on projects." That's me saying that, "I'm thinking about this a lot." What do you think?

• 22:25Speaker 01

  I did it. We pivoted. The last app that we created, we're actually still building it. And like, there's a lot of people on the App Store who like it. And it was going well, but none of us were passionate about it. We ended up building something that we just weren't passionate. We thought it would be a quick project, and it just took longer. So we decided to do something more ambitious that we were excited to wake up every day to do. And yeah, and now I'm like, probably the greatest decision of my life, if I had to guess, looking back.

• 23:02Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah, and I think a lot of us get caught up in our routines because like, we commit to something, and we're just kind of like, another day working on this thing, another day working on this thing. But deep down, we know that this isn't fun, or it's not really like unlocking our ultimate potential. Dude, there's a project I'm working on right now where the lead engineer who's working on it sends us a daily loom with like, the update, and it's literally like...

• 23:35Greg Isenberg?

  I look forward to my day for that loom. You know what I mean? Like, all I care about is that loom. It is such a, it is so exciting to me. And that's what, you know, that's when I was like, you know what? I want to spend more time on this project and then sort of shut down other projects that might be, have, you know, might have millions of dollars of revenue and or hundreds of thousands of users, but I don't want to like focus on it.

• 24:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so this, there's always a, it's always, there's always the opposite too. Like, some people need to just, they have a good idea and something that they would really like to do, but if they just keep pushing through it, they'll reach momentum in their business and then it'll become more fun. So it's, it's important not to give up too early on a project, like before it becomes really fun, but also not spending years. I also see this in content creation a lot. A lot of content creators do not enjoy making content, but they've previously made the decision that they're going to just make content for a super long time when they should probably work on something they really like. And I think it would bring out a lot of their creativity. Totally.

• 24:43Greg Isenberg?

  Number, number 14, I think you'll like this one. The sketching economy is the real AI revolution. When anyone can turn sketches into production ready designs, taste and ideation become the only scarce resources. And the insight I had here was I've been sketching more myself, just like literally sketching. And I, I want to get better at sketching because I'm realizing that if I sketch a thumbnail and throw it into chat GPT 40

• 25:17Greg Isenberg?

  for YouTube and it's a really good sketch, I might get twice the amount of views or twice the amount of comments or twice the amount of likes. So the value of sketching, meaning taking out a piece of paper or using an iPad and sort of sketching out, to me is, is the most underappreciated art right now.

• 25:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think of sketching as just kind of mapping your ideas. And I think 100%, and that's why I have three whiteboards behind me. I sketch all the time. And I think it goes beyond just literal sketching. Like, if you think of all of these voice notes apps, where people are kind of brainstorming their ideas and then getting AI to refine it, it's very similar to that process, where you draw your idea quickly, quick sketch, whether verbal, audio, however, whatever format, and then AI refines it and creates and brings it to life. Very bullish.

• 26:15Greg Isenberg?

  Dude, you're gonna like number 16. Consumer mobile is back in full swing. We went from desktop-first apps to mobile-first apps to now AI-first mobile apps. What I mean by desktop-first, I mean like, think facebook.com, mobile-first. Think Instagram, now AI-first mobile apps. Think CalAI. The next wave of $100 million a year apps will start mobile-first with AI baked in from day one. What do you think?

• 26:45Speaker 01

  Hey, I mean, if I didn't believe this one, I wouldn't be working on the Vive Code app. But yeah, I agree wholeheartedly. And I also think a ton of smaller, like, fun apps that are like very, very niche. And I think you've been talking about this on Twitter a lot too, about how just software in general is gonna become really, really niche. Because you'll be able to create multiple variations of your software and actually like really tailor it to the type of user, whatever niche the user's in. And so I think a lot of people are gonna carve out niches and maybe they're making, you know, six figures a year, building a simple app that's like tailored for specific niches.

• 27:29Speaker 01

  So I'm super bullish on consumer mobile and consumer web for that matter, for sure.

• 27:36Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah, so I agree with like, obviously, I really, I really believe in like the vertical strategy. I will say, number nineteen, AI is creating winner take most markets overnight. The window to establish yourself as the go to solution in a specific vertical is maybe six to twelve months before it closes for a decade, or who knows. This isn't helping my sleep. That, you know, that's, and then I said LOL, because I do think that the big horizontal platforms, the chat GPTs and the clothes and the Geminis of the world are going to, basically, you know, they're going to create agent, they're going to be, you

• 28:19Greg Isenberg?

  know, agent platforms, basically, that will, that you could use to do specific vertical tasks. That's why I think right now is such a great time to build an AI startup.

• 28:29Speaker 01

  I agree. And if you're inclined to like, follow, if you follow Greg, you're probably really into business, or you're really into AI, never forget how different early adopters are than the late, the masses. And I think there is a massive opportunity for taking, some of the popular apps right now are complicated to use for the normal person. So like, really simplifying the use case, I think there's a ton of value in that. And that's, you know, one of our core thesis.

• 29:02Greg Isenberg?

  Number twenty, really smart strategy is to rebuild traditional products with AI as your unfair advantage, hiding the complexity behind familiar interfaces. I was actually thinking about mobile apps when I wrote this. Basically, just look at proven apps that have no AI, make them AI first, if it adds a ton of value to the end customer. I put that in brackets.

• 29:27Speaker 01

  What's a good example? Let's think of a good example of one. I just kind of want to like mentally go through this.

• 29:33Greg Isenberg?

  Okay. Well, the obvious example is Cal AI.

• 29:38Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 29:39Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah. I mean, you're, you.

• 29:43Greg Isenberg?

  But pre Cal AI, you would just have an app that was essentially a database that you'd basically put in and say, I just ate a cupcake and a cupcake is 300 calories. Or it would be a database of like, you know, Krispy Kremes are 300 calories. Let me just add that. The fact, the, the idea of take a photo and then it figures that out for you was the innovation.

• 30:08Speaker 01

  Totally. And I thought, the thing that immediately comes to mind is something like Canva. Or, uh, you know, that, that like, you know, you pull out your phone, you create some graphic and you add multiple elements to it where GPT-4O is going to be able to just generate all of those in one. And maybe you start with a sketch, but it immediately generates. And then you can ideally split or, uh, separate the layers and then move them around. And I think, I think graphics, there's a lot of alpha and that goes back to the, the first one, which was GPT-4O. I think GPT-4O is going to do this a ton across many verticals.

• 30:46Greg Isenberg?

  Let's do two or three more.

• 30:50Speaker 01

  Cool.

• 30:52Greg Isenberg?

  Number 22, we'll soon hit the tipping point where custom AI tools, I also meant like AI agents, but custom AI tools and AI agents are cheaper than hiring humans even for small businesses. What I, what I meant by this is I think that we're going to get to the point where, uh, instead of, and we're getting to that point, we're in this point where instead of hiring a designer, you might just be like, you know what, I'm just going to use V-Zero.

• 31:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. I, I think, I think for when people are getting started, I think it's a good idea. I, it wasn't until recently when I started working with like really talented designers. And, um, I just think if you're a really, really good designer, like use AI all day and really amplify the amount of clients that you're, uh, that you're like helping out. I, I think, I think does, I think the ultimate combo right now is just being really good with AI and being a really good designer, a hundred percent.

• 31:51Greg Isenberg?

  You want to pick one and then I'll pick the last one?

• 31:53Speaker 01

  Sounds good.

• 31:56Speaker 01

  If vibe coding will be $100 billion opportunity, how big of an opportunity is vibe marketing? Yes, let's talk about vibe marketing.

• 32:07Greg Isenberg?

  So dude.

• 32:08Speaker 01

  Okay, okay, okay. Can I, can I preface this one?

• 32:11Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah.

• 32:12Speaker 01

  Okay, so Greg and Boring Marketer, Jordan Mix, they've been talking a lot about vibe marketing. And I think, I want to, I want to first say, I think what you guys are talking about is very important. I love automations. I use automations, but, but I think vibe coding is very fun. I think setting up automations is quite boring. And so that's why I was just saying, I don't like the name for vibe marketing because it doesn't, there's something about vibe, vibe coding that's free. You just kind of vibe code and you add things and you, you just kind of see what happens, you know? And vibe marketing is very like structured and you, it saves you a ton of time.

• 32:55Speaker 01

  I would pay a lot of money for an agency to teach me about it and save me money and time. But that was my only beef with vibe marketing. I don't want to make it sound like I think it's a waste of time.

• 33:06Greg Isenberg?

  I mean, for context, there was a fight that was happening on X between all of us where Riley was basically anti, he, he basically was saying, you know, vibe marketing is, is a, is a, is a term made up by marketers. I think I even responded, I said, yeah, yeah.

• 33:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was only beefing with the term, not the, the acts that you were talking about because I saved all of Boring Marketers images. Like those have been great. I'm just like, this is not a good name. But they were talking about it on CNBC. And so maybe it'll take off. I don't know.

• 33:42Greg Isenberg?

  Totally, which is hilarious because we had talked about vibe marketing in like a group chat a while ago. And we're like, we're going to talk more about vibe marketing and just see if it like picks up.

• 33:53Speaker 01

  Do it.

• 33:53Greg Isenberg?

  And then all, and then all of a sudden it's on CNBC. And there was like a Forbes article with like all of our stuff on it. So it could happen.

• 34:00Speaker 01

  Honestly, me, me hating on it would actually probably make it more, you need some haters or else it's not going to catch on, you know?

• 34:07Greg Isenberg?

  I will say one thing about, you know, the boring nature of vibe marketing. I know someone who's an accountant and to me. Like I need to do my taxes right now and it's like I'm always pushing it off. It is the most, it takes the energy away from me so much. You know, I'm a creative, you're a creative. You understand that, right? But this person who I'm thinking of, he absolutely loves being an accountant. He loves tax law. He loves just understanding and looking at audits and stuff like that. To him, it's really interesting, just like to the boring marketer or to Jordan, they love that. So that's my take on vibe marketing. Anyways, to enter this.

• 34:50Speaker 01

  Honestly, honestly, I, fair enough. And you know what? If they make a good enough platform for vibe auditing, I'm in. Like, count me in, yeah.

• 34:59Greg Isenberg?

  How big of an opportunity is vibe marketing? I think it's a massive opportunity. I don't know how big it is. Yeah.

• 35:05Speaker 01

  It's massive. I like, like, I agree with everything that you guys have been talking about. I actually met with the founder of Lindy when I was in San Francisco last week. Super cool dude. And like what they're working on with, with agent swarms and a lot of that. I think vibe marketing is kind of in the email and CRM space too. Like handling a lot of that work and making, just getting rid of all of the boring stuff. I think, I think it's all great and a massive industry. Probably as big as vibe coding.

• 35:38Greg Isenberg?

  You've come a long way, my friend. You've come a long way. All right, last one. AI, number 33. AI will kill the homepage. Interfaces will get replaced by entry points that change based on who you are, what you need, and when you show up.

• 35:54Speaker 01

  Oh, like, okay, a personalized homepage for me. Hmm. I guess I really haven't thought about that. I just pictured all homepages just kind of having a chat-like experience, but that's, I like that though. Yeah, can you explain that a little more?

• 36:14Greg Isenberg?

  Totally.

• 36:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:16Greg Isenberg?

  So.

• 36:18Greg Isenberg?

  My take is the ad market is extremely personalized. And the reason why it became very personalized is just because it's like a trillion dollar industry. So Facebook invested and Google invested in in taking your data, honestly, and making the experience really personalized.

• 36:41Greg Isenberg?

  I think a similar thing is going to happen with web and mobile apps where when I and it's it's it's starting to already happen like when I open up.

• 36:55Greg Isenberg?

  Let's just say I go to I'm trying to think of like the vacation vacation is like a sunscreen company.

• 37:04Greg Isenberg?

  The products it sells me because I live in Miami, Florida, it can get that data should be different than the products it might sell you because you're in. Did you move to Austin?

• 37:17Speaker 01

  I'm I'm in Austin, but I'm moving to San Francisco to grow the company. Yeah.

• 37:22Greg Isenberg?

  Okay, so you know, San Francisco, for example. So it also knows that like I might listen to the vacation playlist. So when I go to the website, it should play my favorite song. So it's just, I think what I'm trying to say here is that websites and apps are getting smarter and smarter. And the foundation of that will be AI and personalization.

• 37:51Speaker 01

  I actually, I hundred percent agree. And I also think even if it's just selling one product, the product photos will change depending on who you are. Because it's so easy to create variations of these product photos. So yeah, I agree hundred percent.

• 38:04Greg Isenberg?

  Okay, should we do one last one, even though I said we wouldn't?

• 38:07Speaker 01

  I'm in.

• 38:08Greg Isenberg?

  Okay, last one around schools, just because I dropped out of college, so schools, I think about it a lot. Number 38, schools won't be disrupted by AI, they'll be disintermediated. Smart teens will skip formal education, build audiences, run experiments, learn faster. Kids say they want to become creators, the creators are becoming entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship becomes the most popular profession. That was kind of a rant when I started writing that, but the idea here is that kids are saying they want to be creators, but what that really means is they're going to become founders. And a lot of kids in schools are not going to go to college and/or they're just gonna be running experiments, vibe coding,

• 38:53Greg Isenberg?

  vibe marketing, putting stuff out there, trying to make money.

• 38:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. I actually do think they're gonna be disrupted. Are you following what's going on with the Alpha School? It's actually in Austin. It was a big Twitter post, but like, they're getting like young kids who are all like, they have two hours of work per day where they just learn from an AI. All of the students are doing better. They're off the chart smarter. And a lot of them are creators, ironically, because and like every semester in this school, you like, at like 14, 15, you're starting companies, like you're starting a food truck. And so I do think, and maybe it'll be like a really luxury school, like

• 39:39Speaker 01

  it'll be above what we think of as private school now, but I do think AI will disrupt it. But I do also agree with everything else you said about people wanting to become creators/entrepreneurs. I do think it's just, I think Peter Levels tweeted it last week where he said, being an entrepreneur is a safer job than actually having a job. And I really, I mean, obviously you need to have like some good foundations, but I do think there's some truth to that. Because I don't feel at risk of losing income right now because I know that I could adapt in so many ways. And I think that that is kind of how we should teach kids, to use AI to like be adaptive, especially at a young age. Like you are adaptive

• 40:24Speaker 01

  at a young age. So yeah, I guess that's my take.

• 40:27Greg Isenberg?

  100%. All right, Riley Brown, that's the pod. What'd you think?

• 40:33Speaker 01

  Hey, man, I enjoyed it. I enjoy talking to you. I enjoy getting behind the scenes in your famous Twitter threads. I love it.

• 40:42Greg Isenberg?

  If you can't fall asleep, if you're like us, just super excited to wake up, running through doors, please let us let us know. Riley, anything, we'll include all your social links in the show notes, but is there anything else you you're, you know, you want to leave people with?

• 41:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I, we just launched two days ago, launched Vibe Code app, which is the first ever app that builds mobile apps directly on your phone. We are, we were gonna release it in waves. We got way too many signups for us to handle it. So we're racing to scale the servers. We're gonna release it on the App Store. It's available for preorder. And yeah, we're trying to put something at the level of Claude code or cursor on your phone to build mobile apps. So that's what I'm gonna be working on for the foreseeable future.

• 41:35Greg Isenberg?

  Beautiful. By the way, you know, there's a running joke that people make fun of me, how I say Claude. I call it Claude.

• 41:43Speaker 01

  Oh, you say Claude. Yeah, I think I've heard that before.

• 41:46Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah, it's highly embarrassing. It's like, it's like, you know, it's like going to a coffee shop and ordering like a cappuccino and a croissant.

• 41:56Speaker 01

  A croissant. I like the sound of croissant. I don't like the sound of Claude.

• 42:01Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah, most people don't. All right, Riley, this is, this has been fun. Until next time. Appreciate you.

• 42:08Speaker 01

  Peace.

• 42:09Greg Isenberg?

  Peace.