The Startup Ideas Podcast
"Y Combinator Is Overrated" - Inside the brain of this 20-Year-Old Who Built Multiple Viral Products
Mon, 30 Dec 2024
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 ServiceKey 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 methodology1) 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 products2) On building in existing categories:The real advantage of startups?• Fresh slate in people's minds• Ability to define new categories• Instant category leadership3) MINDSHARE is the only true moat Example:• Claude is better than ChatGPT in quality• But ChatGPT owns mindshare• Google trends: ChatGPT = 100, Claude = ~0Lesson: Better product ≠ Winning product4) 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 adviceHow 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 places7) 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/30startupideasLCA 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.coFIND ME ON SOCIALX/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenbergInstagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisenberg/FIND AVI ON SOCIALFriend: https://friend.comX/Twitter: https://x.com/AviSchiffmann
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.
you know, if you view your work as art, you have no competition and you have no fear of failure. 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 great ever thought 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 listener guide in a sense. And I think will take you further than anything you'll ever hear from someone else.
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.
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.
For sure. Thanks, Greg. Yeah, it's cool to be on a podcast. I just talk about ideas, I guess. Big idea guy here, of course. 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... Yeah, let's talk about that.
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 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 May of last year in 2023. And since then, there's been a gazillion, you know, large companies and random kids and idiots, 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, you know, maybe I'm not going to be too harsh on them, although, you know, they're trying to copy me still. But, you know, they moved on to like other ideas.
But, you know, if I was so worried about all those competitors, which I never once was, you know, I think that would have ruined my startup a lot more. Maybe I would have eventually, you know, killed my own startup. I think people are far too worried about that. And I think the true reason for 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, uh, I guess. Um, but, uh, you know, 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 anything like that. Well, I mean, at the same time, like, you know, it's not perfect, maybe, in other people's eyes. I think it's perfect to your eyes, which might be a bit harder. But, you know, I think that's the way to go.
I also think that Y Combinator is evil and has ruined startups. I think it's turned it into this absolute slop. And, 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. 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 that 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 ship and, uh, you know, Maybe if you do also want to kill your startup, then kill it.
But I think like just truly freeing your mind away from competition like that and truly just building what you truly want to build and not being impacted by like, I don't know, this like YC pocket advice book. I see all these founders like pinned to their... Yeah, yeah, I don't know. I mean, like, I guess it's helpful for some people.
I think like, you know, there's definitely a genre of startups these days, where a lot of people are building SaaS, and it's very templated. And I guess if you need to be, you know, have your hand held, I mean, go for it. But there was there was one more point I wanted to make. Okay, I think there's a huge difference between entrepreneurship and innovation.
And I think this is something that a lot of people maybe get kind of 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 innovate. And maybe in that sense, it's a lot easier to view your work as art because you are truly creating something new.
I think for a lot of people that are maybe not inherently motivated by fulfillment in that sense and are really just trying to make a quick buck, which, you know, if you want to do that, that's fine. I think it's probably fine to follow advice like that.
What do you think of founders who aren't trying to reinvent the wheel? who, you know, they're trying to create a SaaS business that is 5, 10 million bucks a year.
I just think, like, we're on the cusp of AGI. Are you 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 that are, 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. Um, and, uh,
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.
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or it's for people who have a startup, but just they're not seeing the traction that they need. So you can check out the link to StartupEmpire.co in the description.
Well, I mean, I think it's easier, you know, to create something new than it is to make something better. And I think maybe it's scarier, let's say, 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, rather than necessarily trying to build a better chatbot.
Although I know I did launch friend.com, but kind of ignore that for a second. If I was truly trying to compete with building a chatbot chatbot, it's kind of existed since the 60s with Eliza. You're trying to build something better.
You're trying to build a better user interface that looks nicer, the chats are a little nicer maybe, which is kind of what I went through actually with building, let's say, Fern.com. 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, chat, we see a writer or just all these all these chat bots. But, you know, if I'm trying to build something entirely new that's like a embodied AI friend. 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 fancy.
I don't necessarily have to have the best user interface or any of these things. It's a bit easier to just have 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. And I don't know why anyone builds in categories that already exist unless you're like a like a cuck. You know, you're truly cucking yourself if you're if you're building an existing category. There's already a king.
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?
I mean, 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 don't know what to tell you. I think there still is clear differential like categories for sure. Well, maybe, you know, when you truly, 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.
And let's say the consumer social category. Is TikTok... a new, in a new category or is it, you know, like how, how would you see TikTok versus Instagram?
Um, 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, um, actually succeeded in, I think truly the kind of becoming king in a way that I, that TikTok is great. Um, 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. you know, 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 note-taking app than, like, a note-taking app powered by AI or something. Like, that's not really enough of a...
a change a categorical change right yeah i think what you're saying is kind of like try to try to build try to build and be a category of one so to speak so yeah it's easier is that yeah 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 um i think uh
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, encumbrance 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 an entirely new category. Like to me, the the new category that I'm really trying to to truly spearhead and grow is just like. 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, that's, it's always been very utilitarian and, um, you know, not, not focused on emotions and, and love and intimacy and companionship and like these things. Um, oh, and, and one point I always like to mention is, uh,
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 the same.
I'm sure you've seen on Twitter and are seeing almost everyone loves Claude, right? More than ChatGPT. But if you look at like, let's say, Google search trends, Jack to be literally at like 100. And Claude is really a zero, right? Like Claude is an anthropic is insignificant. Nobody knows about them at all.
They win on mindshare more than, you know, they went on necessarily 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, 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. 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 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 in my case, which is, I think, like human to AI relationships like that is what, you know, my mindshare concept is. And 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 category then, right?
But then to like really change that and build from a new POV, I think it's really, you know, it takes really strong marketing campaigns over a long period of time. You know, like let's say, let's say I don't know, ChatBT 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 is 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 hear people say that your advantage of a startup is that like
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 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 also only really applicable if you're trying to build something big and real. But, you know, again, still, I think the real the real advantage you have. Right.
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?
Um, yeah, 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 guy. I don't know. Sure. I'm not, there's definitely, it's definitely not an absolute. Yeah. It's, it's definitely not an absolute that you need to raise a 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. And, you know, be careful about that to not raise too much venture capital.
But, you know, you don't need to raise $100 million. You can still raise like $5 million or $250,000, right? Like you don't need to go extreme with it.
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. A lot of people listening here, that world is so alien to them. They have venture capital and stuff like that. A lot of people listening are are just building products, bootstrapping it themselves. And so, you know, just question. Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, I think, I think the topic of like raising VC capital for people that are not, you know, so networked as well as I guess you are, I don't know where you live, LA, New York. I'm in Miami. 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.
And therefore, I think it's honestly quite easy to raise VC in the 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 what you're actually working on in a sense. I don't know how to explain that particularly, but Just like everything, VC is a social game.
And these VCs are inherently just kind of 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 certain deals. You know, when you're when your fundraise is about the deal and not about your
product, I guess, or your company, that's, I think, when it becomes so easy. 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. 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, how good you are at following your own intuition, which makes it easier to make, you know, major product decisions or just any decisions at all. And you know how also it removes your fear of competition, I would say strongly. I truly think that like
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 yc advice because if you are confident enough in yourself and again you need to act 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 um
you should be maximizing to just believe in yourself having good ideas, essentially. 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 believe in yourself.
And I think there's a difference between arrogance and confidence in a sense, although I think it's only arrogance in 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 viewed as, you know, confidence. I would not be bothered by those perceptions, though, if I was someone.
But, yeah.
How does someone gain confidence? You know, is that? Is that something that, you know, you can learn or?
I think your VC funding should be spent on trips to Ibiza or something. 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 improving their work life actually quite significantly. I feel like.
This is also a much more strong point I'm trying to hit home for, I think, probably more so younger founders. Again, I'm 22. You know, when I started working on this project, I think I'd only recently turned 21. This is the first time I've even, you know, lived in my own real place outside of home.
And like, you know, I'm basically still a young, you know, and you're also weird if you're in tech, like I'm, You know, I think you just 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 not necessarily working, although you are kind of working, maybe if you view it that way 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 bear kind actually with one of my prototypes and crazy, you know, it's crazy experiences, but like, I think these are the kinds of things that have instilled maybe like, Just it's cool. It's 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.
And, 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, you know, just really anything else at all. 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 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.
Um, I think that is 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 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 listener guide, um, in a sense. And I think it will take you further than anything you'll ever hear from someone else.
I saw this really good tweet by this guy, Aaron Alto. He tweeted, visualization is the first step and yeah 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 problem reflection maybe steps you know step step one is find your startup idea step two is visualization
Yeah, I think, you know, this concept of manifesting and stuff is actually real in a sense, right? You know, and I think maybe if you relate this to like your, again, like your personal self, 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. You do need to kind of turn yourself into a, you know, schizophrenic, right? But, you know, pulling you towards where you want to go.
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 are like saying anything to say. But like, I don't know, I feel like you just got to live and like ideas just kind of come to you because, you know, OK, it's great to have like one startup idea, but like. Your idea will change.
Let's say what I'm working on right now, 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 an always-on microphone
use LLMs and transcribe all the data, you could automatically build a person schema that is completely different than building an embodied AI friend, but the underlying tech is actually still the same. You will go down an 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. And you will feel confident enough to actually go down the entire idea maze and continue to believe in your own ideas and truly see it to fruition.
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 Allman 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. Um, 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.
That could be, that's actually a good tip. So, you know, for, for people listening, it's like, If you're feeling low confidence, maybe ask yourself, what would Sam Altman do in this case, if that's something I look up to, right? Smoke some weed, I don't know, chill out a little bit.
That's what I would recommend. There you go. I'm serious. I'm serious. People are way too like, I mean, everyone's different. I honestly, this advice I'm giving is not for, maybe it's not really relevant, but I just implore people to do things in the real world and grow as a person outside of, you know, I'd say focus on real world relationships too.
I think that is how you grow more than anything 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. 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.
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Yeah. You just got to 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 of motorcycles but like
I feel like I that 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's a 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 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, cause 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 are very, again, in tune with your intuition and you're able to, um, really send it in the right direction at the, uh, you know, in the correct place. But like, I, I just would implore people to, uh,
like go to the club or something, like do other things to like, just, um, just keep thinking about your idea in different places. Um, I think you'll, uh, realize how much of your past stuff has been, you know, just, um, I don't know how to describe it. Like just, uh, not, you're not thought, you know, you don't want to think things through too, too much. Right. But, um,
One thing I've noticed is that if I'm brewing on an idea, when I step out of the house and I just let it brew in the back burner, I'm still kind of working, but I'm not really. 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.
Exactly. I think people need to get over this, 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, uh, 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, um, you know, right now I am working in a sense and I'm still technically thinking through my ideas. Um, 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 ideas anyways. You will go down a fat idea maze.
I think it's important for you to, you know, just keep thinking through some of 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 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, 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 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, for the near future, for sure. 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, you know, have a very good eval system for your own kind of conversations that happen with your bot. to make sure it's generating those memories, and a very quick, low-latency query system for these memories.
I think people would probably be worried about maybe offloading such a crucial part of their application, but I honestly think it's enough of an issue that has just not been solved that people should really be focusing on this. I've taken a look now at nearly every
way of doing this in 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 trickiest part about this i would say is um updating old memories and and having everything be connected to each other because very often i might um
Well, for starters, you're often changing your old memories. One day you might like a Ferrari, the next day you might like a Porsche, whatever, these things change. But 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 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 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 basically it's a really complicated problem but uh you know i'm sure people can solve this and
I've taken a look online at some tools and I think the only real open source projects that exist for this is like MemGPT and MemZero, which are OK, simple implementations. But, you know, I would I think there's many people that would gladly pay for a service like this. So I'd like to discuss that with you, Greg.
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
what that is just like at a high level because a lot of people aren't super technical yeah 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 what do you mean competitors out there
You mentioned two competitors, meaning... Well, I don't know.
They're building personalities. They're building these niche... I don't know how to say niche, but they're building chatbots. And honestly, if you're worried about competition, then that's your f***ing problem. You shouldn't be building a startup in the first place. I don't know what to tell you. If you view your work as art, you have no competition. You have no fear of failure.
That is entirely your problem. I'm not here to discuss your fears of competition. But RAG stands for, I believe, Retrieval Augmented Generation, I think, which just means that you give just facts or memories or whatever as part of your system prompt or user prompt. And those memories obviously change the output, right?
Like if I ask a question to, 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? 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 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 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. 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, um, Well, I guess before you would do that, you would say to the assistant, you know, my favorite car is a Porsche, okay? A Porsche 911. And it would just kind of... You know, the models have a concept of automobiles and cars, right?
And like a Porsche 911 is like kind of close to that concept of a car. So if you imagine just like a 3D 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 going to be a perfect match right you know porsche 911 is not the word car but it's close enough maybe it's like a 0.8.9 match right something like that like a 90 match um so it's close enough 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 bot where 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 augment this message and you say, in brackets, the user's favorite car is a Porsche 911. Or you maybe don't even need to augment the way that's written.
You can just say, my user chat message that I sent ages ago. my favorite car is a Porsche 911, right? And so when the system prompt sees, you know, your question and then, you know, the little context that you have there, it'll be able to say like, oh, you know, your favorite car is a Porsche 911, 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 super base 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 can extract those memories and put those memories back into your chats 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 adaptive, right? Like, you know, you need to update existing memories. What if now my favorite car is a, you know...
Don't know a Pagani something whatever right now now that needs to be updated and if you think about the way your brains working to write like you have Like the importance of these memories matters a lot and that will degrade over time as well You know recency matters a lot for some of these memories because if it's trying to maybe it maybe you're trying to build a system that updates existing memories and maybe I said my favorite car and
It was a Porsche 911, but that was five years ago or five months ago, whatever. And only yesterday did I say that my favorite car was, you know, I guess I don't know. You know, fuck cars. I like motorcycles more. I'd say like a Ducati 916. you know, is now my favorite transportation thing, right?
Like, you need to update that memory, which means that you really need to have, like, a back-end system for doing this. And I think, like, the real way that you would build this is with, 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 916, even if I ask, like, what is my favorite car, right? But, you know, Ducati is a motorcycle. It's not a car. They're not inherently connected. You know, it still might be, let's say how I mentioned earlier, you know, if I mentioned Porsche 911, that is like, you know, a 0.8, 0.9 similarity, right?
And the Ducati is still generally closer to a car than if I mentioned Porsche. you know, a horse, right? This is my favorite color horse. That's obviously going to be maybe like, you know, 0.01, let's say it's just so far away, but a Ducati 916 is still maybe going to be like, you know, 0.4, 0.3, let's say. Um, but, uh, but yeah, does that, does that work for you, Greg?
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, um, That's because I'm just not super technical, but I'm technical enough to hear what you're saying and be like, that's a real problem. Someone is going to do really well to fix it. And the time is now. Oh, for sure.
I mean, I don't know how much longer RAG is necessarily going to be an issue, but I know for sure that memory is going to be something that all of these bots need. And I think it is, again, 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 looked at all of these people's startups and I know that everyone is struggling with memory as well. No one is truly cracked. Even Dot, I mentioned earlier from New Computer, they get pretty close, but you know, nothing's perfect. I think memory is essential for bringing users back into having high retention with any of these bots. So it is a top priority.
And I think any founder that is stuck with their memory system would go to great lengths to make sure it works really well, myself included. This is a request for, I need help myself.
Totally. It gets me thinking that if you want to build a startup 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?
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 of, 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. Um, 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, uh, Yeah.
And I guess it is a technical problem, but I think it's more, I mean, I don't know what to tell you. I mean, skill issue, like every, every real idea is going to be technical.
Every real idea is going to be technical. What do you mean by that?
I mean, 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 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'm looking at a billion objects around me and I don't think anything of this is not inherently technical to have built in the first place.
You don't think that business creation has a spectrum of how technical things are? Morning Brew, for example, I think they make $100 million a year or something like that. But it's a newsletter business. They're just built on top of
know existing infrastructure versus you know building this memory idea 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 there's a whiteboard over there there's an air purifier 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 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 don't know how to describe it.
Just, no, I love, I love, I love hearing, cause you know, it's different than how I think, you know? Um, so, um, and I, you know, that'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, um, All businesses are technical.
Therefore, in order to be like you, let me let me just like like all businesses are technical because business is technical. Is it not? I think that some businesses are more technical than other businesses. If I were to go to create Varda, which is building warehouses in space or whatever, I think that's way harder than building a newsletter, for example.
I do agree with you, sure. I think, 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, maybe the same way that a lot of people perceive that definition, but 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. Yeah, you know, tech technical does not necessarily correlate 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 isn't the whole point of engineering too to simplify complexity anyways? Totally.
I think that's a beautiful place to end. Any last words for people and where could people get to follow your thoughts?
I don't know. Just don't be boring and don't work on something stupid. Again, you're only going to work on so many things in your life. You have a short bubble of consciousness while we're alive right now. Who knows? Maybe we'll extend that during our lifetimes. In the short bubble of consciousness, just don't waste it. It's something you don't feel confidently proud about. If you're
If you are, then I don't know. I think that's just your problem and no one else is going to tell you anything otherwise. In terms of where you can find me. 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 yeah, thank you. Thank you, Greg.
This has been great.
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 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.
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
Thank you, Avi. Appreciate it. See ya. See ya.