Pieter Levels built 12 startups in 12 months | Lex Fridman Podcast Clips
Summary
TLDRIn this engaging conversation, the speaker recounts their journey of launching 12 startups in 12 months. Starting with basic coding skills from a YouTube channel and a website, they delve into the challenges of rapid prototyping, learning on the go, and the importance of focusing on minimal viable products. The discussion touches on the rise and fall of Flash, the early days of the internet with animated gifs and banners, and the struggle to monetize browser extensions. The speaker shares insights on building a simple yet effective product, like their first startup 'Play My Inbox,' which aggregated YouTube links from emails, gaining thousands of users without a monetization strategy.
Takeaways
- 😀 The speaker launched a startup every month for a year to learn coding and build things quickly.
- 🎶 They had a YouTube channel called 'Panda Mix Show' featuring electronic music mixes.
- 💿 They sold CDs and used Flash for their album design, which was later discontinued due to Steve Jobs' stance against it.
- 🔧 The speaker learned ActionScript, which was then overshadowed by JavaScript, the 'dynamic thing' for the internet.
- 🚀 The first startup was 'Play My Inbox', an app to organize YouTube links from emails, which gained popularity without monetization.
- 🤔 There's a discussion about the difficulty of monetizing browser extensions and plugins, as they are often perceived as not valuable enough to pay for.
- 🛠️ The importance of building a minimal viable product (MVP) within a limited time frame was emphasized.
- 📬 The speaker mentioned using email protocols like IMAP for the first startup, which raised privacy concerns.
- 🔑 Simplifying login systems with temporary links or hash-based logins was a strategy to save time during development.
- 📊 The speaker discussed the challenge of marketing a new product without being seen as a spammer on platforms like Reddit.
- 💡 The idea of solving a specific problem for a community on Reddit, and offering a free solution initially, was suggested as a marketing strategy.
Q & A
What was the speaker's background in coding before starting the 12 startups in 12 months challenge?
-The speaker had some coding experience, having made a website for a YouTube channel called 'panda mix show' and learned basic HTML and ActionScript for Flash, which was used for creating music mixes.
What was the name of the YouTube channel the speaker had, and what was its content about?
-The YouTube channel was named 'panda mix show' and featured electronic music mixes such as dubstep, drum and bass, and techno house.
Why did the speaker invest time in learning ActionScript, and what happened to it?
-The speaker believed ActionScript was the dynamic language that would take over the internet, but Steve Jobs declared it a closed platform with security issues, leading to its decline and the speaker's realization that Jobs was right.
What was the speaker's first startup project, and how did it work?
-The first startup project was called 'Play My Inbox'. It was an app that logged into a user's Gmail, found emails with YouTube links, and created a gallery of songs, essentially functioning like an early version of Spotify.
What were some of the privacy concerns with the 'Play My Inbox' app?
-The app had privacy concerns because it accessed all of a user's emails to find YouTube links, which could potentially expose sensitive information.
How did the speaker handle the privacy concerns of the 'Play My Inbox' app?
-The speaker ensured that the app did not save any emails and only used them to find YouTube links, addressing the privacy concerns to some extent.
What was the speaker's approach to launching a startup every month for a year?
-The speaker was strict about the one-month timeline for each startup, focusing on building a minimum viable product and learning coding skills along the way.
How did the speaker ensure accountability for launching a startup every month?
-The speaker published their project as blog posts and shared them on platforms like Hacker News, creating a public commitment to complete the challenge.
What was the speaker's strategy for promoting their startups without being seen as a spammer?
-The speaker suggested finding a problem that a subreddit's community was already discussing and offering their solution, positioning it as a potential help rather than a direct promotion.
What were some of the challenges the speaker faced when building startups in a limited time frame?
-The main challenge was deciding what not to add or build due to time constraints, focusing on essential features like a landing page, product functionality, and a simple login system.
What was the speaker's opinion on the monetization potential of browser extensions?
-The speaker believed that it's difficult to make money from browser extensions because people generally do not value them enough to pay for them, expecting them to be free.
Outlines
🎵 Music Sharing Startup and Flash's Demise
The speaker reminisces about their first startup, which was inspired by the cumbersome process of sharing music through email. They created an application that logged into Gmail, extracted YouTube links from emails, and displayed them in a gallery format, similar to Spotify. Despite privacy concerns and the use of a simple login system, the app gained popularity, with tens of thousands of users. The speaker reflects on the challenges of building a startup in a month, emphasizing the importance of focusing on essential features and avoiding overcomplication.
🚀 Rapid Prototyping and Marketing Strategies
The second paragraph delves into the difficulties of rapidly prototyping a startup within a month. The speaker discusses the necessity of prioritizing features and avoiding the temptation to add unnecessary elements. They mention the importance of creating a landing page and a product that users would be willing to pay for, as well as considering the login system's simplicity and security. The speaker also touches on marketing strategies, such as leveraging Reddit to promote the startup without being perceived as a spammer, by offering a solution to a problem that the community already acknowledges.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡startups
💡coding
💡Flash
💡ActionScript
💡HTML
💡Gmail
💡Hacker News
💡Stripe
💡login system
💡Chrome extensions
Highlights
The speaker initiated a challenge to create 12 startups in 12 months to rapidly learn and build various projects.
Had basic coding skills from running a YouTube channel and creating a website for electronic music mixes.
Used Flash and ActionScript for the music website, which was later discontinued following Steve Jobs' stance against it.
Flash was once a popular platform for creating animated content and had security issues that led to its decline.
The speaker reminisces about the early days of the internet with animated gifs and homepages centered with banners.
Early internet advertising was dominated by banners and adult content, which was a significant source of revenue.
The first startup was 'Play My Inbox', an app to organize YouTube links sent via email, which gained popularity.
The app used Gmail's IMAP to access emails and find YouTube links, raising privacy concerns.
The speaker discusses the challenges of monetizing browser extensions and plugins due to user expectations of them being free.
The idea of building on top of existing platforms like Google and leveraging their ecosystems is explored.
The importance of focusing on building a minimum viable product within the limited time frame of a month is emphasized.
The speaker talks about the necessity of creating a landing page and a simple login system for the startup.
A discussion on how to market the startup on platforms like Reddit without being perceived as spam.
The strategy of solving a common problem within a subreddit and offering a solution to gain traction.
The speaker reflects on the difficulty of deciding what not to build in order to stay within the one-month timeline.
A mention of the transition from a simple login link to a more secure Google login system over time.
The speaker's experience with building Chrome extensions and the challenges of monetizing them.
The concept of a 12-month startup challenge as a method for rapid learning and iteration in entrepreneurship.
Transcripts
so 12 startups in 12 months yeah so what
how do you what startup number one what
what was that what like what what were
you feeling what were you sitting behind
the computer like how much do you
actually know about building stuff at
that point I could I could code a little
bit because I did the YouTube channel
and I made a website for I would make
websites for like the YouTube channel it
was called panda mix show and it was
like these electronic music mixes like
dubstep or dral Bas or techno house I
saw one of them had like flash were you
using flash yeah my album my CD album
was using flash yeah yeah I sold my CD
yeah Kid Flash was Flash was software
this is like the the break like Grandpa
you know but flash was cool yeah and
there's what's it called boy I should
remember this action script there's some
kind of programming language scpt yeah
yeah excript in flash back then that was
the JavaScript you know the JavaScript
yeah and I I thought that's going to
that's supposed to be the dynamic thing
that takes over the internet I invested
so many hours in learning that Steve
Jobs killed it Steve Jobs Steve Jobs had
flesh stopped using it I was like okay
that guy was right though right yeah I I
don't know yeah well it was it was a
closed platform I think and Clos but
it's ironic cuz Apple you know they're
not very open right but back then Steve
was like this is closed we should not
use it and it's as security problems I
think which sounded like a copout like I
just wanted to say that to make it look
kind of bad um but flash was cool yeah
yeah it was cool for a time yeah it
listen animated gifts were cool for a
time too yeah they came back in a
different way as a meme though I mean
like I I remember when gifts were
actually cool not ironically cool yeah
like there's like on the internet you
would have like a Dancing Rabbit or
something like this and that was really
exciting no you had like the you know
Lex homepage you the everything was
centered yeah and you had like Peter's
homepage and the on the construction
yeah GIF which was like a guy like with
a helmet and the lights was amazing
banners uh yeah that's how before like
Google AdSense you would have like
banners for advertising was amazing yeah
and a lot of links to porn I think yeah
that was where the merchant accounts
people would use for people would make
money a lot only money made on nint was
like porn or a lot of it yeah it was it
was a dark place it's still a dark place
yeah and but there's Beauty in the
darkness anyway so you were uh you did
some basic HTML yeah yeah but I had to
learn the actual like coding so I uh
this was good it was a good good idea to
like every month launch a startup so I
could uh learn the codes learn basic
stuff and but it was still very Scrappy
because I didn't have time to which was
on purpose I didn't have time to spend a
lot of um I had a month to do something
so I couldn't spend more than a month
and I was pretty strict about that um
and I published it as a blog post so
people I think I put it on Hacker News
and people would check like kind of like
oh did you actually you know I felt like
accountability because I put it public
that I actually had to do it do you
remember the first one you did I think
it was play my inbox cuz back then my
friends we would send we would send like
cool was before Spotify I think we would
send like 2014 we would send music to
each other like YouTube links uh like
this is a cool song this is a cool song
and it was the these giant email trads
on Gmail and they were like unnavigable
so I made an app that would log into
your Gmail get them emails and find
amounts of YouTube links and then make
like kind of like a gallery of your your
songs like essentially Spotify and my
friends loved it was it scraping it like
what was it us poop like pop or IMAP you
know it would actually check your email
so it had like privacy concerns because
it would get all youra emails to find
YouTube links but then I would I
wouldn't save anything um but that was
fun it was like and that that first
project already would get like pressed
like it went on think like um some tech
media and stuff and I was like that's
cool like it didn't make money there was
no payment button but it was uh it was
actually people using it I think tens of
thousands of people used it that's a
great idea I wonder why like why why
don't we have that why don't we have
things that ask us Gmail and extract
some useful aggregate information yeah
you could tell Gmail like don't give me
all emails just give me the ones with
YouTube links you know or something like
that yeah I mean there is a whole
ecosystem of like apps you can build on
top of the Google but people don't never
do this I've seen a few like Boomerang
there's a few apps that are like good
but just I wonder what maybe it's not
easy to make money I think it's hard to
get people to pay for these like
extensions and plugins you know because
it's not like a real app so it's not
like people don't value it people value
oh this a plugin should be free you know
when I want to use a plugin in Google
Sheets or something I'm not going to pay
for it like it should be free which is
but if you go to a website and you
actually okay I need this product I'm
going to pay for this because it's a
real product so even though it's the
same code in the back it's a plug-in you
know yeah I mean you can do it through
like extensions like Chrome extensions
through from the browser side yeah but
who pays for Chrome extensions right
like barely anybody sobody uh that's not
a good place to make money probably yeah
that sucks like chromic should be
extension for your startup you know you
have a product yeah oh we also have a
chromic
you know I wish the Chrome extension
would be the product I wish Chrome would
support that like where you could pay
for it easily cuz like imagine I can
imagine a lot of products that would
just live as extensions like
improvements for social media like gpts
you know gpts yeah like these CH gpts
they they going to charge money for it
now and you get a ref ref share I think
from open AI I made a lot of them also
why we'll we'll talk about it so let's
rewind back it's a pretty cool idea to
do 12 startups in 12 months what what
does it take to build a thing in in in
30 days like at that time how hard was
that um I think it the hard part is like
figuring out what you shouldn't add
right what you shouldn't build because
you don't have time so you need to build
a landing page well you need to make the
you know you need to build the product
actually because it need to be something
they pay for um do you need to build a
login system like maybe no you know like
maybe you can build some Scrappy login
system like for fot you sign up you pay
stripe checkout and you get a login link
and when I started out there was only a
login link with a hash and that's just a
static link so it's very easy to log in
yeah it's not so safe you know what if
you leak the link and now I have real
Google login but that took like a year
so keeping it very Scrappy is very
important to because you don't have time
you know you need to focus on um what
you can build fast uh so money stripe uh
build a product build a landing page um
you need to think about how are people
going to find this so are you going to
put it on Reddit or something how are
you going to put it on Reddit without
being looked at as a spammer right like
um if you say hey this is my new startup
you should use it no nobody's it gets
deleted you know mhm um maybe if you
find a problem that a lot of people on
Reddit already have on a subreddit you
know like and you solve that problem say
what up people I made this thing that
might solve your problem and maybe it's
free for now you know like uh that could
work you know but you need to be very
you know um narrow it down what you're
building time is limited
yeah for
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