How to Build a Product No One Can Replace: 3 Key Strategies l Rewind AI, Dan Siroker

Summary

In this insightful interview, Dan Stroker, Co-Founder and CEO of Rewind, shares his entrepreneurial journey from the Obama campaign's pioneering use of A/B testing to founding Optimizely and now Rewind. He candidly discusses the pivotal lessons learned, emphasizing the power of following one's intuition, creating new categories, and building trust through transparency. Stroker's vision for Rewind is to give humans 'superpowers' by transcending biological limitations and providing perfect memory recall. With a bold approach of publicly raising funds, he secured a $350 million valuation, exemplifying his belief in radical transparency to foster user trust.

Takeaways

• 📢 Dan Strocker, co-founder and CEO of Rewind, raised their Series A publicly, resulting in significant interest and a $350 million valuation.
• 💻 Rewind is an AI-powered tool designed to provide users with perfect memory by documenting everything they've seen, said, or heard.
• 📊 The company is experiencing rapid growth, with a 15% month-over-month increase in ARR, and has raised $33 million from notable investors.
• 💡 The initial motivation behind Rewind stemmed from Strocker's personal challenge with hearing loss and the transformative power of technology.
• 🔥 Transparency and public fundraising strategies have built trust with users and investors, fostering significant business growth.
• 👨‍💻 Strocker’s journey included working at Google and the Obama campaign, where he developed skills and a passion for data-driven decision making and A/B testing.
• 📝 Rewind started as 'Scribe', a tool for transcribing meetings, before evolving to encompass a broader vision of capturing life's moments.
• 🚀 The concept of building new categories rather than improving existing solutions drives Rewind's innovative approach.
• 📖 Strocker emphasizes the importance of focusing on real problems that people face, advocating for solutions that significantly improve or change behavior.
• 💧 Founders should work on problems they are deeply passionate about, as success in startups can mean working on the same issue for many years.

Q & A

What was Dan Stroker's motivation for starting Optimizely?

Dan Stroker was inspired by his experience on the Obama campaign to start Optimizely. He wanted to build a product that would make it easy for anyone to do A/B testing, something he wished they had during the campaign.

What were the distinct phases of growth for Optimizely?

The distinct phases of growth for Optimizely were: 1) Rapid growth from 2010 to 2013, reaching $7 million in ARR, 2) Uncontrolled growth in the team from 2013 to 2016, which Dan considers a mistake, and 3) Squandering their lead and Dan falling out of love with the business.

What was the most salient lesson Dan learned from his experience with Optimizely?

The most salient lesson Dan learned was to have confidence in his conviction. He regrets the times when he went against his gut instinct and followed someone else's advice, which ultimately failed.

What was the inspiration behind Dan's current company, Rewind?

The inspiration behind Rewind came from Dan's experience of regaining his hearing after getting a hearing aid. He realized how much he had been missing and was motivated to create technology that could augment human capabilities and give people 'superpowers' like perfect memory.

How did Rewind pivot from its initial product, Scribe?

Rewind initially launched a product called Scribe that transcribed meetings. However, they learned that people wanted the ability to capture and remember more than just meetings, so they pivoted to the broader Rewind platform for capturing everything to provide a feeling of perfect memory.

What was the motivation behind Rewind publicly raising their Series A funding?

Rewind publicly raised their Series A funding for two pragmatic reasons: 1) to build trust with users by being transparent about the company, and 2) to respond to the many investors reaching out who wanted to meet with them.

What advice does Dan give for creating a new product category?

Dan advises focusing on the problem, not the solution. Obsess over a real problem that people are trying to solve in inept ways, rather than starting with a new technology and trying to find a problem to solve.

How does Dan recommend founders find a problem to build a business around?

Dan recommends being honest about whether it's a real problem that people would change their behavior to solve, and choosing a problem that you care about and would be obsessed with solving for years, even if the initial attempt fails.

What is Dan's perspective on the role of AI in relation to human purpose?

Dan believes that AI cannot replace human purpose, but should be used as an accelerant to help humans pursue their unique purposes more effectively. AI should augment human capabilities rather than replace them.

What is Dan's vision for the future success of Rewind?

Dan's dream is for Rewind to become as ubiquitous as glasses or hearing aids, a tool that people cannot imagine living without once they experience the superpower of perfect memory that it provides.

Outlines

00:00

🚀 Rewind's Public Series A Fundraising and Journey

The founder of Rewind, Dan Stroker, discusses the unconventional decision to raise their Series A funding in public. He posted a 7-minute pitch video that gained significant traction, leading to 2 million views, numerous investment offers, and ultimately securing an amazing lead investor, NEA, at a $350 million valuation. This approach aimed to build trust with users and address potential privacy concerns. Stroker also reflects on his background, starting with his studies at Stanford, work at Google, and his role in the Obama campaign, where he learned the power of A/B testing, which inspired him to found Optimizely.

05:01

🌱 The Growth and Challenges of Optimizely

Stroker delves into the distinct phases of Optimizely's growth, from rapid early success to uncontrolled team expansion, which became a mistake. He admits to hiring too quickly without sufficient financial discipline, leading to inefficiencies and burnout. Stroker also reflects on the mistake of delegating too much and losing passion for the product side of the business. He emphasizes the importance of staying true to one's intuition and conviction as a founder, citing regrets from instances when he went against his gut instinct.

10:02

💡 The Inspiration Behind Rewind

Stroker shares the inspiration behind Rewind, which stemmed from his experience of regaining his hearing and realizing the limitations of human biology. This sparked a vision to use technology to augment human capabilities and provide "superpowers." Rewind's initial focus was on meeting transcription, but it pivoted to a broader approach of capturing and preserving everything to deliver the feeling of "Perfect Memory." Stroker emphasizes the importance of creating new categories rather than incremental improvements, based on solving genuine problems that people face.

15:03

🎯 Advice for Entrepreneurs Building New Categories

Stroker advises entrepreneurs interested in creating new categories to focus on the problem, not the solution. He suggests identifying genuine problems that people face and observing their workarounds or substitutes, which may signal an opportunity for a new category. Stroker emphasizes the importance of being passionate about the problem and willing to dedicate years to solving it, even if initial attempts fail. He also stresses building trust with early adopters through transparency and aligning with their interests.

20:03

🔑 Finding and Solving Meaningful Problems

Stroker provides advice for founders trying to find meaningful problems to build businesses around. He emphasizes the need to identify genuine pain points or "painkillers" rather than "vitamins" that offer minor improvements. Additionally, he suggests focusing on problems that align with personal passions and purposes, as solving them may require a long-term commitment. Stroker also highlights the potential of AI to augment human capabilities in pursuit of individual purposes, rather than replacing humans entirely.

Keywords

💡Entrepreneurship

The practice of starting and building new businesses or ventures. In the video, the speaker discusses his entrepreneurial journey, starting with his first company after graduating from Stanford, the inspiration he drew from the Obama campaign, and the founding of his subsequent startups, Optimizely and Rewind. Entrepreneurship is a central theme, as he shares lessons learned, challenges faced, and the driving force behind his pursuit of creating impactful products.

💡A/B testing

A controlled experiment in which two versions of a product, website, or marketing campaign are shown to different audiences to determine which performs better. The speaker highlights his experience with A/B testing during the Obama campaign, recognizing its power in data-driven decision-making. This insight led him to create Optimizely, a product that made A/B testing accessible to non-technical users, democratizing a practice that was previously complex and expensive.

💡Product-market fit

The degree to which a product satisfies the needs and demands of its target market. The speaker discusses Optimizely's early achievement of product-market fit, which fueled rapid growth and attracted significant investments. He emphasizes the importance of building a product that people genuinely want, solving a real problem, as a foundational step before considering strategies like flywheels or sustainable competitive advantages.

💡Transparency

The practice of operating in an open, honest, and transparent manner. In the context of the video, the speaker highlights the decision to raise Rewind's Series A funding publicly, recording and sharing their pitch deck online. This unconventional approach aimed to build trust with users and potential investors, demonstrating transparency as a startup differentiator and a means of establishing credibility in a new product category.

💡Purpose

A sense of meaning, direction, or intention that drives an individual's actions or pursuits. The speaker emphasizes the importance of purpose in entrepreneurship, suggesting that AI should serve as an accelerant to help humans pursue their unique purposes rather than replacing them. He views purpose as a distinctly human quality that cannot be replicated by AI, and a guiding force behind his vision to give humans 'superpowers' through technology that augments their capabilities.

💡Perfect memory

The ability to recall and remember everything one has experienced, seen, or heard. This concept of 'perfect memory' is the central vision behind Rewind, the speaker's current company. By leveraging technology to capture and record all aspects of a person's life, Rewind aims to augment the limitations of human memory, providing users with a powerful tool to access and relive their experiences with perfect recall.

💡New category creation

The process of developing and introducing a product or service that defines an entirely new market category. The speaker advocates for creating new categories rather than incrementally improving existing products or services. Rewind's approach to providing 'perfect memory' is positioned as a new category, distinct from traditional note-taking or memory aids, by passively capturing everything in the background without conscious effort.

💡Intuition

The ability to understand or know something instinctively, without conscious reasoning. The speaker emphasizes the importance of trusting one's intuition as a founder, particularly when faced with conflicting opinions or advice. He reflects on instances where he regrets going against his gut instinct, leading to decisions he later viewed as mistakes. Developing confidence in one's conviction and intuition is presented as a valuable lesson for entrepreneurs.

💡Passion

A strong and compelling enthusiasm or desire for something. The speaker acknowledges falling out of love with Optimizely after several years, attributing it to spending too much time on aspects of the business he wasn't passionate about. He advises entrepreneurs to maintain passion for their core product or problem, as it becomes increasingly difficult to inspire and retain great talent without that genuine enthusiasm and energy.

💡Augmentation

The act of making something greater or more comprehensive by adding to it. The video presents a vision of using technology to augment human capabilities, transcending biological limitations. This concept of augmentation is central to the speaker's approach, whether it's providing 'perfect memory' through Rewind or exploring other ways to give humans 'superpowers' by enhancing their natural abilities with technological tools and solutions.

Highlights

We raised our series A in public by recording a 7-minute pitch deck video and posting it on social media, which garnered 2 million views, thousands of investment offers, and led to a $350 million valuation led by NEA.

The decision to go public with the fundraising was driven by a desire to build trust with users and address privacy concerns transparently, as well as efficiently handling the influx of investor interest.

After his research at Stanford on predicting the stock market, he spent a year working alone on his first startup idea, which taught him the importance of distribution and the challenges of being a solo founder.

Joining the Obama campaign in 2007 exposed him to the power of A/B testing and data-driven decision-making, which inspired him to start Optimizely to make A/B testing accessible to anyone.

A key lesson from Optimizely was the importance of having confidence in his convictions and intuitions as a founder, rather than regretting going against his gut in favor of others' suggestions.

The idea for Rewind stemmed from regaining his hearing and realizing how limited our biology is, sparking a vision to use technology to augment human capabilities and give people 'superpowers' like perfect memory.

Rewind represents a fundamentally new category of note-taking by passively capturing everything without effort, rather than the anachronistic practice of active note-taking rooted in trying to remember later.

His advice for creating new categories is to focus on the problem, not the solution, and obsess over understanding a real problem that people are trying to solve in broken ways today.

Building trust with users, especially early adopters, is critical for startups solving important problems, which transparency can help achieve.

He recommends not getting ahead of yourself with complex frameworks like flywheels, but focusing first on building a product that solves a real problem for people.

When identifying problems to solve, be honest about whether it's a real 'painkiller' problem you'd change your behavior for, and choose ones you'd be obsessed with pursuing for decades.

AI should be an accelerant that helps humans pursue their unique purpose, not a replacement, by augmenting tasks that don't contribute to that purpose.

The vision is for Rewind to become as ubiquitous as glasses or hearing aids, giving people the 'superpower' of perfect memory that they can't imagine living without.

At Optimizely, he made the mistake of uncontrolled team growth by not saying 'no' enough, which led to misalignment and squandering their early lead.

A key reason for Optimizely's success was making A/B testing easy for non-technical people by lowering the friction, which increased the chances of driving impact through testing.

Transcripts

so this April we did something kind of

crazy this was not a consensus good idea

when we discussed it internally which

was we raised our series a in public I

recorded like a 7-minute version of it

and I only I think I only did like my

third take and I just unedited put it up

there and it took off it really

resonated we got 2 million views on

social media thousands of offers to

invest hundreds of really qualified

meetings that came out of that and

ultimately an amazing lead investor in

Nea who led our series a at a $350

million valuation so it all started

actually with two really pragmatic

concerns

was I'm Dan stroker I'm the co-founder

and CEO of rewind at the beginning of my

career I studied computer science at

Stanford left Stanford to go started a

career at Google as an associate product

manager and in November 2007 joined the

Obama campaign that's inspired me to

start my first company optimizely which

We Grew From Z to $120 million annual

recurring Revenue 450 employees we sold

that company and that's when I started

rewind rewind is a personalized AI

powered by everything you've seen said

or heard heard our vision is to give

humans superpowers and we want to do

that by using technology to augment our

biological limitations and using tools

like rewind to give you Perfect Memory

uh we're growing 15% month over month in

terms of ARR today yeah so we've raised

$33 million from great investors their

very first investor was Sam ultman and I

pitched him on the vision for rewind and

within the first meeting he committed a

million dollars of his own funding the

next round was our seed round LED by

first round Capital another round by

Andre horoz and more recently our series

a was led by

Nea ultimately what seems like successes

were overnight successes but it required

a lot of pain uh to get there the first

idea and first company I actually

started was after I graduated from

Stanford my research at Stanford was on

predicting the stock market looking at

financial news so I actually started a

company I mean I don't know if I even

Incorporated but it was basically for a

year after I graduated by myself I

toiled away kind of building Cool Tech

and this is where I learned firsthand

like the importance of distribution it

was also really lonely working on your

own without a co-founder is very

challenging just the psychological ups

and downs so I actually spent a year

toiling away kind of on my own and then

the drive to do that came from Impact

you know that's always been the driver

bound entrepreneurship for me is how do

I have the biggest impact made me

realize wow I really should learn the

skills necessary to be a successful

entrepreneur so I had this kind of

misguided idea I'd get that from Google

so that's why I went to Google because I

thought that would help me learn skills

necessary to be successful as an

entrepreneur it was misguided because

most of what I learned at Google was how

to navigate Google you know 80% of the

things I learned was how to be

successful with Google 20% was

applicable you know how to work with

great Engineers how to cut scope how to

define and build great products but I

actually think the best thing I could

have done back then is joining an early

stage startup you know had I joined

Facebook at the time which was an early

stage startup or even Dropbox which you

know I would have learned so much more

what it takes to be successful as an

entrepreneur because that's what your

challenges are every day

in November of 2007 I was working at

Google and Barack Obama came to campus

at the time he was third in the polls

behind Hillary Clinton and John Edwards

and he had this vision for how to use

what we were doing at Google using

evidence and data and feedback and bring

that to the government and I remember

feeling really inspired in that talk the

last thing he said when he came to

Google was I want you to be involved

which is kind of a euphemism that

politicians say to encourage you to

donate to their campaign I took them

literally I actually flew on a planing

two weeks later uh to Chicago where the

campaign headquarters were and I just

said I'm I'm here as a volunteer what

can I do to help and that's what led to

this opportunity to do ab testing and

experimentation it's things I had seen

at Google but bringing it to the

campaign and ultimately that became a

job I quit my day job at Google moved to

Chicago and U was the director of

analytics for his campaign the role of

analytics in the campaign was entirely

new in 2008 and the reason why that was

possible was because Barack Obama was

third in the poll

the campaign manager David Pluff had

this mentality he described it as the

risk reward mentality he basically says

if we just did everything like every

other campaign we would end up just like

everyone expected third and so he had

this mindset of let's take some risks

let's do things differently than every

other campaign a good example in in 2007

when I joined that really made this

mentality something the campaign

embraced was We did an AB test and the

ab test was if you go to Barack

obama.com at the time the first thing

you'd see was this very presidential

looking photo of Barack Obama asking you

to sign up on the email list and we ran

an experiment comparing that in real

time to a really compelling video a

video we were excited about you we had

Snippets of his 2004 Democratic National

Convention speech we all thought that

was going to win we wanted to prove how

smart we were by using an AB test and

just kind of on a whim we also included

a few other pictures one picture we

included was a black and white photo of

Barack Obama with Michelle their two

kids very informal sitting kind of on

grass in in this black and white photo

and it turned out that last photo

dramatically overperformed compared to

the rest this photo actually did

surprisingly well it's the last photo

that some you know white- hair grizzled

political veteran would have picked but

you know in hindsight you look at it

well that kind of normalized him as a as

a likable guy it it sort of showed a

different angle to him as a candidate

and we did an analysis and actually that

one change alone led to an incremental

$40 million in donations from the email

addresses that we got from that page so

that's just one example of how using

data and ab testing really helped inform

the decisions we were making one big

lesson I learned from the Obama campaign

is the power of AB testing you know it's

it's not a new idea it's really just the

scientific method but it's applied to

the real world what ultimately inspired

me to start optimizely which was trying

to build a product I wish we had in the

Obama campaign to make it easy for

anybody to do ab testing at that time

the tools we used on the campaign and

those were that were available online

were very expensive they required a

developer to be part of the process and

so the Insight we had from the campaign

is like AB testing is a good idea it's

just hard so let's take a good idea and

make it easy and in some ways that's

been kind of the journey I've had on any

product I've tried to build is take

something that's a good idea at its at

its foundation and democratize it make

it possible for anybody to do so

optimizely at its start was really

trying to build a product I wish we had

in the Obama campaign to make it easy

for anyone to do ab testing the way it

worked was you took a snippit of

JavaScript that we would give you you

put it on your website uh that URL never

changes and then you could run AB test

directly in our visual editor this was a

breakthrough at the time because the

alternative was every time you wanted to

run a new Ab test you needed a developer

to be part of the process the early

hypothesis for optimizing was that most

valuable thing we could build was the

lowest friction way for non-technical

people to run a series of ab tests that

the hypothesis was if we did that we

lower the friction it would increase the

chance that somebody does an AB test and

then if they they do an AB test end up

having an impact and so it came from

from this very basic idea that if the

friction was high and the cost Implement

was high people just wouldn't do it and

if you don't do an AB test you're not

going to get the value and it seems

simple now in hindsight but in the

moment the Alternatives from companies

like Adobe required huge Professional

Services contracts really sophisticated

experiments you needed lots of multivar

tests to justify The Upfront cost of

doing these experiments and with

optimizing we flipped it on a Ted like

we didn't even actually support multivar

testing because we realized it's so much

easier for a marketer to run a series of

a tests and maybe some parallel AB tests

to learn incorporate the winner and move

on then sort of upfront create this huge

sophisticated experiment that's

impossible to get statistical

significance so that was the thesis that

we started with and it it really worked

well I mean that was the reason why

building a product you wish you had is

so powerful is that you have an

intuition your intuition is the product

you wish you had and this is exactly the

product I wish I had in the Obama

campaign to be able to very quickly run

these AB tests so the distinct phases in

optimizes growth I would describe as for

the 2010 to 2013 was really rapid growth

we were lucky to get product Market fit

very early 3 years 7 million in AR or

something like that and we raised our

series a led by Benchmark then that was

a $28 million series a then we raised a

series B not long after a $57 million

series B and then a series C just and so

we were just like growing growing

growing the next phase I would say from

probably 2013 to 2016 uncontrolled

growth in in the team I made the mistake

of it's one thing to to raise more money

than you need you can you should do that

if you couple that with the mistake of

spending more money than you need to

that's really bad and I think we got I I

didn't do a good enough job as CEO in

saying no hire these great you know ahe

of marketing who says oh I need a demand

gen person I need a field marketing I

need a events I'm like oh great like I

hired you to be the CMO so like go go

for it I didn't have the constraint of

lack of capital and then I didn't have

the discipline when we did have the

capital to really make sure we were

growing efficiently so I think we grew

far too quickly in terms of the team uh

we didn't need hundreds of people to do

what we're doing and that was a mistake

so I think we got too big too quickly in

terms of the team and then what happened

was when you get to hundreds of people

spending all of your time with sort of

getting people aligned and just getting

people to like March in the right

direction and I think that was also a

big missed opportunity we kind of

squandered the the lead we had we

weren't moving as quickly as we could I

personally was pretty burnt out I had

been doing optimizely uh for well over a

decade and in some ways after 3 or 4

years I kind of fell out of love with

the business you know we had actually

solved the problem we' set out to solve

which is building a product that made it

easy for anyone to do ab testing and I

made the mistake in my mindset at that

point to think that my job was to hire

people better than me Empower them

delegate to them and ultimately that

meant I spent a lot more of my time on

parts of the business I didn't love and

I ended up spending so much more of my

time in those parts of the business and

that just didn't give me as much energy

as the product side so most of my day

was things that drained my energy that

was something that I wish I had done

differently you know I looked at the

time I I saw folks like L cery at New

Relic who was famous for being this you

know public company CEO who still codes

and I should have done that I should

have modeled myself after him knowing

that that's not selfish at the time I

thought that' be selfish but what I

realized the bigger selfish thing would

be to fall out of love with the company

because when you do that it's so much

harder to attract great people to retain

them to inspire them and had I just been

more focused on problems I was actually

passionate about I think we ultimately

could have achieved much much greater

success I'm proud of the outcome I'm

proud that we sold it but it's only a

glimmer of what we could have done had I

still fa had still had the same passion

for the company 13 years in than I did 3

years

in the most Salient lesson I learned

from optimizely is is a pattern and this

is the pattern of things I regret most

and this is what the pattern looks like

my gut says we should do a somebody else

says we should do B we end up doing B

for all the good reasons it's a board

member who suggested or an executive

who've hired and then B doesn't turn out

well uh and those are the things I

regret most not because when I went with

my gut things didn't turn out well

that's happened plenty of times I just

don't remember any of it the things I

remember most are when I went against my

intuition I didn't have the confidence

and my conviction to argue for my

intuition and we ended up going down a

different path that ultimately failed

and that's where the biggest lesson I

learned was confidence in my conviction

I didn't realize that as a Founder you

have so many data points coming in you

from the engineering to customer voice

to sales to just the the market the

investors and that helps you form this

intuition that sometimes is really even

hard to articulate but when your gut

says you should do a and you really feel

like you should do a you're you're going

to regret doing B if it doesn't turn out

well so that's the lesson I've learned

and now with rewind I have much more

confidence in my conviction there are

plenty of times we do a and it doesn't

turn out well but most of those are

two-way doors most of those we can go

back and change laughter so I um I think

that's the lesson I learned more than

anything yeah so the first idea the very

first seed of what turned into rewind

was losing my hearing and when I try to

hearing nade there two things that

happened one I could hear again which

was amazing but an equally amazing thing

I realized in that exact moment was how

I didn't realize how bad my hearing had

gotten it's this simultaneous

realization of how great hearing is to

these examples like I remember I first

had in my ear and I like rub my shoulder

and be like that makes a sound I turn a

faucet on and be like amazed like that's

a sound there's a sound that's coming

from that and what that told me was

Clarity around what I think is a secret

which is that we all live our lives

limited by our own biology we all live

kind of like a horse with blinders on

like we don't even realize what we don't

have until you can feel it that moment

put me on this hunt now it took 10 years

to to bring it to life which is what are

other ways that technology can augment

human capabilities transcend these

limits that we have by our own biology

and give us superpowers so the

hypothesis when we started rewind was

that there are so many things in our

lives that we forget and that if we

could give the users the feeling of

Perfect Memory that that would kind of

change their mindset and they'd be

willing to you know record things

capture things for the benefit of having

the feeling of Perfect Memory we

actually started very narrowly we

started on meetings first product in the

first MVP we launched was actually

called scribe it was a bot that joins

meetings it transcribes the meeting lets

you actually go back and see your

recording of it we did that uh launched

that and learned a ton we were being

asked all the time to go beyond just

meetings boy I would love to be able to

remember other things not just the

meetings I'm in and that technology had

finally caught up to the vision so

that's when we pivoted from what was

scribe to what is now rewind mind um was

this sort of this simultaneous

Confluence of Hardware got good enough

Apple silicon in particular we learned

that people wanted this product we knew

that being able to capture everything

was far better than just meetings

because often what happens is you you

try to remember something and you might

remember a detail but you get the source

wrong that ability to be comprehensive

was kind of a thesis from the beginning

if we could be comprehensive then we

finally could deliver better on This

Promise of Perfect Memory so often

people think about starting a startup by

looking at different categories and

different markets and they think oh how

do I build a better mouse trap in

existing market and I think that's for

some people there are people for whom

optimizing incrementally making

something better is just how they're

wired personally I'm much more excited

about creating new categories because I

think there are so many things in our

lives today that technology can make

better and the ways to actually really

have a 10x or 100x Improvement is to

build something new not to build

something slightly better than before

rewind is an example of that it is a

fundamentally different way of

approaching the same problem and if you

think about what is like the most common

way today that people use to try to

remember the most common thing people do

to try to remember if you describe it it

will seem so anachronistic the entire

idea of note taking is all rooted in

this idea of trying to remember

something better and if you think about

it that way that you need foresight you

need to know what you might want to

remember later you need to be able to

search it you need to be able to

actually put effort into it our approach

is entirely different it's passive it's

capturing everything it does it without

being perceptible it does it in the

background that's a way to think about

it's like an entirely new category of

note taking although note taking is all

trying to solve the problem of

remembering better we wouldn't take

notes if we all had Perfect Memory if

you all had Perfect Memory you wouldn't

use rewind and so that way that's the

new category we're building is the

category of giving you Perfect Memory

the best advice I'd have for

entrepreneurs who want to start a new

category is to focus on the problem not

the solution it's very easy to fall in

love with some sophisticated new

technology like gbg4 came out okay cool

now what problem do I solve with it it

instead if you start with a problem if

you believe that there's a problem of

people don't have Perfect Memory then

that problem is something you can solve

by building entirely new categories so I

think you need to really obsess with a

problem really deeply understand the

problem try to look at the substitutes

like what do people do that's kind of

like weird and broken today like I said

no taking is kind of weird and broken

it's a it's an inkling that there is a

problem to be solved it's just the

status quo is so inept like if nobody

actually is piecing together products

that exist today to try to solve your

problem then it may not be a real

problem usually the signs of a new

market or a new category are people sort

of gluing together things that aren't

meant to be put together to to try to

solve the problem there's hodg poot sort

of duct tape and bailing wire to try to

solve something and the core of what

they're trying to solve is a job it's a

job to be done it's something they want

in the world to exist because they have

a problem and so that's I think my best

advice if you want us to create a new

category really think about the problem

and then let that lead the technology

not the other way

around so this April we did something

kind of crazy uh this was not a

consensus good idea when we discussed it

internally which was we raised our

series a in public took our pitch deck

uh I recorded like a 7-minute version of

it and I only I think I only did like my

third take and I just unedited put it up

there and it took off you know it really

resonated we got 2 million views on

social media thousands of offers to

invest hundreds of really qualified

meetings that came out of that and

ultimately an amazing lead investor in

Nea who led our series a at a $350

million valuation and so it all started

actually with two really pragmatic

concerns one was we had such an

opportunity to build trust with users by

being more transparent you know our

product is different it's new it's a new

category at first blush you sort of ask

okay well what happens to this data and

and people are concerned about privacy

well what about this company what if

Google comes by and buys this company

then all of a sudden I'm going to get

targeted with better ads and so we

really wanted to start with like how do

we build trust with users that we are a

going concern we're a business that's

going to be around for a while and then

simultaneously I was getting hundreds of

investors reaching out to want to meet

some of them very important luminaries I

just didn't want to like blow them all

off so okay let me just create a video

that I can send to all of them and while

I add it why I just put up on Twitter

and see if that actually gets trust from

users and that was kind of the two data

points that led us to actually

publishing it in hindsight like why did

we even do that we had three years of

Runway we didn't really need the funding

but we got from three years of Runway to

six years of Runway which is even better

right now we're growing 15% month over

month uh in in annual recurring revenue

and the primary source of that growth is

word of mouth I think building trust

with users especially as a startup is

critical users especially early adopters

they want to love your product they want

to love your business you probably are

solving problem that so that matters so

much to them but they also don't want to

get screwed they don't want their data

to be sold uh they know that startups

might get desperate and do things that

ultimately are not in their best

interest or their users's best interest

so if you can assuage those concerns by

being transparent that goes a long way

and every time I've done it every time

I've paid off uh every time I've made a

bet on transparency it's paid off so uh

you know we'll see maybe one day I'll

regret being so transparent but so far

it's it's worked really well so that was

sort of the recipe and there's so many

ways to build trust and there's so much

status quo like you no I doubt a you

know CEO of Fortune 500 company would

put their candid 360 feedback out there

if Tim Cook did that then great but if

Tim Cook can't do that and won't do that

then the one way I can beat him is by

doing it by being a startup that's

willing to take those kinds of risks I

think that sets us apart from the big

Tech

incumbents I I am a big fan of flywheels

what I would recommend especially early

stage startup CEOs is don't get obsessed

with the greatest flywheel and

Frameworks and make something people

want at the end of the day your job is

to build a product that people want it

solves a real problem for them and if

you're lucky enough to do that then you

can start thinking about over time how

do you build sustainable competitive

Advantage how do you build

differentiation so that even if a

competitor knew exactly what your

playbook is you could ultimately beat

them because you're building investing

into a flywheel gets better of looking

at companies like Amazon and say wow how

did Amazon get so big and you look at

you know Jeff Bezos famously talks about

investing in things that don't change

looking at how the world's going to be

the same in 5 years or 10 years uh will

people want more selection or less

selection more selection will they want

lower prices or higher prices lower

prices well they want faster delivery or

slower delivery and and so okay let's

build a flywheel around faster delivery

more selection lower prices that sounds

great you know they have this napkin

that's famous flywheel that Amazon has

but at the end of the day it started

with building a product people wanted

getting them books over the mail and

getting them the selection that they

couldn't get elsewhere and you need to

start there before you have the luxury

of thinking about flywheels and

sustainable advantage and I know I'm the

only I I've definitely made this mistake

before of like getting ahead of yourself

but you got to start with build a

product people

want yeah so the advice I'd give to

Founders trying to find a problem that

they can build a business around uh

starts from a couple of Dimensions first

really be honest with yourself is it a

problem is it a painkiller or a vitamin

you know there's a lot of things in our

life that are just small be solved

better with a pro product but you also

have to accept that like change is hard

people are stuck in their habits they're

used to doing the things they're doing

so anything you build needs to solve a

problem that's not just like a slly

better version of something that exists

but needs to M you know painful enough

problem that they're going to change

your behavior to use your product so

that's first is like really be honest

with yourself is this a problem and is

it a problem that you have you might

think it's a problem you have but like

be honest would you actually change your

behavior to use the product that you're

thinking about building the second is if

you focus on a problem you think about

the future of your focus on that problem

either what you're doing is a good idea

or a bad idea if it's a bad idea it'll

probably fail and you'll change ideas if

it's a good idea you might have have to

live with this problem for 10 years for

15 years or 20 years so make it a

problem you care about make it a problem

you might be obsessed with the way I

looked at it with rewind is the problem

of giving humans Perfect Memory is a

problem that I would want to spend the

rest of my life pursuing even if it

failed even if it wasn't successful I'd

rather be on my deathbed saying well at

least I tried to give humans Perfect

Memory and failed than not try to solve

that problem and I think if that lens is

something you use you end up actually

solving a real problem and if you're

successful which you should hope you are

you're still going to want to be around

in 3 or 5 or 10 years to make that

problem and that product and that

company as big as it possibly could be

so the one thing that AI can't replace

and in fact the one thing that AI should

all help us pursue is purpose that's one

thing that AI can't do AI can't give us

purpose and as humans that what's make

us uniquely human is our purpose why are

we here it may be to spend more time

with family it may be to create

something out of nothing and if AI can

be in service of your purpose that is an

accelerant that's a superpower it's not

a replacement it makes you better at

what you do to pursue your purpose and

if anything you do in your day that

doesn't help us pursue our own purpose

can be taken away and augmented with AI

then I think that's a good thing for

Humanity so our vision is to give humans

superpowers but if we're successful I

see rewind as being as ubiquitous as

glasses are for vision or hearing aids

are for hearing it's a tool that people

will try they'll use and then they think

to themselves how could I live life

without this uh and that's my dream our

hope is if we're successful people look

back to today kind of in shock at how we

lived Our Lives when there's so much

more technology could do for

them