My new project Rift just hit 100k users.
It's been a really wild journey so far and there has been so so so much learning that you NEED to hear about:
A few months ago, we raised $1M.
It was great at first; money does buy speed and it allowed us to pay for great talent.
But axed with spending, leading to rushing essential parts of building a real, sustainable business.
A lot of VC backed companies do this and it's absolutely cringe.
They raise, spend a bunch, get some users, maybe raise more, then eventually die.
If you have no prior biz experience, raising money will warp your brain and make you a very lazy founder.
Put in the f*cking work first. Be gritty.
Anyways. On the surface, we were doing excellent:
> growing users
> scaling volume
> making real revenue
But after running the maths on how much we were losing on fees, salaries, infra, etc
I realized it was too much to handle, putting us in a real crunch for a while.
(p.s if ur reading this, run the maths on ur daily break even, it may surprise you!)
We had to rebuild.
Sometimes you have to let go of idealistic visions for your company.
The service we were providing was unsustainable & unprofitable.
We weren't charging users any fees and were personally paying Stripe 2.9% of the volume that was going thru our platform.
Even tho keeping it this way was a "better experience for the users"
I realized we would eventually collapse.
And if we collapsed, users won't have any service at all.
After running a bunch of experiments + adding taxes & fees at checkout, we are now break-even on our day-to-day costs.
And some days we are many thousands in the green.
Which is great! But there was a real revelation that happened 2 nights ago.
I think we are going to pivot our business model again.
More on this soon. Testing needed first ;)
ask any questions below
It's been a really wild journey so far and there has been so so so much learning that you NEED to hear about:
A few months ago, we raised $1M.
It was great at first; money does buy speed and it allowed us to pay for great talent.
But axed with spending, leading to rushing essential parts of building a real, sustainable business.
A lot of VC backed companies do this and it's absolutely cringe.
They raise, spend a bunch, get some users, maybe raise more, then eventually die.
If you have no prior biz experience, raising money will warp your brain and make you a very lazy founder.
Put in the f*cking work first. Be gritty.
Anyways. On the surface, we were doing excellent:
> growing users
> scaling volume
> making real revenue
But after running the maths on how much we were losing on fees, salaries, infra, etc
I realized it was too much to handle, putting us in a real crunch for a while.
(p.s if ur reading this, run the maths on ur daily break even, it may surprise you!)
We had to rebuild.
Sometimes you have to let go of idealistic visions for your company.
The service we were providing was unsustainable & unprofitable.
We weren't charging users any fees and were personally paying Stripe 2.9% of the volume that was going thru our platform.
Even tho keeping it this way was a "better experience for the users"
I realized we would eventually collapse.
And if we collapsed, users won't have any service at all.
After running a bunch of experiments + adding taxes & fees at checkout, we are now break-even on our day-to-day costs.
And some days we are many thousands in the green.
Which is great! But there was a real revelation that happened 2 nights ago.
I think we are going to pivot our business model again.
More on this soon. Testing needed first ;)
ask any questions below
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Just to demonstrate what I mean by rushing business fundamentals:
> we spent a lot of vc money on growth
> paid ads, yt, etc
> it did ok
but
> after stopping dumb spending
> locking in on actual good ugc
> we got +70k signups this month alone
> and only spent like $15k
> we spent a lot of vc money on growth
> paid ads, yt, etc
> it did ok
but
> after stopping dumb spending
> locking in on actual good ugc
> we got +70k signups this month alone
> and only spent like $15k
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I think Instinct is going to get squeezed to death very soon.
They do not have the platform or the money to win this fight. Nor do they have anything proprietary.
The cost of them running these agents and tool calls is staggering, and they will need to continue raising money as they scale up to meet demand.
This is the thing most people are missing tho:
Google, Apple and Meta can burn billions of dollars for decades and force their version of a personal agent onto all of their users.
ChatGPT and Claude can also roll out cloud computers for regular people to use.
Investors are taking a massive risk pumping their val to $10B but the odds just don’t math out to me.
Like yes, they built a great product and have motion on X but it is a very long game until monetization, and when platforms that people already use release their version, Instinct loses its *Wow* factor and fades into obscurity.
Don’t get me wrong, it would be super cool to see an underdog win against big tech but it’s honestly pure delusion.
They do not have the platform or the money to win this fight. Nor do they have anything proprietary.
The cost of them running these agents and tool calls is staggering, and they will need to continue raising money as they scale up to meet demand.
This is the thing most people are missing tho:
Google, Apple and Meta can burn billions of dollars for decades and force their version of a personal agent onto all of their users.
ChatGPT and Claude can also roll out cloud computers for regular people to use.
Investors are taking a massive risk pumping their val to $10B but the odds just don’t math out to me.
Like yes, they built a great product and have motion on X but it is a very long game until monetization, and when platforms that people already use release their version, Instinct loses its *Wow* factor and fades into obscurity.
Don’t get me wrong, it would be super cool to see an underdog win against big tech but it’s honestly pure delusion.
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What Zach is building is a step closer towards the world that I want to live in.
There are screens literally EVERYWHERE. If we can take advantage of this technology while remaining present with others I will be very happy.
There are screens literally EVERYWHERE. If we can take advantage of this technology while remaining present with others I will be very happy.
Everyone’s been asking what’s next after selling Cal AI.
Introducing Persona.
Others couldn’t figure out the interface, we did.
yourpersona.com/band
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Alex Slater retweeted
We dropped Atlas, a massive improvement to our search algorithm.
Now you can book with Soar and save hundreds of dollars.
Now you can book with Soar and save hundreds of dollars.
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Very awesome feeling to have my recent vids do so well.
There's a BIG gap in the market for a Logan Paul/Team 10 of entrepreneurship. We need more people to post!
If you haven't watched the first video on my channel, I highly recommend it. I'm literally dumb & broke and bordents balcony.
I had to be honest with myself & the world with how little I was trying so that I could start giving it my all.
Very crazy polarity to where things stand today.
I'm going to keep open sourcing everything for you all to look back on and learn from. Soar is just getting started.
There's a BIG gap in the market for a Logan Paul/Team 10 of entrepreneurship. We need more people to post!
If you haven't watched the first video on my channel, I highly recommend it. I'm literally dumb & broke and bordents balcony.
I had to be honest with myself & the world with how little I was trying so that I could start giving it my all.
Very crazy polarity to where things stand today.
I'm going to keep open sourcing everything for you all to look back on and learn from. Soar is just getting started.
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Alex Slater retweeted
Soar is looking for founding engineers to help us build a flight platform that will serve 100M people.
You will be working on:
- Deterministic agents (recipes)
- Backend performance
+ more
1% Equity.
Help us change the world:
forms.gle/mor8EZYPiqz6k1…
You will be working on:
- Deterministic agents (recipes)
- Backend performance
+ more
1% Equity.
Help us change the world:
forms.gle/mor8EZYPiqz6k1…
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