ai + frnds

hey,

writing this from a cool marketing agency’s office. they let couple of cool ppl us their office to work on their side projects on saturday.

dope.

so, ai + frnds.

i cannot even lie i’ve been obsessed with this project. and i love it - day and night, when i’m showering, when i’m taking a shit. all i think about is experiments i can do, video ideas, titles, certain phrases, songs with feelings i want to give.

so even if there’s no external validation on where this is going, i think this idea deserves life purely because i get so much excitement working on it

but this week i fell into a classic founder cycle.

feeling directionless, lost. wtf am i doing type of thing.

a lot of it has to do with these ppl i look up to - julien & farza working on a similar thing and doing an insanely good job.

sometimes that makes me feel insecure and think, damn why am i not able to do that.

but i caught myself thanks to talking to some ppl like sam, phil. ty guys!

here’s last 2.5 months of ai + frnds:

1. big vancoiuver irl event

i showed my professor how to make his first app with ai live in my uni lecture hall. got around 100 ppl to show up.

see here.

and that was fun, i hustled a lot - got 470 ppl to sign up. emailed every prof in my uni to share this with their class, partnered with every club and made hella videos promoting it.

the best one was paid ads.

i spent $250 on Meta Ads. Got 8,350 page views, 478 signups, but only 90-100 showed up to the Feb 8th event, which i’m not sure why, maybe it wasn’t compelling enough.

here’s the rev and expenses from that.

(we had an ai company called emergent sponsor $5.5k and few smaller clubs/orgs sponsor the rest. even convinced my faculty to give me a $250 grant lol).

$$$ in the bank. first “$100”. let’s go

but i realized, sponsors like emergent wanted us to get them 1m-3m impressions online. which meant i had to farm for views - not really something i was interested in.

so i guess i failed here, and wasn’t able to get them the impressions online.

i learned i care more about actually helping ppl go from idea to their first thing. farza, ruslan helped me realize this. and the easiest way to do that is a zoom call or a livestream.

so i thought why not just get ppl to a zoom call over a weekend and call it,

2. weekends with ai + frnds

today’s the 3rd one i’m doing with a new cohort.

the first one was for free but i limited it to 20 spots. and they filled out super fast so ppl wanted it.

the second one was in person $10 for 10 spots. which also filled up super fast

this weekend is $30 for 30 spots and a 3 day thing. but only 10 signed up.

what i realized is most ppl need that push to start and a guiding hand to help them overcome mental blockers. but what will keep them working on their ideas is engineering dopamine from - which happens when a stranger uses their product or pays for it.

so i’m figuring out how to engineer that for almost each person.

i created this ai learning bot that guided ppl from idea to sharing a live url with a person. only had cohort 2 use it and now cohort 3. most people rate it 9/10 but not sure how many of them it actually helps. will see by tomorrow.

i also started a $20/mo thing called ‘ship it fridays’ where i work 1 on 1 to help ppl set goals and make progress on their projects every week.

so far 1 person on here from one of those weekend sessions but idk maybe more ppl care about this.maybe they don’t.

here’s an email from someone’s mom who came to one of the sessions

so wholesome. i love when ppl send me these type of things.

makes me feel i’m onto something.

this weekend i’m doing the 3 day event with 10 ppl who paid $30 a spot.

i’m curious why only 10 ppl signed up for a 3 day event for $30. is the price too high? was my top of funnel too small?

here’s the structure,

day 1 - ideas.
day 2 - toy version.
day 3 - users and money.

this time i’m forcing every person to make a demo video, lets see how it goes.

but

here’s the next experiment i’m thinking about, which i feel is a lil selfish:

paid events at schools for their students, teachers, and parents.

this might be selfish but i feel i’m in this unique spot where the brand of ai + frnds and my story (being a student) is something other school students would relate to. so what if i could charge schools in diff cities and do these events there.

is it sustainable? no but,

lowkey i just wanna travel this summer making banger videos for ai + frnds. i have this gut feeling that something cool will come out of that, idk what.

i don’t think i’ll have this opportunity to travel to more cities and do events where schools pay for my flights and expenses.

first, i’m going to experiment with a few schools in vancouver and see if i can make $ through that.

i’m also going to keep doing the weekend zoom calls which i’m not sure whether to monetize for or keep free. and should the ppl go into a discord after? so far they’re in discord but no one is active or uses it as much.

then i look at the discord farza and julien have, which is always buzzing. but it also has wayyyyy more ppl.

so, some things i’m focusing on this week:

• do a paid ai + frnds at a school

• plan an irl parents and teachers type of ai + frnds event next week

• make a cool yt video

right now i want to do good events and make good videos. that’s it.

i was really lost on the “business model” and the structure for monetizing - should i do a 4 week cohort? should i get more sponsors?

but i think right now i have to optimize for fun and my gut feeling.

i’m really good at motivating/inspiring ppl. maybe not so good at helping the motivated ppl follow through (yet). but there’s some intersection there i’m trying to reach.

its like if i want to help a person get fit, making an inspirational fitness video is cool, it might get them started. but will it keep them going to day 30? and will that keep them going for the next 30 days? probably not. so am i actually helping them or just inspiring them?

not sure.

if you think i’m doing something stupid please let me know. just hit reply.

cool, ty for reading

see u soon.