BAD1 Special: The Gorillas Founder Is Building 100,000 Companies With AI — Kagan Sumer

[00:00:04] BAD1 Special & How was it for you? How was the day? How was it outside? BAD1 Special & Man, it's like... Actually... It's quite insane. Like, you know, when I first came in, it's a little bit dark, it's like there are lights and everything, but the people... BAD1 Special & You tried to mimic Berkhan I think. BAD1 Special & You want to build a club. BAD1 Special & You know, what I loved about it is... So I felt three things. One is, it's just becoming. Like it's not something established but it's becoming, which I love. BAD1 Special & So it's a great feeling, right?

[00:00:31] BAD1 Special & You know, exactly. Second thing is, I like that... I like that it's like there were people, everyone was talking to each other. And third thing is, I like that it was dark and you know, a bit bright. BAD1 Special & It's a different vibe. BAD1 Special & It was quite nice. BAD1 Special & Oh my God. I remember the first time I ordered one Gorillas. BAD1 Special & It's one of those experiences. I know exactly where I sat, I know what I ordered, I know the feeling when the guy actually rang on the door. Because you cannot believe it when you do it at the time, right? BAD1 Special & I was in an office at Kausnigstrasse and then the guy actually showed up, gave me the bag.

[00:01:01] BAD1 Special & It's so interesting, right? It was a memorable experience. It felt like magic. BAD1 Special & Yeah, it was very magical. BAD1 Special & It's... I mean... BAD1 Special & I was there myself, so I know a couple of... BAD1 Special & I understood that it's magical when I saw stuff like... BAD1 Special & I got a customer and you know, they're in the team call and they just documented it during the team call. BAD1 Special & They saw that there are 64 faces on the Zoom call, like... BAD1 Special & They're showing you this fucking came, you know? BAD1 Special & It's not a scam, it really is right.

[00:01:31] BAD1 Special & Yeah, exactly. BAD1 Special & How did he do this? BAD1 Special & It's not a scam, yeah. BAD1 Special & It was also a challenger brand, you know? BAD1 Special & It's faster than you was the slogan and stuff, you know? BAD1 Special & It's really faster than me. BAD1 Special & It's fucking faster than me. BAD1 Special & Oh my god. BAD1 Special & Do we have the same experience with AI, right? BAD1 Special & It also feels magic, right? BAD1 Special & You press a button, something shows up, it's like it's never been there. BAD1 Special & I mean... BAD1 Special & Yeah... BAD1 Special & I'm spending a lot of time with AI. BAD1 Special & How's your tinkering going? BAD1 Special & Yeah, yeah.

[00:02:01] BAD1 Special & What's going on there? BAD1 Special & So what I really think, like... BAD1 Special & How I got into AI... BAD1 Special & I saw Loveable and I said, oh this has something... BAD1 Special & I felt like this is something like... BAD1 Special & This is New Age Gorillas. BAD1 Special & You know? BAD1 Special & You get the goods from Reve and then you sell with a markup. BAD1 Special & You increase the goods from Antropic. BAD1 Special & Yeah, exactly. BAD1 Special & You get the goods from Antropic. BAD1 Special & You make the experience 100 times better. BAD1 Special & So I said, okay, let me just build Loveable... BAD1 Special & Like...

[00:02:31] BAD1 Special & I just tried to... BAD1 Special & I found a YouTube video, follow along, like... BAD1 Special & Can I build the same thing? BAD1 Special & So this was the first thing, like... BAD1 Special & Maybe nine months ago. BAD1 Special & I'm an engineer actually, like... BAD1 Special & I'm a robotics engineer, like... BAD1 Special & Like from the school, you know? BAD1 Special & So I like... BAD1 Special & It was like back to school for me. BAD1 Special & So... BAD1 Special & Yeah, but it's fantastic technology. BAD1 Special & I have some ideas about it. BAD1 Special & Like, I think there's so much FOMO. BAD1 Special & Like, I don't think it's the best time to build. BAD1 Special & Like, funny enough because...

[00:03:01] BAD1 Special & You don't think it's the best time? BAD1 Special & Yeah, man, it's like... BAD1 Special & I mean... BAD1 Special & Like, in my point of view, it's not the best time to build the future, like... BAD1 Special & Like, for a lot of people. BAD1 Special & Like, because there are so many things to build. BAD1 Special & Like, you need some sort of persistence and direction and less pivots, I would say. BAD1 Special & Like, you need to have some sort of... BAD1 Special & You need to commit to a path as a founder and you should walk that path. BAD1 Special & Like, and there are a lot of shits happening on that path. BAD1 Special & Like, if you don't have AI or like this building cost is zero,

[00:03:30] BAD1 Special & Like, you have some opportunity cost and you cannot just scrap it and tomorrow we have another product. BAD1 Special & Like, but I feel like now, like let's say you built like seven days and you there's an obstacle came. BAD1 Special & Like, eight days you can have another product. BAD1 Special & Like, so I think this is a very big, very challenging, like mentally challenging thing for building itself. BAD1 Special & Like, so I mean, forgive my language, it feels like it's very easy to make intellectual masturbation with it. BAD1 Special & Like, you know, like you can build, build, build, next, build, build, build, next.

[00:04:00] BAD1 Special & Like, but how can you get into a path without thinking like, okay, I can actually do something completely different in one day. BAD1 Special & Like, I think that's the biggest, that's one of the biggest challenges. BAD1 Special & Like, is it too much opportunity? BAD1 Special & Like, is it like too much? BAD1 Special & Like, everything is possible and you don't know what to do? BAD1 Special & Like, I think it's like just coming back to your wow moment. It's a wow moment to create something, you know, like today there was nothing and tomorrow there's something. And if you have the technology to create something,

[00:04:28] you want to create. And, but that doesn't mean that you create a business, but you create something, you know? Like getting that something to a working product or a business is actually like a path that you need to overcome a couple of things. And I think it's very easy to go out of that path and being in the trap of just constant building. BAD1 Special & Like, I have to do one thing after the other. BAD1 Special & Like, I was in that fucking trap like eight months. BAD1 Special & Like, I was constantly building things.

[00:04:58] BAD1 Special & Are you still in there? BAD1 Special & No, like I think I got out of it. BAD1 Special & Like, I mean, not I think, but I 100% got out of it. BAD1 Special & What is it? What got you out of it? BAD1 Special & What is it now? BAD1 Special & I mean, two things got me out of it. BAD1 Special & One thing is, BAD1 Special & Like, this sugar, there was a social network and all that stuff. BAD1 Special & Like, we were... BAD1 Special & Like, we saw it for one second. BAD1 Special & One project is named Mirror, the end there is Sugar. BAD1 Special & It's the same thing. BAD1 Special & Like, Gorillas. BAD1 Special & Like, how do you come up with those great names? BAD1 Special & Like, your opinions at naming, those things all sound cool.

[00:05:27] Sugar, like what a cool name for a project. BAD1 Special & Like, how do you approach naming? BAD1 Special & Like, I mean, I don't know man. It's just like, you know, a couple of Jägermeister and a couple of like, sitting and like... BAD1 Special & Like, a lot of things sounds so technical, right? BAD1 Special & Like, in the AI world everything sounds like a name of a person. BAD1 Special & Like, I think you found a more personal approach. BAD1 Special & Like, yeah, I think a lot about values and... BAD1 Special & Yeah, for example, sugar is addictive, you know?

[00:05:56] BAD1 Special & Like, I was addicted to sugar, BAD1 Special & Like, I'm still a bit addicted to that, I'm not gonna lie. BAD1 Special & Like, yeah, I love sugar man. BAD1 Special & Like, so cool. BAD1 Special & Like, and then, you know, we were building this health thing and BAD1 Special & Like, we wanted to build something BAD1 Special & Like, so a lot of health products, BAD1 Special & Like, which we also built one of these, BAD1 Special & Like, they get your data and they tell you things that BAD1 Special & Like, you know, but you just ignore. BAD1 Special & Like, don't drink, don't smoke. BAD1 Special & Like, here we are. BAD1 Special & Like, exactly.

[00:06:25] BAD1 Special & Like, I mean, put your blood test in a, you know, like in a, BAD1 Special & Like, in a tool, like on a company and it will tell you BAD1 Special & Like, exactly the things that you know that you should do what you're not doing. BAD1 Special & Like, so the real problem that we realized was, BAD1 Special & Like, it was around like behavior change and behavior change needs to be addictive, BAD1 Special & Like, a little bit like a branded touch. BAD1 Special & Like, like an application, BAD1 Special & Like, a drink or something. BAD1 Special & Like, so that's why like we said, BAD1 Special & Like, it's more like a game than a, BAD1 Special & Like, super technical product. BAD1 Special & Like, so the sugar kind of came into play like that. BAD1 Special & Like, like that.

[00:06:55] BAD1 Special & Like, mirror was the initial name and it was too reflective. BAD1 Special & Like, yeah, I mean, like some people love the mirror, but if you're unhealthy, you don't want to, I mean, it's not, so. BAD1 Special & Like, maybe you don't want to look into the mirror. BAD1 Special & Like, exactly. BAD1 Special & Like, so like that's why like mirror shifted to sugar and everything, BAD1 Special & Like, we couldn't make it. BAD1 Special & Like, we tried a lot, a lot of ways, like, BAD1 Special & Like, it was, we did a lot of mistakes, I would say. BAD1 Special & Like, we had an amazing team. BAD1 Special & Like, one guy is now at OpenAI for example, from the team.

[00:07:25] BAD1 Special & Like, one guy is at Neko Health. BAD1 Special & Like, really good team, very expensive team. But coming back to your question, what got me to AI is, money was like going away. And basically, there were these amazing people that were like constantly pivoting and not achieving success. And I said, guys, I go alone, like I left myself in the company, and I selected something super boring. Tax optimization for our instructors, like we have a couple of Plata Studios,

[00:07:55] and Longevity Studios in Munich. And, super boring, like I began coding it, like I'm coding. Are you serious? Live stream. I'm God. I was coding, writing some functions. No, no, not at all man. Like, just basic, basic building the basic product, and after that, it went really well.

[00:08:20] And then, that product, actually I kind of automated a little bit, you know, when a customer tells, like customer complaints, this goes to like a, this goes to linear and that is picked autonomously built. And I look at the PR and after that I, so it's kind of, it goes on its own. And there I said, oh shit, like, like last nine months, I was looking what to build next, this next big thing.

[00:08:47] But actually, what I need to look is a little bit like, what wouldn't have existed today, and very tangible to build with the technology. So I stopped chasing all of this like, Twitter posts on my, like that gives me a huge FOMO. And I looked at the notary websites in Nuremberg. I looked at the tax optimization, Stoieberata website in Leipzig.

[00:09:14] Man, like, now, and like now, like there's an autonomous company that finds these. I swipe like Tinder and it just goes, builds, it's a side project, like, which is gonna, which is gonna get very serious, like in the next. What does the product do? Like, it's just autonomously, like imagine rocket internet, right? I love rocket internet. Yeah, like I'm everyone, like a lot of people talk shit about rocket internet, but rocket internet game, the chance to be the best start of university.

[00:09:44] Yeah, like no one gave me a job when I came to Germany. I stayed five days in front of rocket internet to meet Alexander Kudli. And, and I, her assistant got bored of me and gave me one meeting. And after that, I met Adrienne Frenzel and, and delivery hero. Oh, my God. And yeah, so rocket internet gave chance to so many people. And, and not so many people speak so highly on media, but like ask anyone that has been at record internet. I mean, imagine like the impact they have, right? Yeah, exactly.

[00:10:13] So, so coming, coming back to the topic, what, what would record internet do now? Would they chase the next big thing or would they, would they just, um, they would find a proven opportunity. And they would tackle that with what's out there. And I mean, better on operational level. Exactly. Before they, it was capital and people for them. Uh huh. Now it's more like workflows. Um, so basically what, what I'm doing is, I mean, not, I'm not doing anything to be honest. I'm just creating the system that does this.

[00:10:43] Uh, like there are, there are like eight agents now. So, so they, okay. Okay. The agent team. And I mean, I like, I mean, I don't know, like, I'm not that technical, but what I open, what I do is like, um, I'm in the loop a little bit. So I open my phone every day. Uh, there's one opportunity scout that's scouts me business ideas. And I just Tinder like swipe. I say, I like this. I don't like this. I like this. And I swipe and it becomes, it begins building. Really?

[00:11:12] And I see Pulsia, you know, this company that builds company. Like if Pulsia was that good, would Pulsia give this to people to build it? Good question. I mean, imagine that you have a, if Pulsia would be really good. I, I used Pulsia. I forgot to cancel and I paid 49 euros. So I tried it out. It wasn't that impressive, right? Yeah. I mean, it's actually impressive. And I really like the founder.

[00:11:39] Um, I think like we met once, like, I don't know, uh, we met once on a call when he was at, uh, the cloud kitchen business. I think what he does needs a lot of respect. Um, but I'm, I'm always thinking if you would, if, if you would 100% trust that this would work. Yeah. Would you do it a customer product? Like would you do a service product or would you really make it? The internet would keep it for themselves. Yeah.

[00:12:04] I mean, and not only keep for themselves, but also like put solo entrepreneurs internally, built the shared services. Uh, and after that, uh, and after that, and that's what you want to build. That's what I'm building. Yeah. A digital factory that spits out company. Exactly. Yeah. I would like, I would like to build, I would like to build a hundred thousand companies in next three years. Yeah. And I would like students. So I'm not a big university fan.

[00:12:31] So I would, I would like to give this students as solo entrepreneurs, the opportunity to own the business. So this is, uh, like, so this is basically. Oh my God. It's so good. We had Jan from NN, right? Yeah. Yeah. And he told me, I asked him, uh, like if he sees a 50 billion valuation, he was like, no, that's way too small, right? With much bigger than 50 billion valuation. And you say we've got to build a hundred thousand companies. I love the spirit. Yeah. I mean, yeah. I mean, let's see, right? Maybe it's not gonna work, but maybe it works.

[00:12:59] And did you really create a, like a digital, like clone of yourself? Should I show you? Yeah. It sends me pictures. Like, you know, I asked, what are you doing? He sends me a selfie saying that I'm working. Like, show me, please. So this is a digital, that's a clone, this is Khan AI. That's digital me. And digital you works and like, uh, like, it's pitch him and look, look, it's sent me. It sent me. Oh my God, it's working. It sends me pictures.

[00:13:28] I should, so I can, I can, I can, yeah. So look, it also builds websites. It's also builds, uh, businesses and stuff. Did it invest money on your behalf? No, no. And I don't trust that much. But, but I, let me show you. It sends me stuff like, sends me voice notes sometimes. I mean, this is like, like, I think, where is this shit?

[00:13:58] Yeah, I'm in Berlin right now. Been here a minute. Why do you think I'm lying? Aha. What's going on with you this week? Oh my God. Create a personal website for a platys studio. Just you? No. I'm a platys trainer and I just want to sell my classes. Okay. What is it? Is it an open claw? Like what is it? No, no, no.

[00:14:22] It's basically, I mean, so, so it's basically, I tried to build open claw myself and, you know, like connected a couple of things. And like, the idea was this, the idea was this. So my wife will never buy, never get go on pro subscription of chat GPT. I don't think so. Like she takes this information with the influencers that she likes and she uses a free version. That's enough. And she's not alone. Yeah.

[00:14:51] There are a lot of people that are using it. And, and like, this is basically AI's monetization problem. Right? Yeah. And I believe it's like porn a little bit. So imagine you porn. Everybody wants it, but nobody pays for it. There's, there's, there are a lot of videos, right? But there's no intimacy. And that's why everyone just, you know, like doing their thing and getting out of the website. So, but then OnlyFans comes, there's intimacy. There are much less videos, but the videos are intimate.

[00:15:20] Why didn't OnlyFans create it on the pod? No. And actually the business is about customer care, right? It's not about the content. It's about the relationship. But what, what, where I'm going to land this, like, I think, I think the monetization problem of AI is a little bit like the intimacy problem. You know, the idea was if I can create this intimate thing through creators, monetization will jump like in porn 40x. So there's exactly 40x difference between, uh, 40, exactly. Between OnlyFans. OnlyFans and YouPorn. Really?

[00:15:50] Jesus. YouPorn. So that's just, let's not get in there. Oh man, I got drifted a second. So, so the idea was, can we create creators, like creators, clones that people who wouldn't normally buy AI would experience AI through their favorite creators. And creators loved it because it's, because they would earn per message. They can scale themselves somehow, right?

[00:16:20] Because it's greater, you're somehow limited by the... Per message, like Spotify model, just like you have a song, like if someone speaks to you, you get per message, 12 euro subscription fee. Some people subscribed to me, by the way. Cheers to all of them. They don't subscribe to you? No, I, I, I, I closed down the project because like a lot of people ask newts and shit and yeah, I don't know. So you don't want to get into that business. Because I think it's either you go, I think it's either go, you go porn or, or, or you go,

[00:16:50] you know, that side of things, or you try to stay on the other side of things, which, which, which I, I mean, I don't feel like doing, going to other side of things, but someone should, someone should do, I think. Oh my God. I think I love talking to you. Can I, will you stick around? Can we talk later? Yeah, of course, man. Of course. Okay. I'll have a Jägermeister with Leo and then we catch up. Yeah. Thanks. Let's build a hundred thousand companies. I love it. I love it. And thanks for the invite. And for the gift. Of course, man. Of course, like, really appreciate the invite.

[00:17:21] Thank you very much.