All right, how's it going everyone?
I'm stoked for another episode of Forward Thinking Founders.
Today our guest is Connor Waslow, co-founder, CEO of Caddy.
Welcome to the show, how's it going?
Good dude, thanks for having me.
Stoked to be here.
Yeah, excited to have you on.
I'm like, dude, I'm not surprised at all.
We first met, I don't know, I don't even like eight years ago maybe in like this like Ozo and Phoenix.
And you just made like the best impression.
like, know, so talented.
Now you're doing this startup and I'm stoked to highlight you on this podcast.
But I'm just like, I'm stoked to be doing this because you've come so far just from when we first met at that brewery.
It's actually insane how long we've known each other too.
I think we caught up like a month or two ago and we were like, wait a second, has it been eight years?
Like that's absolutely nuts.
Yeah.
It's crazy to be on the podcast eight years later, 980, 990 episodes in.
960, 970 somewhere in there.
It's been fun.
It's been fun way to meet people.
Well, let's get into it.
What's caddy?
What are you cranking on?
Yeah, dude.
So, Caddy is the voice interface for your computer.
We're trying to build a big Siri if it actually worked.
We integrate with the apps that you work in every day and do tasks in the background for you just by talking to your computer.
So, uh think like Gmail, Calendar, Notion, Slack.
Any time that you want to stay in flow and instead offload a task that you might to like a teammate or someone else, Caddy takes care that for you.
Okay, so let's use an example maybe, like what would be a common app that someone uses and then how would I use Caddy to interface with that app?
And is it like an extension?
I guess like help me understand a little deeper and like the user experience of it.
Yeah, totally.
So we live as a desktop app that follows you wherever you go.
And all you have to do is hold down the function key to record.
And so for example, you know, I was a product manager at my old gig at loom.
And so I might be going through the app and find a bug.
All I have to do is hold down function and say, Hey, like make a linear ticket.
this is the issue that I found the buttons, the wrong color or something like that.
And then send it in our team Slack channel.
And so caddy behind the scenes will go through, take a screenshot of what you're looking at, create a linear ticket and then send it over in a link.
in Slack.
This is fascinating.
it's kind of playing, correct me if I'm wrong, because I could be wrong.
It's kind of playing in like the computer use world, like the computer agent, but like it's a way to prompt computer use agents almost.
Is that a correct way of thinking about it?
Almost.
So we've actually talked about this a lot.
Like how much do we want to go down to computer use, which is like a pretty sexy space right now versus how much do we want to avoid computer use where an app might take over
your computer and be doing work for you on your laptop and prevent you from doing other work.
Our philosophy is more, how can we keep people in flow as much as possible and instead do tasks in the background?
So we don't take over your computer at all.
All this happens just behind the scenes for you.
And all you have to do is click approve in the app afterwards.
So it's all API based.
Cool.
uh Sounds cool to me.
So let's back up a little bit maybe.
Where did this idea come from?
And was it informed at all at your time at Loom, where I know you spent a few years at?
Yeah, so this first came up, me and my co-founder were working together.
My co-founder, Rajiv, is a phenomenal designer that I got to work with really closely over the past couple years.
And we were just jamming on ideas, talking about things that really pissed us off at our job.
And one of those things was just, it feels like there's gotta be a better way to take the ideas that you have in your head and get them into the places that you're doing work.
I was a product manager, so I had to write a bunch of docs and then sometimes rewrite them as we got new updates or were presenting to a new audience.
And it was a case of, I know exactly what I want to write.
have the ideas in my head.
How can we like just take all the different pieces of context across like the apps that we use and then let me get my ideas out and then just have it taken care of.
And so we started talking about that much earlier this year.
We both decided that we were going to leave our jobs and start a startup, but we actually ended up on a totally different track.
Like we kind of just left this idea to the side and started working on like go to market tooling instead.
Uh, and then.
After a couple months of that, we decided it was time to pivot.
And so we kind of circled back to this idea.
We were like, wait a second.
One, we still have this pain point.
Like, is this something that we absolutely want now?
And definitely would have used it at our last jobs.
Two, it's a space that we know much better.
And it's like a motion as a startup that we think that we have a experience in.
And so we started chipping away at it and just like put together the scrappiest prototype you could possibly imagine.
And we're like, all right, there's something here.
Let's keep pulling on this thread.
That's what it's about.
I mean, it's kind of you throw some things out there.
Maybe their original visions, maybe their inspiration, something you see or a problem that you deal with.
And then when you start to get some signal, you just like keep going down that path.
That's kind of that's kind how these things go.
For sure.
we spent, I mean, like in the middle of all that, you know, I think it's safe to say that we were in pivot hell for a little while, right?
We're like, we'd had this idea a while back, but sometimes when you have like that familiar idea, you kind of just like let it fester in your brain, but you don't like
actually pay it too much credibility.
And so we were trying everything else that could imagine.
Like we spent like, you know, a couple of weeks cycling through ideas, like uh AIQA engineer.
um For about four hours, we were talking about like automotive industry, like agents.
And then we were like, quickly like, we're not, we're not, this is not a space that we know, we should not do that.
And then we kind of just took a day of like, all right, let's like, let our brains like reset a little bit.
And then it kind of came back to, okay, wait, let's solve a problem for ourselves.
Like, this is a cool idea.
Like, let's see where it goes.
So I'm kind of curious, you saw a evolution of a product in a company in Loom, I think you were fairly early, at least I know you were there for several years, right?
And you were there through exit and then you left to do this.
What's compare and contrast, what's it like working, what was it like at Loom where you kind of had a job and a function and you probably had a boss and there was organization?
Comparing that to where you're at now where you just said you were at Pivot Hell, you don't have a boss, it's just you and your co-founder figuring it out, you call the shots.
What's the differences, are there any similarities between the two experiences?
Yeah, for sure.
I mean, it's definitely different, but a lot, there were so many learnings that I took from Loom that have been so helpful now.
Loom, I got very lucky in that Loom was like such a good environment to prepare you for a startup and that however much ownership that you wanted, you were able to get.
And so even when I was a software engineer intern, like I would just ask like, Hey, can I like write the PRD for this project?
And like, I was able to do that and like take on much more scope and you know, an intern might normally be able to.
And you know, as I, as I,
spent more time at Lume and I switched from software engineering to being a product manager.
The scope kept increasing and the team just tried to move like as quickly as possible.
And so a lot of the speed and a lot of the pressure of like, okay, how can we build like a beautiful product that's as easy to use as possible and continue to grow the business?
I think are like very similar feelings to now, except it was a little bit more on rails, right?
Like I had a much smaller scope.
We already had product market fit.
And so it was really just a matter of like.
Like the distribution was already there.
And if we built a new feature set, it kind of just got tax on top of that.
Whereas now you're starting from zero.
You got nothing.
It's a lot of that familiarity of like, okay, we just build a great new feature.
We'll get maybe like just a small subset of users who start using it.
And then from there, we're able to like continue to grow it and like continue to add value.
You're starting with nothing.
And in our case, voice is something that we like fundamentally believe is going to be a huge part.
or maybe even like the primary medium that people work through.
But it's like still learned behavior for a lot of people.
And like that's something that Lume faced really early on, it's something that we were still dealing with when I was there.
But now for us, it's not just that voice is a new medium, it's that doing work in this way is a completely new behavior.
And so there's a lot more to figure out.
There's a lot less structure.
The hours are certainly longer, uh but both have been great.
And remind me, I actually don't know the answer to this.
Right now you're in SF.
Were you in SF when you were at Loom?
Or have you only recently moved to SF?
We just moved to SF for Y Combinator.
So uh usually live in New York.
We were lucky enough to get into Y Combinator in September.
So been here since September and then we'll be here through the end of the year.
So uh then this is the longest time I've spent in San Francisco, honestly.
The first, I think the first, one of the first times that I was there, I actually slept on your couch when I messed up my flight scheduling, if you remember that.
Um, was this 2019?
This was 2019, yeah.
This was when you were doing a startup.
I was going to TreeHacks for a hackathon and I had a layover in Dallas and I checked my phone because I was like, I feel like I should have gotten some information about where
I'm going to stay.
Didn't get any of that.
And then realized I booked my flight a day earlier than I was supposed to.
And frantically tried to figure out who I knew who was in San Francisco.
And you were kind enough to let me sleep on your couch that night.
That was a flashback then that was was Pup Loft era.
That's crazy.
Okay, so so you just moved to SF you're gonna be there for a few more months.
What's it tell me like I feel like if you've never been to SF like not you just in general if you're listening to this you've never been to SF it's impossible to understand that
culture of tech and like what the set the gravity is like being there.
Oh you're there.
And you're not always there, right?
You just moved.
yeah, tell us what's it been like since you moved?
Yeah, a couple of weeks ago I was talking to my co-founder about this because he is from SF and then I was in the middle of convincing him to move to New York when we got into Y
Combinator and then we just like whipped it right back.
um And I was telling him that there's like a tangible feeling of being at the epicenter of innovation in San Francisco.
It's hard to describe, but there's like everywhere that you go, you're seeing like companies that are on the cutting edge with whether it's like billboards and just ads for
like everything tech.
You know, like that's like the dominant like advertising is like AI for video or like startup banks, things like that.
You see self-driving cars everywhere.
Like that is going to become much more normal, but like this is the center of all of it.
And so much of the social scene also revolves around like tech startups.
It's unlike anywhere else.
And I feel like, you know, I love New York city.
It's my favorite place, but like the
It all starts in San Francisco and then it eventually triples over into these other cities.
Well, so this is where I'm in Phoenix, obviously, as you know, and I think the perception outside of SF is that SF and New York are the top two hubs.
And it's true.
But what I don't think people realize, and I'm curious to get your opinion on this, is how far apart number one and number two is.
Like, you you were at a hot company, you were in New York, obviously you're in the mix.
Honestly, I'm just genuinely curious.
Like, it is...
Are they comparable?
Is SF, there's like 10,000 miles ahead, and then it's New York and then it's Boston or LA or whatever?
Or is New York kind of closer than one may think to SF when it comes to just like tech progress and tech scene?
think New York has made a lot of progress in terms of tech density in the past couple years.
You have some absolutely killer companies over there like Ramp, Clay, plenty of others.
And so it's definitely there.
I think that San Francisco just has such a dominant density of tech that it feels different.
There's definitely a gap.
You can find it in New York.
You just have to search for it and be a little bit more purposeful about it.
But in San Francisco, the default is that you're living in a tech-first world.
It smacks you in the face, for sure.
you get off of the plane, there's tech ads everywhere.
Every ad is a tech ad, like you said.
comical.
If I see one more sign that says lock in, I'm going to lose it to be honest with you.
everywhere you go, you talk to someone.
They probably work in tech, whereas in New York, feel like if you just talk to a stranger, your odds are just way lower.
And so it definitely has a different feel.
Totally.
Well, you mentioned you're in YC.
You know, what is like, I don't even know what to ask about it other than just like, what's that like?
Are you, has it maybe changed how you think about your startup before you got in?
And just feel free to share anything that you want to about that experience.
Yeah, for sure.
YC has definitely changed our perception of our startup and in a very positive way.
And I also just think it's changed us as founders in a positive way too.
Like Y Combinator at the end of the day adds like a tremendous amount of time pressure, which is very purposeful because you're all, you know, it starts in September for the fall
batch.
part of like F25.
It starts in September and then you're all just racing towards demo day, which is in like early December and
That process just means that you have to build as quickly as you can a great business to be able to present in December.
And so, you know, before we got into YC, like I quit my job in July, uh basically with the plan, like the concept of a plan, you know, like, okay, we'll figure it out.
Like we'll find something to do.
And the cycles were just much slower.
Like there was less urgency despite, you know, bootstrapping and like, obviously like working hard, but when you have that like legit time pressure,
It just completely changes the game.
And so it's done a great job of, for us, like as we were trying to figure out something that even remotely resembles product market fit, ah or like an idea that we have like a
lot of conviction in, it made the cycle so much faster.
You really have to say like, okay, we're going to like validate or invalidate this thing in as quick a time as possible.
And so that alone has been tremendously helpful.
And on top of that, it's just like a phenomenal community.
You know, there's like a hundred in...
50 I think companies that are all in the batch that you get to meet the founders of.
You get to commiserate about all the ways that your businesses are challenging and all the fires that you're putting out all the time.
Get advice from people.
And so ah it's been a crazy experience, but it's been absolutely amazing.
We're still in the thick of it right now.
And so we're deep in the trenches, but wouldn't trade it for anything.
Yeah.
For what I've heard, it's like, just want to move faster.
It's this pressure, right?
It's super smart.
So I want to go a little back to product and like maybe how you're thinking about things.
Don't spill any sauce, of course.
But look, things are moving super quick with AI, right?
I mean, like new models are coming out, you know, every, you know, in three months, people say like three months ago today would be unrecognizable and the same will be said in three
months.
So how do you know?
what to build and how do you know when to change things if new models come out?
Or just like, how do you, how are you managing this fast paced environment?
Pretty much is the question.
think that there's two ways that we think about it.
One is like the core product, and then two is like the tech that goes behind the scenes to enable the core product.
And the first one I think is what has to drive the vision of the direction.
the second piece, the technology, is I think mostly dependent on the first, where our mission right now is really just like talk to users, get their feedback, figure out how we
can drive the most value possible, and build something that even if it's like a...
the first build being super scrappy, uh people go, oh, there's something really cool here.
I want XYZ.
I'll use it even more if you give me these other features.
That's what we were really hunting for and has been our North Star above all else.
Behind the scenes, have, yeah, every three months they're dropping a new model that does some crazy new capability.
And so for us, it's about being pretty analytical for each of the different models ah that are available, different like,
frameworks and technologies, what does that unlock for us to drive more value?
And so if there's like a new multimodal model that drops and we're able to like even faster use context from like a user screen or something like that, then we like seriously
consider it.
But with the core question of, how can this make the product faster, better, ah and go from there.
Could you maybe give me one or two other use cases or ways that I'd be able to use the product today or once it's built, you know, available to test?
And I guess that's a second question.
Is there something to test?
Like, could I beta test it?
Are you still building it?
Where are you at with like development?
Yeah, right now we're building out a wait list and then we're keeping a pretty tight group of private beta testers at the moment.
And so there is a product to test and we're just keeping it pretty tight.
We have, this is the type of product that we like just really believe we have to meet a very high level of like craft for us to like truly make something that people will be
using every day.
And so we've been very intentional about making sure that it's reliable, it's fast and that it just works.
uh So.
That's where we're at right now.
We do have a product we've been just, we're sprinting towards building out mostly towards making it even faster uh first.
And then in terms of like the different use cases that folks are using it for, one of them honestly is even just dictation.
So we offer like a, like that's like been a very quickly growing market recently is letting people just instead of typing, just talk and then drop their texts in anywhere.
So that's been a piece of the product that we've built out.
Calendar has been a big hit as folks are doing sales quite a lot and don't want to have to worry about setting up meetings, creating new calendar events, sending it over to people
afterwards with details.
oh So are you saying let's say after you know, we end this podcast.
Let's say I'm coming to SF I'm not let's say I am and let's you know, let's meet up at Phil's on South Park or you know, we bought all South Park, know on Wednesday at four
o'clock I could press a little button say he's making an invite, know for me and Connor or Phil's, know, whatever, know details and it makes that calendar invite.
Is that correct?
That's crazy.
That's cool
Yeah, it did.
It's been so fun to build out and like the first time that we get some of these like different integrations working and we like basically unlock a whole new capability for the
users.
It's pretty sweet seeing it work live and getting a sense of like how it's changed just how like me and Rajiv work has been so cool.
em And yeah, we have really been focused on, you know, for our old jobs, what are the things that we really would have wanted to just like.
do in the background not have to worry about.
And so those have been the types of use cases that we're sprinting towards.
then as we talk to more users, it's just been so helpful to figure out where we're going to take it.
So how do you think about, may not have an answer to this, I'm like, that's fine, I'm just curious.
Obviously there's a limit.
There's the basics, is listen, transcribe what I'm saying and put it into text.
And then there's, hey, Katty, edit this whole podcast, publish it on my podcast player and share it on social media.
I doubt it can do that yet, right?
So where is your goal to eventually get it?
Is that like a directional goal to be able to have it do that if you want?
Is there a different direction you're going in?
And I guess, how do you think about the line on when it's functional versus when it's like, it's not functional?
That was kind of three questions all jumbled up.
Feel free to take that however you want.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think for us, right now at least, the vision is in that direction.
Like, how can we take care of the tasks that like all the context is there for and just knock out like the busy work, the manual process, almost just like the interface with
which you do that task for you.
And so the example that you gave of like, okay, edit this podcast for me.
I think that
Directionally like that's right.
I think that the part that we are most excited about is how can we take like your unique point of view because this podcast like has such a following and uh Has been around for so
long like because of like your perspective on founders and on venture capital and startups and so how can we best capture like the intent that you have for what the podcast should
look like and then Transform that into like the actions that an agent takes to kind of reach your vision.
And so in that example was for like podcasting
And then for a work example, or like a tech company work example, it might be like creating a strategy doc based on the inputs from your data platform plus the user research
that you have, plus some product manager or designer or other leaders, like unique take on where the business needs to go.
And so our goal is to capture all the context that you have in the tools that you use, plus your unique point of view so that your workday becomes much more about.
your perspective on what needs to happen and less about how you're actually interfacing with the tools that you use every day.
Yeah, it makes sense.
got shipped friend yesterday, you know, like friend dot com.
I forgot that I ordered it or pre-ordered it or something.
I, cause it was a bit, I was thinking I was kind of early, got shipped it.
My wife was like, Hey, what's this?
I'm like, Oh, it's Fred.
Right.
Uh, this is pretty cool.
So, um, and I was wearing it and like, it's building context.
And it's like, I'm curious what your opinion is.
And no one has a final thought on this.
Like it's, it's an evolving conversation.
Oh, you know, I like.
You know, my phone probably has context on me, like friend has context on me.
Then there's a company that I'm involved with called Super Memory.
That's like great shared, shared context.
um But I feel like context is like a big deal.
again, no, please don't share any like secret stuff.
But it's like, how do you think about context?
Like, I don't even I don't even know what the question is.
But like context is the king.
So how do you make sure you're able to get it?
Are you going to have your own?
Are you gonna work with a super memory type stuff?
Is there a different paradigm that I'm not thinking about?
I mean, I think that the paradigm that you're thinking about is the right one.
Like for any, I think that the world that we're moving towards really is that any AI tool that you're using is gonna try and get as much context as possible to make the outputs as
good as possible.
Because, you know, like all these LLMs are great, but they're really only as valuable for you and your specific use case as they have context that like actually meets your needs.
And so that they can tailor it to your tone, the products that you're using, like what else is going on?
And so,
I think that every company is going to be trying to figure out how can we capture as much context as we possibly can.
And of course, like we have to think about that too.
um And I think that for us in particular, one of the most important things that we think about is like tone.
How do we make sure that whatever the output is really like, you're, if you're trying to write a new, you know, uh update for the podcast, like how can we make sure that that's
like a match Sherman update and not just like chat, GPT, dash is all over the place.
Totally.
Well, I feel like I share an opinion that some people share, maybe, that it's like, in some ways, AI is incredible.
It's like, what an innovation.
Holy smokes.
But it's not.
I do think there's a long way to go because I feel like there's folks that claim they can do what you're talking about.
you know, whether it be lovable or like Trash BT itself, it has all this context on me.
And it's just missing the mark.
And I just think maybe the models need to get better.
There needs to be more innovation.
I don't quite know, but it's going to be wild when these models are good enough for this founders like you that have figured out how to like quite like get that balance to capture
someone's taste, capture someone's tone.
Because that's when things get real interesting.
Like I don't want an AI clone that talks not like me.
If I can get someone that talks just like me, same facial expressions, whatever, that's where things get wild.
And then I can put that on a robot on a freaking 1X.
No, the crazy stuff.
It's the I Can't wait till we have a robot mat we got to make that happen.
We might It's crazy
Yeah, yeah, sorry, I you off.
No, you're good, dude, you're good.
um I agree, because the models do a really good job of making you think that they're unbelievable and that they have it all figured out.
how many times have like, okay, I spend most of my day coding right now.
So many times you put together a plan and whatever coding tool that you use is like, dude, this is it.
It's gonna work.
Trust me, I got it.
This is the best plan I've ever seen.
Just let it rip.
And then you do and you're like,
that did not work at all.
And then you ask it and it goes, of course that didn't work.
What are you talking about?
eh And so I agree with you that they're like, we're still a few iterations of like innovation away from like some of this just like default working.
And so in the meantime, em that's like, I think great news for founders because then you get, I think even more room for you to find what your special sauce is and to be able to
like continue to iterate and dig deep on like, okay, how can you make this as valuable as possible for folks?
Even if like you don't just have AGI that you can drop in and say like, all right, it's just going to automatically draft something in my total voice.
Yeah, that that's gonna future is gonna be gonna be gonna be wild It does lead me to my next question like you're an SF all this stuff is getting started there What are you like,
know, you know in their batch just on the streets at the events Like what are you seeing that's blowing your mind that may not be may not have permeated to the rest of the world
yet technology wise
I think the thing that I think about a lot, and this is probably my bias from the Loom Days showing, but video and AI is still so early and it's already so good.
There's quite a few companies in the batch that are working on some form or factor of AI for video, and it's sick.
It's a little frightening too, just in terms of how good some of these SORA 2 videos are.
um But we've had so many launch videos that...
are all AI generated and they're great.
um So on top of just the short form content that you see, people are gonna start putting together really high production value and they already are, video content that's almost
entirely AI generated.
And that's one piece of it.
think the video generation piece is super cool and also a little scary just in terms of how good that it's getting.
The other part of it is
Processing video as like an input uh for AI models that is still a piece that I think Gemini has done really well But I haven't actually seen a ton of other folks like fully
utilizing uh that I'm like always interested in because You know talking about context like that's the best way to get any sort of context is capture the video the audio Like
how much can you how much can you pull from a video versus just like a text interaction?
Yeah, I haven't seen too much of that like in our badge or
in the Bay, but it's something that I think about a lot.
Totally.
Well, just like Marc Andreessen says, know, every idea is a good idea.
It just needs to come out at the right time.
Time in the cycle, right?
And time in the market.
So it sounds like that time may be upcoming for that.
Who knows?
um couple more questions, then we'll kind of round it out.
what is your, like you're an SF, you're in the batch, you know, YC.
Are you just grinding 14 hours a day?
Like, do you socialize at all?
Do you like, you know, yeah, what is your day to day?
Like, you know, your average, if you have to pick your most average day,
What do you do?
What do you spend your time on?
like, where do you go to the coffee shops?
There's like an office.
Like what's your day in the life in SF?
day of the life in SA, I won't, this is the longest I've spent in San Francisco.
Like before, like when I was in Alaska and I had to come here like maybe every two months for like a week at a time, stay at a hotel, go to the office back and forth.
And so I didn't get to see it then.
And then I was hoping that, you know, my three months in San Francisco, four months, I would really get to see the city.
Frankly, still haven't really.
A little bit more, but I know it's got more to offer.
My day for the most part is I spend most of my time in the office.
We have an office space.
And so I wake up, go to the office, work until like mid-evening, like probably call it like six-ish, go to the gym, get some food, back to the office, and then work until pretty
late, pretty late.
I won't lie.
The days are exceptionally long.
That's like the modal work day, but we still have a good time.
there's a ton of YC events and coming back to the community aspect of it, that has made life so much easier just because you do have folks who are in the same grind as you.
So every Friday we all get together, or a bunch of us get together and just have some drinks, get some food, and shoot the shit over the week.
And then there's other events throughout the week that Y Combinator hosts too.
And so that has kind of allowed us to chop out some time for more social time.
But a lot of it is really just
me, my co-founder, a couple people that we work with ah just grinding throughout the day and trying to build as quick as we can.
jealous dude.
I mean, that was my life in 2019 when we were in Jason, Jason, like Calacanis accelerator, me and my founder Jeremy like, just all we didn't have an office, we just worked in our
Airbnb, right?
So it's like, just like 24 not 24 seven, but like we're working all the time.
Like, it's like, you don't really want to be doing anything.
What else do you want?
You're there to build a company care about what you're building.
Some people like give folks like you and folks like me flack like, you work too much.
It's not even work.
We love this shit, right?
It's so fun.
I don't know if you will get that, right?
know for sure.
like the hours are long, but like I don't know what I would spend my time doing.
I literally came here with like one purpose, which was like grow the company, build a great product that people love.
And then like that's it.
And so any amount of time that I spend just like getting the product forward, like a little bit more, making it more beautiful, making it better, getting user feedback, like
dude, that's what I'm here for right now.
And so any other time, like, you know, you have to recharge.
You can't just like do the 16 hour day, like every single day for three months, you're just going to burn yourself out.
And so like, you have to bake in like the routines that like, keep you energized.
And so like, you know, for me, that's like hanging out with other people.
like trying to do something on a Friday, Saturday, going to the gym, you have to bake that into your schedule because it's so easy when you do have like the pressure of starting a
company to just have the anxiety of like, right,
got more to do drive you towards like only ever working and so my co-founder and I have tried to do as good of a job as we can of like having some balance to keep us recharged
but that's still paired with like a ton of hours of work that honestly don't even feel like work.
Totally.
Yeah, I mean, that makes sense.
Can't can't work like you.
You know, it's kind of a cycle or not a cycle, but they feed into each other.
You got to work out, got to hang out with people like refresh.
And then when you're refreshed, you do a 16 hour day or something or like a 14 hour day.
um What is what is the like next few months look like?
What my question actually is is.
When is this going to be available for like the public soon?
Maybe what is like your plan to like unveil is going to be wait list for a while.
Someone's listening and they want to try it.
Like what's what's your thoughts around that?
Yeah, we don't have a timeline on full public release just yet.
We're still just laser focused on working with our private beta group to make the product as useful as possible.
And we're going to launch here publicly very soon, the waitlist.
then uh we'll be taking people off the waitlist all the time.
the private beta group will grow pretty quickly.
If someone's listening to the podcast and wants to get off the waitlist even sooner.
then you can shoot me an email at connor at tricaddy.ai and then just mention the pod and then we'll see what we can do.
though even the pod listeners a hookup.
I appreciate that.
Yeah dude, come on.
For these listeners, I'd do anything, alright?
So, we'll keep the group like, relatively small at the start and then grow up pretty quickly.
But, that's the game plan for now.
Cool.
And I guess for my last question, it's like, is there anything anyone listening can do to help, you know, probably get on the wait list?
But is there, know, yeah, what else can someone do to engage with your brand view of like website, you know, social media, newsletter, like how else can someone plug in?
Yeah, get on the waitlist.
We will uh be in contact regularly about what are the updates to the product that we're shipping.
We'll take you off the waitlist as soon as we possibly can.
And ultimately right now, we just want to engage with users and get their feedback.
so folks on the waitlist, we put everyone in a big Slack group.
We just chat with them basically every day.
And so uh it's been great so far.
And I think that the more perspectives that we can get on that and the more we can hear from folks about like,
What are they loving?
How do they want to use it?
um You know, what are the bugs that they're finding?
The better.
But right now I think the best way to engage is just get on the wait list and then reach out literally anytime.
Cool.
Anything else you want to share or kind of get, know, or maybe, maybe I'll finish it with this.
It can be anything you want to share or you see all these billboards and NSF and they all have tech, tech, you know, tech brands on them.
If you could own a billboard, I'm stealing someone's question.
I don't know whose question is, but it's a podcast or ask this question.
What would you put, what would you put on a billboard on the 101 or the 202, whatever it's called, NSF and we'll end it on that.
Dude, this is a great Tim Ferriss question and I've listened to his podcast.
Yeah.
knew it was someone's and you're right, it is Tim Ferriss.
I've listened to his podcast so many times and I've listened to this question and I have not thought of an answer to have prepared just yet.
So now I'm like, what would I
It doesn't even have to be, it could be anything.
could be, you know, about life, philosophy, business, could be anything you want, you know.
I think this is, you know, maybe this is gonna be cheesy, but the people who you choose to work with are genuinely the most important part about what you're doing.
And so that's a lot of words to put on a billboard.
But metaphorically, we'll make it that it's gonna be one that like, you're only gonna be able to read in traffic when you're stuck still.
But em I think that like I got very lucky my time at Lume by working with people who were just like,
amazing at their jobs, but also like amazing people.
And then now I'm working with like a much, much smaller group of me and my co-founder and like two other people.
But even when things are like exceptionally hard because I enjoy spending time with them, it makes life so much easier.
And so to the extent that you can select to like work with the people that you really like to spend time with, especially if you're doing a startup, like it's like a non-negotiable.
You have to be finding people that you like want to be spending 16 hours at like uh
San Francisco office with.
And so I think that when I think about like even like the hard times now, like the things that I'm most grateful for is, you know, who I've chosen to do this with, my co-founder
Rajiv.
And so that's my heartfelt, very long billboard.
Hey, give me a big billboard.
Cool.
Well, Connor, great to catch up.
Thanks for coming on and looking forward to seeing you roll this thing out.
Yeah, dude, thanks for having me.
Can't believe we finally got to the podcast after so long.
So thanks so much.
we got it in.
Bye.