EP 25: How AI Can Help You Launch Your Business

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How can AI help you launch a business? That's one of the exciting things that we're going to be talking about today on Everyday I. This is your daily livestream podcast newsletter. It's everything for you to help you understand and actually use AI in your everyday lives. And that's one of the things that we're going to be talking about today with our guest, Emma Lowe. She's the partner at flight level 180. Emma, thank you for joining the show.

Hi everyone. Thank you for having me.

Jordan, we're excited. So we're going to go over the news and AI first, but if you are listening live. So like I said, we are streaming live to LinkedIn, but if you're live, please drop Emma a comment or myself and we'll talk about it. If you're listening later on the podcast or just, you know, reading about this in the newsletter, please join us live every morning, 7:30am Central Standard Time. All right, now that I got that away, couple, couple news pieces that are really exciting. So number one, if you didn't see this, it's wild and this is going to I think become a very like gray area in the future. But there's actually a lawyer who used ChatGPT to file charges and now he's actually might be facing charges himself because it turns out that what he submitted to the courts there was citations that ChatGPT created that didn't exist. So, so that lawyer is might be in a little bit of hot water. Kind of the second news piece of the day. Microsoft. Over the weekend, the president and vice chair of Microsoft said on the CBS show Face the Nation that lawmakers need to regulate AI and they need to regulate it faster. My personal take is it seems the big, you know, CEOs of these tech companies, VPs, whatever, they're all saying like, oh yes, we need more regulation. But obviously they're the ones, their companies are growing so fast in the meantime. So I've my, my hot take at least here in the U.S. i, I think regulation is going to be a little slow. So I think that they're in a very easy place to just say, oh yes, AI needs to be regulated more. But that's not pretty that like, I don't think that's going to happen. So let me know what you guys think if, you know, drop a comment. Last piece of news. And Emma I want your take on this. So Nvidia now they're like a valued at a trillion dollar company after you know, everyone needs their, their GPUs. So we talked about this on the show before. Essentially a lot of this generative AI so text display, speech, text to image, text to video. They need Nvidia's GPUs. They're kind of the only company that can create a high enough quality and powerful enough processor to help all these AI companies. But Nvidia essentially release something at computext and there's a demo, we'll put it in the newsletter. But it allows a user to actually chat with a live video game and the video game responds to your voice. Emma, what do you think that's, that that's going to be like. I know, I know you have, you know, you have two, two kids. What do you think this technology is going to mean? Just, just for anyone?

Oh, this will be so much fun. Imagine. Well, well in video game you always have these NPC always come telling you the same story over, over and now become a conversation and imagine taking the kids to the museum and some someone will come up and talk to you about the history of, of somewhere like Greece and finally can give you a conversation and actual going through instead of pushing the buttons on this in the museum.

Yeah, that's, that's a great point because yeah, those, those video games I remember as a kid, you know, they weren't that great in the late 80s, early 90s. Right. But yeah, you're like, you're so true. It's just repetitive and I'm sure kids are fine playing the same story over and over matching you. Yeah, the possibilities when you can actually talk to a video game and it can react to you. That's wild. That's a wild use case. But let's talk about an actual use case of the technology right now. So Emma again, thank you for joining us. So you are the partner of flight level 180, but we're going to be talking about something else, something else today, so I'm going to share my screen. So if you are watching live, you can kind of see the what we're going over. But if you're listening on the podcast, I'll try to explain it to you. So this is Fly two Places. So this is a new app that Emma and her husband recently launched. So I don't want to, I don't want to like take too much shine from, from the big reveal, Emma, because I know this is a little new. So tell us what is Fly to Places and who is it for?

So think of. So project Places is really an app for private pilots. Think of TripAdvisor but for pilots. So mainly the core use case is the owner pilots. Private pilots to discover and plan extraordinary trips. It's already tons of tools out there for flight planning itself. But once you arrive at the destination, what do you do next? It's really a niche market for private pilots right now. Currently in the States there are about over half a million active users. And it's really like I mentioned, it's really a niche product for owner pilots. And then the secondary market is for the renter pilots and student pilots. So TripAdvisors, but for pilots, love it.

So if you're watching this, you might be asking, okay, app, awesome, right? Like, yeah, it sounds. Sounds like it fits a cool use case, right? But why are we talking about it on everyday AI? Well, that's because you guys really tapped into AI to bring this idea to life. And that's something that we wanted to talk about today on the show. So Emma, talk a little bit about how you guys went from idea to now a live app that's being used out in the wild, you know, so people are using this and how did you use actually AI to get there?

The first question, how do we came up with this idea? I think in the beginning we said this TripAdvisor for pilots. But if you really look into it. Well, how about this? Most of the destination discovery for pilots is really the information out there and it's very scattered. We had to go through a lot of YouTube channels and Facebook groups to kind of mine that information out. This really become a pain point as we took the trip to Bahamas as a little side trip. And when we're planning destinations, it was really hard to find, okay, where is the crew car, where is the where, what's the customs like et cetera and where to go from A to B. And then after hours of research, then compile this information together. Then sharing information with friends and family was another pain point. It was hard to have my husband tell me, okay, we're going to do this A, this B, is this really hard? Instead of the normal Google Doc coming back, lots of friends and family asked us, how do you get there? So we thought about what if there's a tribal knowledge that from pilots that is organized, collaborated and delighted to use. What if we can share this destination tenory with outside of pilots group, for example, like me, passenger, etc. With friends and family. So we develop flight to places. We use ChatGPT, OpenAI to produce content and as you can see there right now, I think we have like 25,000 destinations, but it's adding more and more and having all these like where the crew car where the things just using OpenAI to create the content and also next piece is to verify it. So we talked about tribal knowledge. You can also add your own destination, upload, downvote, verify if this is a good place for you and the other one you can see on the, on the screen. We also use Midjourney to create those images with different destinations.

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Zooming in a little bit on the images here. So yeah, great images. You know, there's a plane, you know, from people looking out, you know, kind of out the window at a plane in a beautiful sunset. And then there's this getaway photo with very vibrant colors. And you know Emma, even when we originally talked about this before you told me, hey, we use Mid Journey for these photos, I didn't know, you know, I looked at these photos and I'm like, oh, these are great photos. But you know, Mid Journey helped you create these. So talk a little bit about the process in if you, if you aren't really sure what Midjourney is, it's a text to image platform where you can type in an image and what you want and it will actually give you great images. But Emma, talk about that piece to midjourney because sometimes getting visuals is one of the more challenging pieces to launching a new project. Because the visuals are so prominent.

Talk a little bit about that process from Ideal. And we. And the content is the hardest part, actually. Instead of hiring millions of photographer or pay for images, we just use Midjourney. For example, there is actually Oyster Fest coming up in Maine or Lobster Fest. So we just prompt in what's happening creative visual for this particular reason. And then, yeah, boom. It's so easy and it's so much fun. With Mid Journey, with a new version coming out, it's getting more and more realistic and come more situational. Can kind of say what this person's doing and doing what.

Yeah, yeah. Marianne, thank you for the comment. You know, Marianne said, this is so cool, Emma. And I think it is cool because you know what, what you guys did took. I think so many people are always like, oh, you know, yes, I'd love to make an app or I'd love to, you know, launch a business. But. And there's always a but, right? Yeah, but we don't have content writers or. But, you know, there's so much research that needs to go into it and we don't have time or. But, you know, the visuals, how are we going to get them? And you guys have a really, I think, fascinating use case that shows, hey, you just brought another person on your team. You know, you brought AI in. So what would this have looked like without ChatGPT or. Yeah, what would this process have looked like without those tools?

It's definitely for months. It saved months of development, I would say, if that definitely make the content creation or the launch faster. For sure.

I guess. How long did you guys have this idea for this app? Is this something you guys had thought about for many years? Is it more of kind of like a more recent kind of project that after the pain point that you described, you're like, all right, yeah, let's get this app going. Like, when did. When did the idea come about?

We literally really just took the trip in January and just after. I'm not sure how long, but the dev team probably spent about eight weeks to produce the app. We have a. And I think it just really make the content creation instead of a roadblock, it was just there and that's really it. It's really speed up the process with AI and Mid Journey. It's the same thing.

Yeah, Emma, so what you learned in this process, right, to go through, because the first time you use Chat GPT or the first time you use Mid Journey, everything's not going to come out perfectly. Right, Right. So what was it, you know, Maybe what were a. A lesson or two that you learned through this process that you can share with others that can kind of learn kind of from your journey of doing this with.

I think with any AI tool, it's always garbage in, garbage out. You really have to be very specific with your prompts of what, what you specifically want. So in our app, we do have, have a little itinerary situation, like where you want to go, how long you want to be, and who is this for? This can be a romantic trip or a family trip, museum or a fishing tour. So it kind of narrowed. We try to narrow it down on the details of what you want to prompt, chat GDP for and then a plan in general. Then you can text it to your friends. Well, the challenge chart is always fun. We produce itinerary. For example, let's say Taipei. That's where I'm from. But when I look into, yes, it got all the big destination out, but forgot from point A to point B, there is traffic. How do you get there?

Traffic thing.

Yeah, it's a traffic thing. And how while you're going to the west, to the east end and come back to the west. So there's definitely more, more things that you need to be put in a prompt or to consider it when we're producing this. Yeah.

So PJ has a great question here. We kind of referenced this, but we didn't go all the way. So, you know, PJ's asking, were you able to use AI to create the app or was it, you know, or is AI used in the app? So I think I know the answer, but I'm going to, I'm going to let you take it. Emma was AI used to actually create. So I think she's asking kind of on the development side.

Yeah, we used AI to create a content in the image so far. Yeah.

Yeah. So, but that's, that's a great pj. That's a great question. And that's something that I've seen, you know, people have kind of taken it to the next level. I think the things that, you know, obviously, Emma, you guys were quick to the game. You know, so starting on this in January, you know, that's like, that was like a month or so after you know, Chat GPT was released to the public. You know, even as I recall, Mid Journey was, was really in its infancy in January. Right. So we say that at the end of May. But you know, these, these tools have gone through so much development over the last couple of months. But, you know, I do know now, you know, people are using, you know, Chat GPT and other, you know, Google Bard to actually, you know, code and develop. Do you, do you think you'll ever take it that route or do you just think that you're just going to be using it for kind of the content and just the images?

There's definitely more to improve in the back end. So I would say I'll leave that to the dev team to decide what's the next step. But this was developed as really the first version or MVP. We literally just launched it on May 4th and already have 100 of use cases like users in our app from 40 states and 2 province. We really want to have this a niche product for pilots. Want to see how the user feedback and then go from there.

Lauren, thank you for your comment. This is so true. Lauren said oh she just told you all that your prompts are trash. Savage but true. She's a fan forever. That's awesome. But you know Lauren, you bring up a great point. You know what Emma said, I skipped over it, but it's actually one of my favorite kind of sayings, especially in the AI space. Like garbage in, garbage out. Right. So yeah, whether it's prompts to get content, prompts for images, garbage in, garbage out. Emma, talk a little bit more about that. So like the very first time that you were trying to use chat GPT, you know, whether it was to get content for the app or images, did you kind of get some subpar results the first time around?

It's always fun to see what midjourney come up as image but it gets more and more specific as you be more physic of what your images request for. Right? Yeah, I did. Yeah. Okay.

Oh another, another great question from from PJ here. So. So with the app Emma, how are you monetizing? I'm sure that's something you've talked about plenty. But what's the plan for this app to monetize it.

Right now we're kind of letting our beta user to use the app right now for future use. We're definitely going to use more AI in app probably towards app development. And as for a trip planner point A, point B, we talk about that instead of telling all the destination. Also we can fine tune that preference maybe consider the traffic or how easy is to be in there. And really another thing that in the the if you think of the flight planning is that recommended for destination based on the aircraft capacity in the pilot experience? For example, we don't want a. Well second core is the student pilots. We Want them to explore a wild area in the bush pilot. We want to, you know, just consider how the airport, the Runway, etc. And really want to take the next level is to help the pilot community. There is a lot of like mentorship need in this community as with mentees mentors and based on pilot experience and how to take it to using the community power to kind of nurture and continue this tribal knowledge collaboration.

Yeah, that's, that's a great point because I'm sure it varies a little bit, you know, from, from country to country. You know here, here in the US over the last like year and a half there's been a huge pilot shortage. Right. So Emma, how do you think that this community piece, you know, just helping, you know, you, you talked about mentorship just making pilots day to day lives easier. How much do you think that this can mean? You know, obviously it's right now it's, it's brand new, it's freshly launched. You know, you're getting initial feedback. But how much do you think that this can mean to, to just the industry and giving them a tool that can help them grow in their careers.

Right now the pilot communities are living in Facebook groups which is you have for example there's a pilot group for Bahamas with everything there but it's all conversation. There's nothing organized or like updated so far. Right. So we want, I think at the beginning we say we want to be organized, delightful to use and also continue growing and contributing. So once we refine the things, the better. I think go to market will be more than just a form or more than just community. We go into like the paid marketing or maybe matching up like people who wants more hours. Yeah, no, that's, that's a great point.

You know, I know, I know we went a little bit over already. You know, everyday AI is a fast show Emma. But I do, I do have one or two more questions for you as we wrap up. So I think that what you guys did so, so fascinating with, with how quickly you guys went from idea in using different pieces of AI and getting a product live. So with that in mind, Emma, maybe what advice would you have for other people that they're saying, hey, I'd love to be able to launch a business but you know, I do have these kind of roadblocks. So from your experience, you know, especially with using AI, you know, what might you tell someone with you know, tapping into AI to help them launch a business?

Really just be open minded, tap into Jordan scene, keep up with the industry. Knowledge and really I think it's with collaboration if you, it's okay, you don't know something but if you work with somebody else, they will help to launch this. Really just that open minded collaboration and yeah to new technology. That's really it.

Yeah, no that's, that's, that's great. And you know, I like that you said that, Emma. You know, just being open to collaborate because you know, you do have to almost talk about, which is weird to say it this way. You almost have to talk about your relationship with like Chat GPT, right. And, and going back to that. Garbage in, garbage out. Because if you go in there with Chat GPT and you're looking to have it help you build a business, you have to say like, hey, I need help here, here, here and here. Like you have to almost, you know.

Be very vulnerable and say, hey, I.

Need help, you know, coming up with a business name or coming up with a business plan or helping me write the content for the front page, you know, so, so I, I do think that, that, that I've seen with entrepreneurs is, you know, sometimes being too proud and saying, oh, I can do it all myself. But Emma, I think you have a great use case here that says like, hey, it's okay to, to say hey, this isn't our strong suit. Let's collaborate on that. So like what, like how do you think that this is going to even change in the future? You know, do you think that there's going to be more great apps like, like the ones that, that you built here? Just because people are going to be more open to collaborating with AI almost as that third, you know, second or third, you know, person on their team.

Yeah, definitely we have more people coming in and they want to help with the dev, but we also have a dev thing I think using AI for a data build for any way and yes, that's for sure. And if anybody wants to know how we build this and wants to build mvp, reach out to us and we'll share our experience. So.

Absolutely. So, so that's a great call out, Emma. This, this at least on LinkedIn here. I'll be in the comments. I'm sure that Emma will be in the comments as well. So feel free to ask more questions because I think that we didn't, you know, this is a very short conversation but we could get into it much more. So as we wrap it up, Emma, thank you so much for coming on the show, sharing about your process, Flight of Places. It was great to have you on.

Thank you. Thank you dren. Have a great day, Rin.

Yeah. All right. And just as a reminder, please go to your everydayai.com A lot of the things that we talked about, we're going to be linking in the newsletter that goes out every single day. So we're going to have a little bit more about Emma's process and the fly to places app and you can sign up to win a year of premium ChatGPT as well. So thank you for joining us today and we hope to see you back tomorrow and every day at Everyday AI. Thanks.

Thank you.

And that's a wrap for today's edition of Everyday AI. Thanks for joining us. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave us a rating. It helps keep us going for a little more AI magic. Visit your everydayai.com and sign up to our daily newsletter so you don't get left behind. Go break some barriers and we'll see you next time.