Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Thoughts on online work, dependability, tools, and craft
Philip: Hello from Copenhagen.
This is Philip from contraption company.
And today I'm here with
a recording of an essay.
I just published called the next
iteration of contraption company.
When I left Webflow two years ago,
I started working full-time on
contraption company, a product studio
that makes tools for online work.
I stopped to build independent
software and I launched products like
postcard, booklet, and fractional.
Two years later, my role with
contraption company is changing.
I'm now focusing full-time on
find AI, a venture backed startup.
I co-founded.
I started finding I earlier this year,
but the story proceeds that around the
time I left Webflow, I began working with
an AI lab as a fractional, had a product.
This part-time work funded my studio
while I built its first applications.
Over those two years, the AI lab
experimented with several product
ideas ranging from enterprise
software to consumer mobile apps.
We don't many cool experiments
that push the edges of LLMs.
I also enjoyed working
with the AI lab founders.
They contrasted my skills
and I learned from them.
Earlier this year, the AI lab
shut down its last product and the
founders began exploring other ideas.
One hatched plans to build
a massive GPU data center.
He hired an outbound sales company to
find customers, and he was frustrated
by how much time the agency seemed to
waste, just clicking around LinkedIn.
So I got a call.
Could we use open AI to automate this?
I started by scraping the YC startup
directory and then used open AI
to analyze the data, asking, find
startups that might want around GPS.
The script was slow.
It took hours and thousands
of dollars to run.
But the results were excellent.
And this system bar outperformed
human lead generation.
Instead of using LLMs to write
text or build a chat bot.
This application used
them to analyze data.
This could be a product.
We thought I set up a website,
find AI and got to work.
I added more data, optimize the
searches to be faster and develop
techniques to make them cheaper.
As I did that, people began to find
the website, sign up and even pay us.
Before launch, we had customers
ranging from prominent investors
to a fortune 500 company.
It was clear that we
were solving a problem.
Initially I continued building contraption
company projects while working on find AI.
But as time passed, I began waking
up each morning with more excitement
for finding I than my indie projects.
As finally I began hiring, I
applied the future of work theories.
I had been developing
a contraption company.
I set up a booklet for async
communication, launched an official
fractional work program and began
hiring for my fractional community.
We launched Monday at two months ago.
And the response was overwhelming.
On launch day, we had about 50,000
visitors made millions of requests
to open AI and gained more customers.
I've spent the week since launched,
scaling the software, developing
new features and hiring more people.
Along the way I've realized I'm
not building any software anymore.
I started contraption company to build the
software I wanted when it was clear that
the market didn't love those products.
I chose not to pivot because I
was bored by the alternatives.
In hindsight, I chose to build an
independent business instead of
raising money because given the choice
between interesting work and commercial
success, I preferred interesting mark.
With find.
Everything changed.
I found a project that I wanted to work
on and a project that the market wants.
That's a rare and valuable confluence.
So I've gone all in on this startup
and stopped building a product studio.
For the past two years, I've
treated contraption company as
a mix of both art and business.
Now that I've picked a business pursuit.
I can unbundle with bind AI for
business and contraption company
for my creative interests.
Contraption company will now be more of
a media brand where Alvarez, essays share
conversations and published fund projects.
I intend to pursue my interest
here without applying the
filter of commercial viability.
If you want to follow along with my
journey and work, subscribe to get
updates on the contraption company
website@wwwdotcontraption.co.
In conclusion, here's a quote from Paul.
Graham's essay.
How to do great work.
In most cases, the recipe for
doing great work is simply work.
hard on excitingly, ambitious projects
and something good will come of it.