#076: How Jacob Catalano Went from Snapchat to Joining the AI Gold Rush

And there was the AI product at Snapchat, it's called My AI. And then that got me like working with all like the AI stuff and I was like right in the middle of it and I was just like, okay, this is like a huge opportunity. Like Google would have us come in and like OpenAI would have us come in and like Snapchat sort of like viewed in the tech industry as like the very creative company with a lot of ideas. And I just remember very vividly, it was like the Google AI team, like all like the super smartest people there. And they're just like looking to us as like, hey guys, like got any good ideas of how we can use all this great technology we're building? And it was clear that like Google didn't like, fucking know, that didn't like have any like killer ideas, like just, you know, for them to go build, but they had great technology. And like OpenAI was like basically the same. And I was just like, "Okay, well there's a lot of opportunity here." Like no one quite knows how this AI stuff is all gonna play out. So I'm like, "There's no better time to go start a company than right now." Welcome back to Season 3, Episode 19 of the Turning Pro Podcast.

Today we have Jacob Catalano, who's the founder of Flock. Thanks for joining us today.

No problem. Thank you for having me.

You know, he came in, you came in town for this, right?

Yeah.

You happen to be here?

I was just in Chicago for a wedding, so it all kind of worked out.

Oh, perfect.

Yeah, let's go.

Look at, we're moving up in the ranks.

Oh, we're getting people to come to us now.

Yeah.

Episode, episode 76. We're moving and grooving.

People only used to come on if they were within like a 5-block radius.

They were, we called in a lot of favors originally, but then when you start to have like bigger names on, people are like, oh, This is interesting. Maybe I should be in the same circle of association with them.

Where did Jess come in from? Didn't she fly in or?

Yeah, Chicago. We've had a couple fly-ins.

Yeah, it's great.

Amazing. Well, I'm stoked to have this conversation. Maybe just start by giving me a quick background on yourself.

Yeah. So Jay Catalano, I have a company right now called Flock and really like what it is is we're just 3 guys and we're building apps. We've raised a little bit of money. This is like our 4th product that we've built. Bullish.

3 guys building apps.

I'm in. And Like last night I stayed up late, did not get the sleep I was hoping to get 'cause I don't love where the product's at right now. I'm like, fuck, we need to like change some stuff. And I was like, oh, I think maybe this like one little change will be like what we need. I was like very fired up about it, but I'm like, ah, maybe we're gonna change the name, we're gonna do all this stuff. My co-founders hate me for that because I'm always like, I'm like, guys, new idea. So that's the kind of entrepreneur I am, which is, yeah, has some pros and cons to it. But yeah, like, right, I can go into like detail what the product is now and like what I'm thinking about the future.

I wanna ask a question before we get into the product 'cause you bring up this point about your dynamic with your co-founders. So I also have two co-founders in my company. Yeah, very, very different personalities. I'm very similar to you from the 30 seconds I've heard of just like, guys, I have this new idea, like, here's the thing we're doing.

Yeah.

And then I would say my co-founders are— one of them is like more in the middle and the other one's on the other end of the spectrum.

Yeah.

Like very pragmatic, very data-driven, analytical. Like, give me a reason why we should do this.

Yeah.

And it balances us out very well because I think having someone that's egregiously on one end of the spectrum and someone on the other allows you to get to like a healthy medium with like good discourse.

Yeah.

So I'm curious to get a better understanding of the dynamic you have with your co-founders.

Well, so I just have one co-founder, Ilya, and he's actually the co-founder of my previous business that we ended up selling to Snapchat. So we've been— we've known each other for like 10 years. So we have a very good dynamic, him and I. But he gets it, which is really nice. But really, like, it's just like a matter of like, I'm the idea guy. That's what I always call myself before and like, still am today. But I guess that sort of changed when I got a job at Snapchat because I was like, thought of myself as an idea guy. And they're like, no, no, no, that's like a real job. It's called designer. I was like, no way. I was like, okay, this is great. So now I do like design, but like, you know, everything else at the company. And but like to directly answer your question about the dynamic with my co-founders or co-founder Ilya, is it's really just, you know, I come up with ideas and he's really just trying to make sure it's like, all right, how practical is this? Can this really work? Like, why do you think it's a good idea? He's really just like a sounding board to make sure that, you know, we're going about things in a, you know, I don't want to say rational way because there's not much that's super rational about a startup in general, but like making sure that we have sound logic, that we're, you know, we're not just like, you know, running from one idea to the next and not really thinking too much about it. Because if it was up to me, that's, that's what I would do. So he kind of keeps me grounded a little bit. But ultimately, like, I'm the CEO and it's just like the company's going to succeed or not succeed on, you know, like, like it's my job to have the ideas and like the product and all that kind of stuff. So it's on me to make sure that we pick the right ones and we're doing the right stuff. And Eli is a great counterbalance and helping me out with that. But at the end of the day, it's like that stuff really does fall on me.

Where did the seed of the idea come from for the Flock?

Well, I mean, that's very interesting. This is like the, the third version of a product that we've been working on for like 3 months now and it's been a constant like iteration. And to kind of like go back even further. So I started this company about a year ago, September right now. We incorporated, I think like the end of September of last year. And the idea was I was at Snapchat, worked on a bunch of stuff. The last thing I was working on there was the AI product at Snapchat, it's called My AI. And then that got me like working with all like the AI stuff and I was like right in the middle of it. And I was just like, okay, this is like a huge opportunity. Like Google would have us come in and like OpenAI would have us come in and like Snapchat's sort of like viewed in the tech industry as like the very creative company with a lot of ideas. And I just remember very vividly, it was like the Google AI team, like all like the super smartest people there. And they're just like looking to us as like, hey guys, like got any good ideas of how we can use all this great technology we're building? And it was clear that like Google didn't like fucking know. That didn't like have any like killer ideas, like just, you know, for them to go build, but they had great technology. And like OpenAI was like basically the same. And I was just like, okay, well there's a lot of opportunity here. Like no one quite knows how this AI stuff is all gonna play out. So I'm like, there's no better time to go start a company than right now. I didn't exactly know like what I was going to go build. I just knew I wanted something to be consumer-facing. Meaning that, you know, it would— if it was successful, it would have basically 100 million+ users.

Sounds like someone who worked at Snapchat for a long time, slightly influenced by—

Yeah, well, I mean, that's what I've always wanted. I mean, that's why I ended up working at Snapchat. I've always been focused on consumer-facing products. That's what excites me. And, you know, kind of, you know, I like. So, so yeah, like that was sort of like the thesis. So like, you know, basically figure out like what kind of consumer opportunities there are. That have now been created with LLMs, generative AI, and all that kind of stuff and just go after it. So we did that. I thought fundraising was gonna be super easy. Turns out it was a little hard, but we did end up raising money, which was really great. We got a great investor and now we just like, we're building stuff in the consumer space and then we basically build it. And then I look at it, I'm like, okay, is this working? Is this not working? And I'm not as like, quantitative as I think a lot of people would like. I don't know if you guys know Nikita Beer. Yeah, of course. Yeah, I mean, he was just on like that Lenny guy. That was a great pod. That was a great podcast. But like the way I approach things and the way he approaches things could not be more different where he's just like so analytical and it's just like, all right, we're going to test this like hyper-optimized funnel for this one like behavior and like we're going to make all this shit like work. And she's like, that's so far from being me. Like I build the app and I give it to a few people And I'd just be like, how does this make me feel? Like, is this it? Is this good enough? And unfortunately, I don't know a really good way to like analyze products without having actually building it. So I wish I could do that, but I don't. So we build it and then I'm like, hmm, do I like it? And then maybe we push a few updates or whatever and try to improve it. But if it's still not like magical, then I'm just like, all right, we need a new idea.

Did you, to interrupt you, did you guys raise capital on a specific idea? Or was it just like—

Well, I mean, that's a very interesting question. So it was, I think I did like 40 to 50 meetings with investors and the investors were always like analyzing the idea and they're like, well, and like the nice no everyone would give me was always just like, oh, you know, like I wanna see a little bit more traction and like, you know, whatever's going on, like whatever. And then like my, like, like, what I was thinking to myself, I was just like, well, if we have more traction, I'm not coming to you for money. I'm coming to other people for money. So like, like, what are you like, what are you talking about? Like, that's like the stupidest pass ever. If you don't want to invest, just like, give me a different answer than that. But like, that is like, just doesn't make any sense. And if that's the way you're running your, like, if you're operating as an investor, like, that's a shitty strategy and you should rethink how you do investing.

Why doesn't that make sense? Just so people understand.

Oh, well, I mean, because if you do have the traction, especially in a consumer market, like I'm trying to go after, It's like you're jumping right to the Series A. You're going from a $10, $20, $25 million valuation to, you know, multiples of that where it's going to be $50, $75, $100 million if you've got some real traction behind you. And so it's just like those investors don't play that game. And it's just like, it's like, what are you saying?

At the pre-seed, you're betting on ideas and people— or not, sorry, not ideas. You're betting on people and like their ability to iterate and find something, especially in consumer. Yeah, I come from a B2B background. So like what you're doing scares the fuck out of me because like people's attention spans are so small. I think in B2B, the nice part is you're either solving a problem or you're not. And it's pretty binary. Yeah, there's a lot of consumer products that I think are nice-to-haves, not need-to-haves, but you can build a billion-dollar business out of a nice-to-have in the form of consumer.

I mean, it's really hard, but definitely if you find something that works, uh, there's a lot of people with phones and you can, you know, there's some really big companies that are made. So, so yeah, I think it's a huge opportunity. But then luckily, you know, I found my, the, our lead investors, this guy Mike Maples Jr. He's been around for quite some time and he's done a lot of really good deals. And he actually just had a book that come out and he—

I haven't heard of it.

It's really good. And he talks a lot about his philosophy and like having, you know, worked with him and having him having invested in us, he clearly like walks the walk. It's not just, you know, what he talks about. Because when we pitched him, I don't even think he cared about the idea. He was not like, he didn't know what app we had built. Like, I don't think I demoed him anything. I don't know exactly how he evaluated, you know, making an investment in us, but it certainly was not on whatever idea we were on at that given time. He was making an investment in the team. And at that stage, that was, that's like the only thing that makes sense. Um, so I really appreciate that, that he did that because that, that just makes way more sense to me. If you're gonna be a pre-seed investor, like that's how you kind of have to do it. Uh, so it was very confusing to me, the other investors that—

What's the, what's the latest iteration as of last night that you're, you're pursuing right now? Is it still in the newsletter realm?

Well, so So right now we have a product called Flock. I'll give a little background. And we had a few iterations to get here, but effectively what it is, is, have you guys checked it out or played around with it?

Not yet.

So right now we're positioning it as a newsletter product and you're like, okay, well why do you need a newsletter product? Well, we built this thing that I think is actually really, you know, quite interesting and you know, maybe a little bit profound where what it is, is we've made it a lot easier to write like anything. And right now our current working thesis is that we can help people write newsletters, but really like writing comes in so many different shapes and, you know, there's a million things you could write. And the way we fundamentally help people write is we've basically made an AI ghostwriter. And now there's lots of tools out there that are saying that they're AI ghostwriters, but the way they actually work is they just say, "Hey, what do you want to write about?" And you're like, "I wanna write about podcast." And they're like, "Okay, what tone do you want to use?" And you select a tone and then you select a length and it's just a whole bunch of sliders. And then the AI just spits out a whole bunch of nonsense. And that doesn't output good writing. So instead what we've done is that we have mimicked how actual ghostwriters work. I've never worked with one, but my understanding, the way like real ghostwriters work, if you are, you know, like an entrepreneur and you're having your book written, you'll have a ghostwriter come in and then they'll interview you. You're like, "All right, so like what's your story?" They'll ask you all these questions, they'll get all the information outta your brain, and then they will write it down and then you read it and you're like, "Okay, is this good? Is this right?" You give a few suggestions on how you want it to be better, but then you have a book and you didn't have to write anything. So that's what we do with AI is you open our app and there is a conversation, a voice conversation with AI that you're talking to. And then you just say like, "Hey, this is what I want the newsletter to be about." And then it'll be like, "I'm on this podcast today, I wanna share with my followers like what the podcast was about," whatever. You just like start talking to it. It asks you questions, it asks you follow-up questions. And then by the end of like the 5, 10-minute conversation, it has this very long transcript that the AI then goes, edits down, and then just turns it into podcast format. And you have something that is actually, you know, representative of what was your, your actual thoughts were and your opinion. And then it just does the hard work of writing and editing and all that kind of stuff.

So why? I'm not an expert by any means. I would be the first to say that I know very little about it. When you actually get into the nuances. One thing I do know to be true is that copywriting is like the hardest thing I've seen in the market right now. To emulate in the form of AI where someone reads it and they're like, holy shit, this is like brilliant.

Yeah.

To me it's still very distinguishable when you read something, at least most of the time you're like, that was AI generated, that was not human generated.

Mm-hmm.

Why is that?

Why is what?

Why on the spectrum of like AI use cases is copywriting one of the hardest to crack? Or maybe I'm biased just from my little sphere, but like, I don't know if you feel the same, espec— I mean, you're in a content agency, so you guys write a lot. There's probably a reason that you're not using an AI tool right now to replace all your copywriters.

Yeah. I mean, we do B2B long form. Yeah. So like very, very different, very different worlds and formats. But I think on the, on the long form side of things, if you're doing, I don't know, case studies, white papers, benchmark reports, whatever it is, it's primarily interview first, but you're doing it with a separate person that if I sent them just like some prompts and recording.

Yeah.

For some reason, like some teams, I think like 1% of the teams we work with, I'll just write out a list and they'll send me a Loom back. In my mind, I'm like, it's way more efficient for them and for us because it's much more distilled. They have time when they want to. But for some reason, people want to hop on a call and like do that live. But it all comes from an original conversation. So I completely agree with your thesis. Like that is why our agency, I think, will live on for a long time is like someone still has to go interview the customer.

Yeah.

Because they probably don't want to just like async answer questions. And so like thesis directionally, I love it. My question for you is actually like, why aren't you selling this B2B? Because I think that makes—

well, hold on, I want to answer my original question first, which is like, why is copywriting— why does it tend to be one of the most challenging things to crack in terms of like humanizing in a way that it's actually indistinguishable?

So I think there's a few things. I think it depends on the type of copywriting. But I mean, what I found is the AI gets a lot better when you give it more context. And that's the approach that we've taken where you give it like, you know, a 15, 20-minute, you know, transcript where the actual like conversation is back and forth. And then you have lots of information for the AI to then synthesize and just like do a good job of writing. And that stuff I think actually is quite good. And to like sort of test that at the very beginning, what we were doing was I was just like coming up with a whole bunch of random subjects and I was like posting them to random Reddits, like subreddits. And I didn't really care about what the people were gonna respond on Reddit. I just wanted to make sure that people were not saying, it's like, why did you write this with AI? Or like saying that this was AI, written with AI. And people weren't saying that. So like that part was great. But I think where like what you're getting at is more like the persuasive copywriting where you're really trying to drive some sort of outcome. And then I think that's just like an art form. Like, you know, I think the AI is just like not quite there yet. You know, for me, like being in a creative industry myself, like the way it really works is like you've got so much information that you're trying to synthesize and come up with like creative angles to that the AI is just not going to do that good of a job at doing quite, quite yet. But like, I think it's going to get there.

I mean, for that reason, I think the space you're after is like if you're the one that can crack the code on, on making it indistinguishable, you probably have a big business.

I think it depends on what forms of copy you're focused on. Like even on LinkedIn, like you're very active on LinkedIn, as am I. Yeah. And the content agency I run is B2B long form, but once in a while they'll be like, hey, can you ship this on LinkedIn on the company account or something? And there are some formats that like we've, we don't use it company-wide, but we use like Perplexity or Cloudflare. There's a client of ours that we always wanna ship the case study on the company account. Usually company account's like more formal. There's like more rules in place and we're like, hey, do you want us to play around with the format? And they're like, honestly, we just like this format. It's clean, we've approved it. Let's do this for every case study that you guys write. And for that it's actually pretty simple. Like in Claude, I can just be like, hey, these are, this is the approved format. We have 3 case studies. Can you just rewrite it here? It gets us like 90% of the way there. And then I'll jump back in and like I'll tweak a couple things to add some personality. And that saves us a ton of time. But there's also folks that like we haven't, like what Tommy does, we've been wary of going to like pure thought leadership LinkedIn because the use, like I've tried that, like uploading a recording and just being like, here are 10 different versions of writing this. And that's— it doesn't work currently. But I think there are some initial use cases. It's like, oh, that just saved me like 95% of my time.

Yeah.

When there are very strict rules around a post.

Yeah.

But once it goes off schedule, it can get a little tough. Yeah.

So I mean, what— I guess another question I have, because now my brain is just flowing, like, what's stopping like a Beehive from like building a tool like this?

Yes. So I mean, I think that is really the question is like right now, I mean, there's a bunch of competition in email newsletter, like that whole space. And Beehive is crushing it right now. And you also have Substack and they've got a very different way that they're approaching the market and they were before Beehive. But both Substack and Beehive, they seem to be very focused on the writer, which makes sense. It's like that's your ultimate customer and you wanna serve them really well. And if you're a writer pitching AI tools to them and from experience, like they're not super open to it. They're just like, I'm a writer, like I don't need AI. And maybe some want a little bit of AI here or there, but I do think a lot of people think it's very like, you know, it's like their like creative pursuit, like their thing, and they're not really looking to outsource it. And like that's sort of the issue that I think, talking about why I think about changing it a little bit, is if you think about it, if you have like a newsletter that is a real business for you, whether it's on Substack, Beehive, or some other platform, you wanna make sure what you're sending out is really fucking good. It's like really good. And right now with the AI, it's still like a little bit off. And if you've got 10,000 subscribers paying you $10 a month, that's a real business, that's real money. And if you end up reading the draft and it's just like, ah, this doesn't quite sound like me, I wouldn't exactly phrase it like that. And then you're in this back and forth battle with the AI to tweak every last little thing, then the whole proposition of us helping save time for you kind of goes out the window. Because it may have taken you, you know, 10 minutes to get the first draft. But if you spend another 25, 30 minutes editing that draft, then it's just like, eh, it's like, I could have like in an hour written this whole thing. It's just like, is it really that much better? And I think that behavior happens when it's your business. Like, and that makes sense. Like you're gonna be meticulous about every single word. So I think there's some markets where, the users will be less meticulous about every single word and like every single like little way thing something's phrased. And that is the area where I'm a little bit more interested in and that I think will resonate a little bit more. So that was sort of like the seed of like the direction I'm thinking of.

I think there are, it's funny when I think about like the newsletters that I get, I don't know, from brands or just individuals, there are definitely some where I read and I'm just like, oh, I love this person's voice. Like it's just speaking to me. Like Cale at Mugsy. Like that's just a fun newsletter to read 'cause it's just so off the cuff.

'Cause he's unapologetic. It's like you feel like you're sitting in a room with him talking about it.

100%.

And I'm like, I don't think he could use a tool like this. But there are also others that sometimes they're more visual-based or they're like screenshots or examples of stuff where I'm like, I just love the curation.

Yeah.

And then there's still a lot of copy in there. And I guess that kind of like improves the value of it.

Yeah.

But the copy, I'm like, I don't really care what it says.

Yeah.

I'm kind of just here for the like curation and maybe like a couple anecdotes. Yeah. And for those, I think there's like a really compelling use case. It's like, yeah, I don't care if that person is writing it.

Yeah.

I'm curious from your perspective, what would you say is like the target person you're going after right now with the current state of the business right now?

As from like, is it yesterday or this morning?

Whichever one you want. Like, is it, is it like a creator that doesn't have a newsletter but has like a vibrant personality that can talk into their phone? Is it like a founder where you're just giving them like a lower barrier to entry to also have a newsletter? Or are you kind of just like shooting across everywhere and see what hits?

Well, so for the current version of Flock, we'd like kind of like two core customer personas that we thought, well, what was really gonna get the most value from a product like this? The first is like the, is creators that don't already have a newsletter. And that's someone that, you know, maybe they've got 10,000 to a quarter million followers on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, some platform. And they're looking to, you know, round out the way they interact with their community and, You know, email's great because you own the emails. Like, no one can take those away from you. Like, all the reasons like a lot of other people like email newsletters, but they don't have one because presumably they don't have the time or they don't have, they're not a good enough writer to, you know, that they think justify, you know, writing a newsletter. So that was like sort of like the one group we were really interested in because it also meant that we didn't have to focus too much on helping them grow the newsletter right away because presumably they could just post an Instagram story, be like, hey, subscribe to my newsletter, it's here.

Yeah.

So I mean, we're still testing all this stuff and like, this is like still very much like, you know, I mean, this is the process of a startup. I was like, I don't know. It was like, we're seeing and we're definitely talking to those customers and we got a few people using it and like, okay, like we're seeing, we're seeing how it goes. But then the other side of the market was also much smaller groups of people that probably wouldn't resemble a traditional newsletter where maybe there was only 10 or 15 or 2 people that are on the mailing list. And they were more so just like updates for like what's going on in my life or, you know, updating like old friends or updating your extended family, whether it's at work or something like that where you don't need to like grow the newsletter list. You kind of like know who all the people are. You're like, oh, I'm just gonna add these 7 people and then like, here we go. And that is the market that I think is actually a little bit more interesting because then you also don't have like the anxiety when you're pressing send of like, "Oh, was everything written here perfect? Was everything here like perfectly representative of like who I am and my brand?" And all this type of stuff because it's like 7 people. And then if anything is wrong, you can just like text them like, "Oh, just, AI wrote it." But like the point wasn't really your writing, it was really to, you want to share some thoughts or ideas or an opinion with them, whatever. And the writing was just the most effective way to do that. So that market, I think that is a little bit more promising. So that's kind of the direction we're going more so in now. And that's sort of like the idea I woke up with this morning is that like, you know, maybe we should focus more—

I empathize way too closely with that.

Yeah.

So I love how like authentic he is about it though. Some people will like avoid the fact that this is how their brain is operating where it's like yesterday it was something else and I woke up today and it's something else and fuck those investors who actually just think it's all about like, traction, but I'm still in the idea phase.

Yeah. And like, to me, that's just not the reality of how like this stuff works. And unfortunately, I think a lot of people end up like buying their own story that they say like, this is what I'm doing. I must go do this despite like overmounting, like, or like a bunch of evidence saying this isn't working and that they just keep going forward. And the hard thing is sometimes that shit works and it's like, all you do have to do is like keep fighting forward and you know, it eventually will work. but then sometimes it doesn't. And I'm of the belief that like you just keep iterating and changing and you know, like that will be the thing that ends up in, you know, success for you. But there's so many ways to do it and I don't wanna sit here and pretend like, oh, I've got it figured out, we're just gonna make this all work. And it's like, we're just gonna like brute force our way to winning. And I just don't think that's how it works, especially in consumer. You can't brute force anything and you just need to build a magical product that kind of like, naturally grows and people really do love. And ultimately I think you can feel that. Like, and I think like I can just use the product and if I can just like feel like, oh, this is great, that's what you need. And I haven't got there yet. And the way I like kind of like empathize with myself where I keep, you know, coming up with new ideas is because if I do find that idea, like that's a billion dollar idea. Like it's like, it's not like every day people come up with these ideas and like, oh, it's just like, It's really fucking hard. But if you do do it, the rewards are massive. So I'm just like, yeah, it's fine. You can keep changing and iterating. It's like, but if you do get it, it'll be great.

How long ago did you raise?

It was, oh, it closed actually, or like he called me December 24th. It was like right before Christmas. He's like, all right, yeah, I'll do it. I was like, oh, this is great.

So like 6, 8 months or something?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I have a question based on that Nikita episode. I listened to it. I think like this weekend or something. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think he like raised the money for like the government app idea and decided not to do it. And then I correct me if I'm wrong again, but I think he was like about to shut it down or something or like fire. I think he'd like let one person was already leaving.

Yeah.

And then I like convinced him to stick around.

Yeah.

I think I was really surprised because you'll see Nikita on Twitter. I'm like, he has it figured out.

Yeah.

And I think he said he was like, yeah, we did this. I thought he was going to say like, we did this for 6 months. I think he said we did this for like 3 or 4 years. It was like, and I was like, one, That's crazy.

Yeah.

And then two, like, that's a damn long time to try to like keep up morale and momentum. And so I'm curious from your lens, this is like 8 months in.

Yeah.

You clearly are still very passionate and like still in the idea maze phase. Yeah. Is that just like driving all your energy right now? You still got it, you got the funding, we're in the early days. Yeah. Or are there some months where you're like, ah, fuck, like it's not working?

Well, no, I just had to like thank my girlfriend this morning because this whole trip we've just been on, I've been in a daze and like been so like out of it. 'Cause like I just keep thinking about, my God, fuck, this is not quite there yet. And I'm just like, I'm just, it's like tormenting me, but there's nothing I can do. Like, this is just my life. And it's just like, I wanna make the app as good as it can be. Right now, I know it's not quite there yet. And it's just like, I'm freaking out. But then last night I stayed up till like 2 in the morning because I'm like, oh, I think I might have figured it out. And I was just wired. So it's just like, you know, that's just my life and how it goes. So like, there's like, I think you're kind of asking like, how do I get through it? This is my life. Like, this is all I've ever known. What I've done my whole life from basically like 19 years old is just like coming up with ideas. I never thought I was gonna have a real job or whatever. Turns out like Snapchat, like they had a place for people like me, which is like incredible. I was like, oh my God, I get paid and I get paid a lot of money. Like this is fucking like, this is awesome. So.

I love the description about like tormenting. I feel like, have you seen that meme about like in your early days as an entrepreneur, you're like, I need to come up with ideas.

Yeah.

I can't do it. And then after a couple years you're like, make it stop. I can't stop.

They keep flooding me.

Every entrepreneur has 'em.

Ideas are cheap.

We all know that. Um, I'm gonna shift gears a little bit cause I'm curious your perspective on the ethics of AI. So I think like phase one in the broader ecosystem, not like this little founder bubble that we're in, is like people just started to hear about AI. Like, oh, it's like this thing that can do things for you. But I don't really feel like the concept of ethics around it is mainstream to the point where like the person who just heard about ChatGPT a month ago has even thought about the ethics behind how it could be good and bad.

I mean, there's so many ways to go with that question. Like, is there any particular— I—

well, I think in the context of even like how like the space you're building in is really, if you think about it at its core, it's like transcription of someone's thoughts. I just feel like it can be equally or more dangerous than like good for the world and just the ethics of it. So I think It's an open-ended question intentionally because you've been in this space a lot longer than most people have even known the term AI existed.

Well, I mean, in general, I think this is just like it's the responsibility of like the people building the products to make sure that they're used in ethical ways. But like the AI itself, I think it is just like, like, doesn't like have ethics. Like it's just going to like it comes down to the people that are actually implementing these products at scale. And they need to be the ones that are thoughtful in making sure that they're doing it in a way that is going to, you know, serve their users and broader society well. And, you know, the weird thing I learned, like, working at a company like Snapchat is like they're one of like the few scaled products that really do exist. And you can count on your hand like how many truly scaled products there are. Like, it's, you know, Facebook, it's Google, it's Snapchat, it's Pinterest. It's like two-handed.

You're saying in the realm of consumer social?

Well, yeah, but it's like that is like most of the, how most people end up using these, these—

Like consumer technologies specifically.

Yeah. And then what really happens at these companies is there's like a handful of people that are making the decisions of what ends up getting shipped. And so I think it's just really down to like those handful of people to make sure that they do, you know, ship ethical products that are going to be, you know, a net positive for society. You know, like, people have their points of view on, like, people like Mark Zuckerberg and stuff like that. But I think overall, like, you know, he's not the worst person in the world. Like, like, he's going to try to do things that value— that, you know, are valuable to Meta. But I think he's, like, a decent person. He's going to try to do, like, the right thing. I know Evan was like that for sure at Snap. He all the time would do things that were not in the best financial interest of the company, but he would just do things that he thought was right and the things that they had to do. And I think that's great. And I think most of the other founders ultimately are like that. And hopefully I'll be able to be one of those people as well one day. Like, that's why I'm starting this business, is I'll be one of those people that are leading a company and, you know, make the right decision.

Do you have any contrarian takes on just like the state of AI or how it will be over the next 5 to 10 years, having been in the space for so long?

I don't know. I think it's gonna keep getting better. I doubt that's contrarian, but I don't know. I can't really think about contrarian stuff or whatever. I'm so hyper-focused on just like the, like maybe like the, I don't know how contrary this is, but there's like sort of this meme that's going around where it's just like the Facebooks of the world, the Microsofts of the world, they're buying like tens and hundreds of billions of dollars of these, you know, GPUs from NVIDIA. But they're like, that's all for effectively training. And they're like, where's like the inference cost, which is like what you actually, you know, pay when you're like making a query on ChatGPT or whatever. But like the inference expense like isn't quite there. It's not matching the research stuff because there aren't really any scaled applications of AI. I think the only real like super scaled ones at, you know, the scale of 100 million+ users is probably the core ChatGPT app. And I think Facebook says like their little like search bar that they put everywhere that is like now Meta AI or whatever. Has become bigger than that. I don't think it has like the usage that they're claiming it does, but I think that's really like the only scaled consumer application of AI. And over the next few years, we will start to see, you know, probably like less than a dozen, more than half a dozen scaled applications of consumer AI where they have more than 100 million people using something that is like fully an AI-first product. So I think that'll happen in the next like 2-ish years.

Are there any use cases that you've been particularly bullish on, either you yourself as a business B2B or just like as a consumer?

Well, I love using the core like products, the like the— I prefer Claude right now over ChatGPT.

You're not the first person who said that to me in the last couple of weeks.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No. So, so Claude is definitely, I think, the best one out there right now. So I mean, I use it just for brainstorming. Like just this morning I was using it for like, okay, like what domain should I buy for like this new idea? And just like, you know, just going back and forth with it on these different like thought partner ideas and like just like stimulating my, like I'll use it like all the time when I'm like designing stuff and I hate deciding which icon I should use for a certain thing. So I'll just be like, oh, what icon should I use for like this situation in my app? And then it's just like, oh, use like an arrow that swoops up or whatever. I was like, perfect, that's what I'll use. So it's like really basic stuff like that, but I find it super helpful and it's just, yeah.

Are you subbing different use case, not in business specifically, but like Google for Perplexity at all?

Perplexity sort of, I don't, I'm still like kind of like, I don't know if that's gonna be a huge business. Like maybe, like obviously OpenAI is launching their SearchGPT product. So they probably think it's like a big opportunity, but like, I don't like that still. Like, I don't know. Do you guys not like Google? Like, I think Google is a pretty, pretty good product.

Yeah.

Google does the job for me. I think my frustration with the space is how many people are just saying that their product uses AI, but it's just like a wrapper of ChatGPT and there's not actually anything like proprietary or defensible about it. And I just think that we're in the beginning phases and a lot of people are going to get weeded out from just like selling a lot of smoke and mirrors.

Yeah, I mean, there's smoke and mirrors, but then there's also like, just like, you know, there's sometimes like annoying work to do that regular businesses or consumers aren't gonna want to do. And also like, it's a very weird time we're in where there's only a handful of these like foundation model companies where it's like Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, maybe Amazon's gonna come into it. You have Facebook, there's not that many. And some of them are so hyperfixated on this future of, like AGI, like artificial general intelligence, that it's almost like any consumer product like doesn't matter, or any product doesn't matter. And like all that matters is getting to that AGI state, that they're not really paying attention to all their customer needs like a normal business would. It's sort of like distorted, like the regular like capitalism's not really at play because they think there's like this way bigger prize. And the reason I mention that is I do think it does sort of create an opportunity for some of these wrappers because it's just never gonna be served by the model companies and they need these like other developers to come in and just like make this like very light application layer on top of their API that of course they could do, but like they're trying to like, they literally think they're like creating like the next like god, like the most important thing in the world. They're not gonna be making some like B2B thing that like generates like $4 million a year in ARR or whatever. They're just not gonna do that. I think it's a great opportunity for people that want to do that. And it's like, I think it's real. And if you can make some traditional defensibility into that product, why not do it? I don't think you're going to be competing with the foundation models.

I think there's a handful of early B2B, definitely AI wrappers and still fairly early. It's seed stage, raised $3 or $4 million, a handful of people. But the ones that I'm bullish on is specifically B2B large contract sizes where it's currently transacting or deals are getting done. Like with paper receipts or with like paper documents, like things like you're going to a warehouse and shipping and things like that get returned and it's like stamped by 3 different people, like digitizing those and like pulling the data and then running the automations behind that. Yeah. In terms of like communication between parties, I think those are really interesting and those are like pretty simple wrappers. But at the same time, I've just gotten pitched by the classic like 20 AI SDR companies.

Yeah.

And again, we're a different business model than like huge scale RevOps teams, but I'm just like, this is fucking stupid.

This doesn't make sense to me.

There's a couple that are interesting.

Yeah.

But some of like the early plays around like serious manual, like literally paper-based deals that are getting done with big contract sizes attached.

Yeah.

I think they're already seeing value.

I mean, dude, I saw one. They're building an AI cold caller. Have you seen it? Bland. It was so bad.

Bland is really cool. I'll give them that.

They raised like, I think a $20 million A or something.

It was a $15 million A from Scale.

Was this the company that had the billboard that said like, call us?

Yeah, yeah.

Bland AI.

That was cool.

Glad the founder's like 20 years old.

Like the friend. That's great.

I'm curious, what are your like inputs when you're thinking about just like staying ahead of the curve with like the latest and greatest technology? I feel like it can kind of be information overload, but are you someone that's like deep in Reddit threads or like talking to your other engineering friends, or is it just second nature to you and you don't think about it because you've been in the space for so long? Well, so I think there's a— to contextualize it, I think there's a lot of people who like want to know more, but they just don't even know where to start.

Yeah. So I would, I think it's in two different buckets. So before this product, we built another one, of course, it's called MixMatch, and that uses the diffusion models in generating images and stuff like that. And I think that the image generation and maybe video generation stuff, even though there's nothing too great there yet, that's in a different category from like the LLM, like text-based stuff, because in the LLM world, there really is only a handful of companies that you need to pay attention to. And like, they're really just like Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google. And maybe there'll be another one that pop up here and there that you have to care about. But like Mistral, like, I don't know, unless you're doing something that's like you really need some open source thing for, like maybe you pay attention to it. Like I've never looked into Mistral, like I don't care. Like same with like Llama, Facebook's product. Like I think in the future, like I'm not using that stuff right now. So there's really just like, in the LLM world, it's really not that hard to keep up to date. It's just like 2 or 3 companies you pay attention to, their latest like blog posts and like what they're releasing because that's the best that the industry has. It's different in the diffusion model world because that stuff is far more open source and there's a whole bunch of like weird shit that's always going on there where you really do have to like go deep into like different like Reddit threads and like figure out there's like, like the LoRAs, which like are like custom tuning these different models. Like I don't even know all this stuff. I just like, there's so much confusing stuff going on and it's just a lot more open source. And then with that, there's a lot more of these kind of like forks and different stuff going on. So if you have a very specific use case that you're trying to achieve, you probably can do it, but it takes a lot more like figuring out exactly how to do it and what's the right model and can I tune it or do I have to do some custom thing? That area's different. So the best way to keep up with that stuff is, I don't know, go on Reddit, watch YouTube videos. There's not a great way, Twitter and stuff like that. But yeah, for that stuff you do need to get a little more in the weeds. But for the LLM stuff, not really.

I think there's been a weird intermediary where a lot of the AI tools selling into B2B, they're essentially pitching time savings and some cost savings as well. And I think when B2B buyers, whether CEOs or whatever teams, are getting pitched that a lot. Increasingly, they seem more open to middle tiers where instead of fully automating with XYZ tool that's not fully baked, a middle tier of offshoring and delegation to offshoring getting way more popular. I think when you just get inundated with all these like, oh, we'll automate it and you're like, I know that's not fully baked. I think that's also gotten more popular, that middle layer, because it sparked that like, oh, it could be automated. It's probably not ready yet, but there is like time and cost arbitrage. I think that has in part fueled some of the offshore agencies are blowing up. Obviously Shepard got acquired for a bunch of money. And that's a really interesting application because for Verbatim as an example, I'm not going to send— I was talking to a VC about this and they're like, you should build, you should do cash flow to build a human model that's not you, but it's kind of you. And you send that link to customers and do those interviews. I'm like, well, that's fucking stupid. We're not going to do that. But that sparks, oh, I'm not going to go hire someone in the Philippines to do these interviews because it's kind of weird, but like South Africa or Canada or other places and a cost arbitrage. It's like, oh, like that actually spurred my idea of like, oh, I think there is an arbitrage here, but it's not like some random automation.

Have you heard of the company Delphi?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, that's— have you heard of them?

Yeah. So the first product we were building was more around like, like cloning yourself.

Okay.

So I'm very familiar with them and the stuff they're doing, which—

that seems like an example of what you're talking about, though. Versus like you're saying like cloning yourself.

That's just in our specific use case.

No, no, but I'm not saying like, that's an example though, where you could literally make an Adrian version of Delphi and it serves as like the onboarding or the Q&A person versus it being you in spirit of like efficiency within the business.

Yeah. I think internally that's like an interesting B2B case, but I think any external facing, that's like a, I don't know if I'd lean into that personally.

Yeah.

Because I, but I think there's an element in B2B specifically where people want a human element. There's just something— there's a certain part of the market that you'll never be able to replace because there's this inherent trust, like there's a real person on the other side of it. Maybe in 20 years from now we're like, you look like the weirdo because you want to talk to a human, but at least for the foreseeable future.

So this is my contrarian take, maybe, is—

hell yeah, we're back, baby, full circle.

I knew you had some.

Yeah, is like, like, I don't think any of that shit will work. Like, that's why I stopped working on it, on, on the cloning product. Like, at the end of the day people, they care about other people. And I just don't think that stuff's going to change. So no matter how good you make your AI clone or some generative image that, you know, sort of looks like you, but it's clearly not fucking you, like, that's just like, it's just never going to work.

And I'm going to push back on one use case that I do think is going to work.

Okay.

So if I told you that you can have a conversation with like Elon Musk's brain for 30 minutes and there's actually proof points that it's got his data and information ingested into that conversation, I think you'd be shocked how many people would pay a discount to be able to do that.

I, I, I don't, I don't think so. Like, I don't think any of that stuff's gonna—

I'm not saying I'm right. We could timestamp this for a decade from now and see if it's real or not. I, I believe that's the one use case that I think has value.

Mm-hmm.

Because I think there's a lot of people, granted, the one big caveat and asterisk I'll put on this is a product like that is only good as their ability to curate the people to clone. Because it's a marketplace where like the value of the AI is only as good as the amount of people they've gotten to opt into it.

Yeah.

So, It's a big if, me saying that Elon Musk would even be willing to like adopt a platform like that. But I do believe there's a lot of people out there who aspire to talk to or to get mentorship from another subset of people that they'll just never get in touch with because there's just too big of a gap between like their pedigree and their relationships and their product or whatever. But they would pay a small discount to do so. And the proof point that I'll give you for that are these platforms like Mentor Pass or, um, what's the other big one called? Intro. Where people will pay, you know, a couple hundred bucks an hour to like sit and talk to an advisor. But if they could pay a discount to talk to that same exact person at 80% or 90% of the value, I do think there's a lot of entrepreneurs out there who would pay for that. That's my— the one use case that I do think has legs.

I'd be very curious to see the retention.

Same.

Well, yeah, I think the retention is terrible and I don't think any of those things will retain because like in theory, someone like, you know, let's give this a try. You do it and you're like, this there's no magic to that experience. There's a real magic to you going on a call with someone that you admire, you value their thoughts, and you're like, all right, I either got something or didn't get something from that conversation. But you know, it's a real person, and then you can decide if you liked it. When it's an AI, it's just like you have this feeling of just like, oh, like, what, like, what do I even do? Like, I guess that was like— I think I just wasted my time.

I'm thinking about it at the highest levels. Like, dude, think— let's take like the president, for example. You're telling me that there's not like plenty of people in this world that would pay like $150.

What are you gonna ask them?

I, I don't— I'm not saying I'm the one, but there's a lot of people who are very political, who are all very invested in what's going on in the world, who want to just like spew their thoughts and hear answers. I do believe there's a lot of people out there that would pay a lot of money for something like that.

Would you?

Uh, maybe not the political use case, but I think there's potentially people out there that I would—

like, go through it. So who, who would you do it with?

Famous founders or like a—

I'm trying to think of an example of someone where, like, gun to my head, I don't think I could ever get a shot to like sit down and talk to that person.

I think it depends on the fidelity of the conversation.

Yeah.

Like if it's like a real life Steve Jobs recreation.

You know what? I think my answer to you is that another thing that they're actually doing is they're introducing a new behavior. So I think there's an element of like, I've never really thought about it that deeply because it wasn't actually a viable thing. Yeah, but like, if you came to me in a year from now and you're like, hey, I know you're dealing with like this problem, here are 10 people who solve that problem at the highest level. You can talk to like their clone for X amount of time. And if I had like 2 very specific questions that I wanted to get an answer for, like, you know, assuming my company is at some scale, I'd probably pay $500 to get like an answer to solve a really big problem from someone who's been there before as more of just like another input versus like trying to go down this rabbit hole of getting in touch with 10 advisors to make an intro to this one person to get a conversation. Ask the same two questions.

But why?

But again, I think it's contextual.

Yeah. Why wouldn't you just ask ChatGPT or Claude or something like that? Because theoretically they have all the same information.

So that— but that— this is the big— yeah, this is the big question, right? Like, can they, can they actually make this model that they're pitching distinguishable enough to warrant you paying versus asking ChatGPT? I don't have the answer, but I'm also not building an AI product to make clones because I'm not qualified to do so. But it's, it's interesting. It's interesting for me to like have these conversations with people who are in this space so deeply because I'm like, I'm tangential to it in the sense that like my business will incorporate AI, but it's not like an AI-first product where it's like all or none. Whereas with Flock, you're kind of going off this precipice of like, we're literally going to replace an entire activity in the form of AI. And you're, you're, you're very honest in saying like, you're either going to build a billion-dollar company or probably zero. At least that's how I'm hearing you talk about it.

Are there any or have there been any use cases, either B2B or consumer-facing, that you like get super jazzed about? You can't stop thinking about for a week or two and then you actually start to think through the business model and you're like, that's a really cool idea. I think someone may build it, but I don't think like the actual business behind it has legs.

Oh, there's one I just saw recently, which is the—

Well, ready to rip. I love it.

Well, no, because I thought about this idea is like they're like doing SEO for LLMs. And like, that's like an interesting idea.

Is that profound? They just raised from Tesla. Maybe, yeah, yeah.

And like, it's an interesting concept. It's actually nothing controversial there. It's just like, I've thought about that space. I'm like very curious to see how it plays out. And like, I don't know how it's gonna work, but it's just like, I doubt people are gonna care about that one. But like, maybe it turns into a huge market. Like, that one's like, I don't have a, like a, super strong stance on. Like, gun to my head, I would be like, I think it's probably not gonna work. But like, I can squint and be like, I understand why founders are going after that one where it's like, if that does work, that could be a really big market. So.

I mean, if you just map like Google Perplexity example or Google Cloud.

Yeah.

If you just map like Perplexity has announced that they're gonna start layering in ads and testing. If you just map like, okay, Google biggest businesses are like PPC and ads and SEO and you just map that to like a new way of interface. I think again, less on the AI agent lens, but more on like the services wrappers around that.

Yeah.

There are like huge service-based or agencies to be built on either like SEO or ads or other stuff just mapped onto a new interface. Those like picks and shovels I think are way more exciting. Again, I run an agency, so like I'm fascinated by services. But there's some businesses to be built there, not just like the tooling behind it.

Yeah, I agree.

What is your barometer for success right now with Flock? Like, are you waiting for a day where you wake up and your phone has 1,000 notifications?

Yes, this, this drives Ilya crazy. But for me, it's just like, I do think that you'll have like an overnight success type situation, even though it's clearly not overnight. It's just been like 10 years in the work. Yeah, but I do think you'll have like inflection points where it's just like either clearly not working or clearly working.

What's the— I mean, you would know this, I don't know this, but in just in the consumer landscape, like what is usually— what are usually the inputs that result in that? Is it like velocity of downloads? Is it like word-of-mouth marketing that gains traction? So you have like virality on other social platforms that are driving people to it, or like, what are the things you need to do to actually give yourself a chance to see that like viral moment happen?

Well, I don't, I don't know exactly. Otherwise I would be doing more of them. But like, I think the things that you look at are probably two things. It's like, are you in word-of-mouth growth? Like, is it organically growing? And like, are your users retaining? And you don't even need a lot of retention. You just need a little bit of retention, like 20% D30 retention, that's enough. As long as it keeps staying flat, the retention curve, you're good. And if you have a way to consistently organically acquire customers, you're going to turn that into a really big business pretty quickly.

What's your main channel right now?

So I mean, I guess it's like, I'm doing some stuff like this, like podcasts and more just like individual reaching out to people and working with them. For this slightly new version of the idea where it's more focused on updates, I think it'll just be like basically the footer of the email being like, hey, do you wanna like also share an update? Like click here and like respond or something like that. And it'll have more of like a natural organic loop. Right now in the product we sort of have that, but I think that's the area where I'd change it more where it just like has a deeper, you know, of this natural.

I think if you go talk to like 20 scrappy growth hackers, and just like pick their brain, I'm sure someone will say something to you where you're going to have one of these other lightbulb moments. Because what's so crazy, if you think about like the margin of error difference between something that like goes crazy viral and something that doesn't, it's like so small. Yeah, right. Like putting something in the footer of an email versus the header versus like an auto tweet off of something. I'm so curious about it because I don't see myself ever building like a consumer app because I know my own attention span. Well, I mean, I'm like, to get people with ADHD to pay attention to your consumer thing when they're getting hit by so many angles already, it's so hard.

Well, that's another thing where I kind of— I don't like the idea of growth hacking because it's— you can only growth hack your way so far. Like, I do think in consumer products especially, like, it's a magical feeling and like that is purely, you know, qualitative. You feel that or you don't feel that. And if you don't have that magical feeling, you can do all the growth hacking in the world and it'll probably work to some degree, but you're not going to have the retention and you haven't built this like breakthrough product. And I mean, that's why you see a lot of these companies, especially right now, I think it's because of AI, it's making it a lot easier to make these apps where people are making these like objectively like not good apps that have terrible retention, but they're able to make something that like works pretty well. And then they monetize it right away where they're just like, oh, subscribe right now for, you know, $12 and it auto-renews it every week. And then they're making $100,000, $500,000 a month. It's real money. People are just in general forgetting to cancel their subscription. Like, it's not like creating value for their customers. It's just like this, this like stupid little thing that they've built. And it's like, I mean, if you need to make that money, like, cool, like, like that's a way, but you're not really creating a great product that is like enduring and like really going to, you know, have impact. So it's stuff like that. Like, that's how I sort of like, okay, they growth hacked that to, you know, half a million downloads a month. Like, great. And you made some money for yourself. But like, is that the goal? Like, for me, it's not. For other people, like, hey, that's a lot of money. It's like, I can't really knock them.

Thus far in the company building journey is maybe launching the first product or actually closing on funding.

Yeah.

Or leaving the job. Was there a specific moment where— this is why we call it turning pro— where you kind of turned pro and really just started taking that new direction more seriously, kind of leveled up?

What do you mean?

Like, biggest turning pro moment in your journey thus far, looking back? The analogy I use is getting up from one poker table and going to a more high-stakes table.

Yeah, it was probably going to work at Snapchat. And then, so I was at the— I joined the design team there, and that's a very small design team. Like I think most other companies have design teams that are a lot bigger. At Snapchat, it's only like 10, 11 people. And—

Really?

Yeah. And it's very much of the moment right now with that essay, Founder Mode or whatever. And, you know, Evan at Snapchat, he was very much like that, especially with design where we had managers, but our real boss was Evan. And he would review every single piece of work from the smallest little like pixel change to, you know, the massive new feature. Like Evan was in the details like every single week, like sometimes twice a week we'd have meetings with him and like, he approved literally everything that would, you know, be shipped on Snapchat. And so that was super impressive. But like that was sort of like the moment. It's just like working with him and the rest of the team and realizing like the gap between me and like the rest of the team and, you know, even him wasn't like, wasn't an alien species. Like, obviously Evan's like incredible. Like, like he's, you know, great product mind, all these things. But it's not like some mythical, like, oh my God. And you realize that like, oh, Evan's like, my job was to build stuff for him. And if he liked it, that means I was good enough for Evan. Like, like, we did it.

Was there a moment where you're like, oh, I can— again, they're on a different level, but like, I can chop it up. Like, I can, I can sit at this table.

Oh yeah. It was like pretty like maybe it took like 6 months into like working at Snap, but it was just like—

you had like imposter syndrome before that though, where you're kind of like, why the fuck am I on a call with the founder? Snapchat telling him like he should design something like this?

Like a little bit, but I got over that pretty quick. It was just like, you know, this is the world. Like there's nothing, you know, there's all just other people doing stuff and like no one's that remarkable or like, you know, that much better than you. It's hard work and some people get a little lucky, but like, that's good. I'm trying to get lucky myself.

It's such a validating feeling when you're like, oh, I can cut it.

Yeah. Yeah. And it's just like, that's where I think it's just like hard work, persistence, all these things. And then I think eventually things will work out for you.

You got to increase your surface area of luck.

Yeah, you got to keep at it. Don't quit and like that kind of stuff. And I think hopefully you'll do well.

Well, I can't wait because this podcast won't go live for a few months from now. So I'm hoping that when it goes live, you're going to be like, just kidding, new product. No, a billion users. A billion users.

That'll be great.

It's one of those two. So you got to come back for part two.

Well, if I, if I can convince my co-founder. But by the time I want the new product to be— oh, it's going to be the same app. So if you search up Flock, maybe it's still there. But I think we're going to change it to literally be called Update. So hopefully that has a bunch of users by whenever this airs and, you know, in the magnitude of millions. So if we've done that, we're doing well. And if not, I don't know. Who knows?

Keep pivoting till you find the thing. Jacob, this has been awesome, man. I appreciate you coming on today. You want to just look at that camera on the left and let everyone know where they could find you, what you're working on?

Yeah, I mean, just go to— I don't even know what website to go to. It's just like, who knows what app's going to be there? But maybe just go on Twitter. Like, that's where I see everything. I don't tweet much. Maybe I should start tweeting more. I think it's JGCatalano, or that's Twitter. Yeah, JGCatalano on Twitter. That's my main one. And maybe Instagram, which is Jacob.Catalano.

Hell yeah. Thanks for coming on, man.

Thank you. That was a lot of fun.

Dude, that was great. That was a true, I think that's the best like just workout.