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I Asked An AI Billionaire How To Start A Business · The Empire of Wealth

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  Speaker 1: On November 21st, 2024, Anton Osaka launched his first company.
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  Speaker 1: 243 days later, Lovable became the fastest growing company in history,
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  Speaker 1: faster than ChatGPT, faster than Microsoft, growing from zero to
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  Speaker 1: $ 100 million annual recurring revenue. In a world's first, I've
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  Speaker 1: arranged for Anton to give you his step-by-step guide on
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  Speaker 1: how he reached the impossible. As someone who's been in
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  Speaker 1: business for 35 years and built 19 companies, I've never
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  Speaker 1: seen what you're about to see. When you finish this video,
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  Speaker 1: drop in the comments what you've learned and how you're
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  Speaker 1: going to implement it into your life to make your
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  Speaker 1: business successful. But people that don't know, what business have
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  Speaker 1: you built?
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  Speaker 2: I built a company called Lovable and it lets anyone
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  Speaker 2: who's not technical create software by explaining this is my idea,
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  Speaker 2: this is what I want to create and then talking
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  Speaker 2: to an AI and it creates it for you.
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  Speaker 1: If you've got an idea... You can make it happen now. Well,
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  Speaker 1: we're going to go through now the steps in which
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  Speaker 1: Anton managed to make that happen. I should probably tell
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  Speaker 1: my audience, I have invested in this business. And that's
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  Speaker 1: why I asked Anton to come on and teach you
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  Speaker 1: what he knows. But a lot of people don't have
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  Speaker 1: an idea, right? So what I'm going to do is
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  Speaker 1: I'm going to label up what we just talked about there.
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  Speaker 1: To me, you had a pain point and you solved it.
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  Speaker 1: That's a good way to think about people listening, how
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  Speaker 1: they could go about generating an idea for themselves, right?
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  Speaker 1: So let's go back to those early stages. Where did
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  Speaker 1: you start?
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  Speaker 2: Initially, I built a tool for myself. To prove that
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  Speaker 2: you can... The first example is I could tell it
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  Speaker 2: to create me a snake game. And this was two
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  Speaker 2: and a half years ago where it was like, wow,
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  Speaker 2: they created a snake game. They started it running on
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  Speaker 2: my computer locally. And then I put that out on
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  Speaker 2: a tweet and it completely blew up. From that, I
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  Speaker 2: was like, wow. I had to take a few days
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  Speaker 2: and think about is this something I should be... take
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  Speaker 2: advantage of and build a real, very, very, very ambitious
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  Speaker 2: business around. And after sleeping with, I woke up and
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  Speaker 2: I was like, yes, this is the way that I
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  Speaker 2: unblock 99% of the world who don't know how to
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  Speaker 2: write code.
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  Speaker 1: Back then, just to clarify, did you have a lot
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  Speaker 1: of money? Did you have a lot of money to
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  Speaker 1: do this? How much money?
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  Speaker 2: No, I started it with my, I biked to my
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  Speaker 2: co-founder's place and I explained the vision. Here, we have
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  Speaker 2: this unique opportunity in a lifetime to create a new
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  Speaker 2: way to create software. We call it lovable because we
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  Speaker 2: want the people who create software with our tool to
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  Speaker 2: create something that creates positive emotions in their customers. We
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  Speaker 2: just started building. That was the most important thing, building,
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  Speaker 2: getting it out there, getting feedback. How we did it
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  Speaker 2: was we did a wait list and launch so that
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  Speaker 2: we could get some very passionate early users and work
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  Speaker 2: with them to help understand Where did they get most
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  Speaker 2: value of the early, early versions of our products before
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  Speaker 2: we went out in the mainstream? We did raise money,
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  Speaker 2: but it wasn't the most important thing for us to
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  Speaker 2: be successful at all.
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  Speaker 1: So there's three things, right, that I think people are listening.
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  Speaker 1: You've got an idea. Now you have development skills, okay?
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  Speaker 1: So many of the listeners, they won't have that. The
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  Speaker 1: irony is you made a product that would create not
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  Speaker 1: the need for your skill in the early days. So
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  Speaker 1: now someone else can have your skill in their pocket, right?
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  Speaker 1: And then you had... It sounds like some element of
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  Speaker 1: marketing there. So you posted about it and it blew up. Now,
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  Speaker 1: did you have a big following at the time? Not
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  Speaker 1: the first one. You just caught a cultural thing, right?
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  Speaker 1: The snake game. So you plugged into a cultural trend
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  Speaker 1: and that's partly why it blew up, right? And then
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  Speaker 1: from that, you created a waiting list. But to get
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  Speaker 1: a waiting list, again, there's marketing. What did you do
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  Speaker 1: to get the waiting list going?
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  Speaker 2: We launched the first version of the tool for non-technical people.
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  Speaker 2: We're lovable. You just open lovable.dev and you write in
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  Speaker 2: what you want to create. We got a lot of
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  Speaker 2: people that wanted to use it, but we thought we
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  Speaker 2: have to keep working on this product. So at that
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  Speaker 2: point in time, we're still building the product, assembling, continue
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  Speaker 2: to assemble a team of people who really, really care
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  Speaker 2: about building the product. the AI software engineer, as we
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  Speaker 2: call it, and to get feedback and work with getting
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  Speaker 2: users on trying it out and explaining where they get
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  Speaker 2: the most value.
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  Speaker 1: So you found a niche, which in this case was
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  Speaker 1: other developers, right?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, those were some of the early users. But where
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  Speaker 2: we found the most interest is for founders who don't
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  Speaker 2: have a technical company. And that's always been and still
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  Speaker 2: is the The group, even though there's many, many types
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  Speaker 2: of people in marketing and everything that's using Globable, that's
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  Speaker 2: the group where we have the most braving fans.
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  Speaker 1: Again, I always think about my listener as someone that
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  Speaker 1: doesn't have any money, doesn't know marketing, but they might
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  Speaker 1: have an idea or they're trying to come up with one.
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  Speaker 1: So the pain point helps you come up with an idea,
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  Speaker 1: I think. But then you mentioned something else, money. So development,
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  Speaker 1: you then got the marketing going with this waitlist, which
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  Speaker 1: I think is brilliant. Everybody I know that's been successful
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  Speaker 1: started with a waitlist, including my platform. We had a waitlist, 10,000 people,
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  Speaker 1: which with the waitlist, you can go to an investor
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  Speaker 1: with an idea and a waitlist. Is that what you did?
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  Speaker 1: So when did you raise the money a bit? It wasn't,
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  Speaker 1: of course, at the early stages.
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  Speaker 2: It was actually in the very, very early stage we
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  Speaker 2: raised the money, but Me and my co-founder, we didn't
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  Speaker 2: take any salaries. We had very, very few people on
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  Speaker 2: the team. So I think we could have done it.
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  Speaker 2: We're just building ourselves. I mean, of course, it helps
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  Speaker 2: to be able to spend money on this AI cost
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  Speaker 2: money and so on.
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  Speaker 1: But tell people how you raise money then, because you've
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  Speaker 1: got this idea, you've launched it, you've put up this
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  Speaker 1: waiting list. How did you raise money early on?
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  Speaker 2: Look, so when I built this open source tool for developers,
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  Speaker 2: there was a large, large interest from investors. So I
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  Speaker 2: think that's generally the best way to raise money. When
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  Speaker 2: investors come to you, you've shown that you can get
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  Speaker 2: attention for what you're building and you can show that
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  Speaker 2: you can build a product. You can build something that's
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  Speaker 2: creating a lot of value. And that's what we had
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  Speaker 2: shown and then they came to us.
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  Speaker 1: Investors are going to be very busy now because people
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  Speaker 1: listening can now develop a product themselves on Lovable, build
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  Speaker 1: a waiting list for that idea, and then the market
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  Speaker 1: will see that you've got an idea and a demand.
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  Speaker 2: Yes.
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  Speaker 1: You've made that whole process that for you was manual, right?
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  Speaker 1: so much easier.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Did you have some business support or knowledge or did
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  Speaker 1: you just go with your gut back in those early days?
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  Speaker 2: It really depends on what type of business you're building.
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  Speaker 2: But for us, um, we kind of followed how a
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  Speaker 2: typical Y Combinator company would raise funding. And, um, there
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  Speaker 2: is a lot of research online where you can talk
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  Speaker 2: to an AI about how that, how it looks like
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  Speaker 2: in a Sasha scenario.
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  Speaker 1: Did you have any idea that your business was going
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  Speaker 1: to be worth billions? Did you, did you, did you
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  Speaker 1: feel it or that, that wasn't your focus?
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  Speaker 2: I mean, it wasn't my focus, but, um, I knew
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  Speaker 2: that there was a path to just build the ultimate
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  Speaker 2: tool to create software. And it's going to be something
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  Speaker 2: completely different than what it's been in the past. It's
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  Speaker 2: going to be this platform where you have a very,
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  Speaker 2: very intuitive experience talking to an AI that does everything
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  Speaker 2: across building the products, iterating on the products with your users,
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  Speaker 2: even distributing and running your business around this, all the
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  Speaker 2: things that it takes to... incorporate the company even. And
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  Speaker 2: that platform is what we're building.
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  Speaker 1: What was your first few hires?
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  Speaker 2: It was engineers who continued to build the product because
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  Speaker 2: it's a very, very complex product. It's not something you
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  Speaker 2: just use AI to put together. Maybe in these days
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  Speaker 2: you could do that, but back then you needed really
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  Speaker 2: passionate engineers that care about the entire product and they
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  Speaker 2: care about how do we get the most out of
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  Speaker 2: the AI capabilities today.
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  Speaker 1: Why don't we make a separate video with one of
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  Speaker 1: your engineers?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: About how it works, because I think it's good to
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  Speaker 1: understand what's in the black box, right? And understand what
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  Speaker 1: your prompts do. So again, I love to understand the
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  Speaker 1: things now that happen next. So we've got this brilliant
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  Speaker 1: idea that's getting traction. You've got a co-founder. How did
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  Speaker 1: you pick your co-founder? What was the decision for the
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  Speaker 1: co-founder partnership?
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  Speaker 2: For me, it's very important to have someone who you
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  Speaker 2: work together with as a team. You're going to go
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  Speaker 2: through a lot of hard decisions, and I wanted someone
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  Speaker 2: who compliments me and is really smart about taking business
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  Speaker 2: decisions across building the product and across everything else. And
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  Speaker 2: my co-founder had, since he was a teenager, built companies
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  Speaker 2: by creating the products himself. And I respect him, I
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  Speaker 2: trust him, and that's what I focused on.
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  Speaker 1: We talked yesterday off-camera about servicing the 1% or servicing
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  Speaker 1: the 99%. I think it's interesting, this point for the audience.
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  Speaker 1: One of the things that you did is you thought, right,
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  Speaker 1: how can I help people that are not developers, which
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  Speaker 1: is a much bigger market than, say, just helping developers.
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  Speaker 1: Although the original idea was very much, you know, appealed
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  Speaker 1: by developers. Was that the very beginning or did that
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  Speaker 1: get developed as you were building out? When did you
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  Speaker 1: realise it?
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  Speaker 2: It wasn't from the very beginning.
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  Speaker 1: Very beginning, right. And so you thought to yourself, I'm
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  Speaker 1: going to mass market support. But mass market marketing is
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  Speaker 1: quite a different thing, right? So actually your initial success
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  Speaker 1: is in niche marketing. So did you think, okay, I'm
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  Speaker 1: now going to market to the mass market?
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  Speaker 2: So I didn't think too much about the marketing in
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  Speaker 2: the beginning. I thought about building the product, making the
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  Speaker 2: product good and leveraging that there is an appetite for
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  Speaker 2: new AI tools and people wanting to try new AI tools.
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  Speaker 2: So that was a first play. That was playing in
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  Speaker 2: our favor for growing so fast as we've done.
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  Speaker 1: A lot of people won't launch until it's perfect. So
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  Speaker 1: what's your take on that?
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  Speaker 2: I mean, you should launch and get it in front
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  Speaker 2: of users as early as possible. But once you know
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  Speaker 2: that this is the product that you're going to make
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  Speaker 2: your money on and this is it, then I think
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  Speaker 2: you should try for a perfect product. Especially in these days,
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  Speaker 2: the bar of quality is very high for most consumers.
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  Speaker 2: If you go very niche and you solve a problem
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  Speaker 2: that no one else is solving, then you just have
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  Speaker 2: to solve the problem. And you don't have to think
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  Speaker 2: too much about the quality. And maybe the market isn't
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  Speaker 2: that big, so you can build... like one product line
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  Speaker 2: that works and then the next product line that works
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  Speaker 2: in the same niche category. If you're building for a
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  Speaker 2: large market, then you should really focus on perfect quality
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  Speaker 2: after you've proven that you have product market fit. Users
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  Speaker 2: want to pay for this and it's growing.
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  Speaker 1: I think this is where a lot of people get stuck, right?
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  Speaker 1: They build something and they're scared to put it out
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  Speaker 1: because people might judge them. They might say it's rubbish.
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  Speaker 1: I had this with my own platform, by the way,
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  Speaker 1: when I first put Help Bank out. A lot of
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  Speaker 1: people are like, it's not that great, Simon. And you
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  Speaker 1: take it personally. Your personal brand could be damaged. That
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  Speaker 1: negative feedback helps you improve the product. But a lot
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  Speaker 1: of people are scared to just put it out there
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  Speaker 1: because of that. I think that's an important lesson for
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  Speaker 1: people to learn. Because people want perfection. And they won't
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  Speaker 1: put it out until they think it's 100% right. And
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  Speaker 1: you won't know if it's 100% right until the customer's
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  Speaker 1: used it. This is probably going to be out of
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: date by the time the podcast comes out. But the
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  Speaker 1: last headline was, your company is the fastest growing revenue provider.
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  Speaker 1: ever in history in Europe, right?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, so we're the fastest in the world to reach
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  Speaker 2: $ 100 million.
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  Speaker 1: That is a mental statement. When you think about things
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  Speaker 1: like open AI, fastest growing revenue, that, you know, what
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  Speaker 1: made you go down the revenue route so early? Because
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  Speaker 1: sometimes it's, oh, let's get users. A lot of people
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  Speaker 1: listening are like, I get users and don't worry about revenue.
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  Speaker 1: So when did you insert the revenue piece in? And
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  Speaker 1: that must have been quite a big call, really.
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  Speaker 2: I knew that if you're optimizing, if you're having people pay,
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  Speaker 2: that's a very good proof that this is actually a
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  Speaker 2: good product, good enough product. And if people don't want
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  Speaker 2: to pay, then maybe you should be able to create
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  Speaker 2: more value for them. And so we put it in
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  Speaker 2: there in the beginning. I think it's quite fortunate for
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  Speaker 2: us in a way that The AI is very costly.
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  Speaker 2: So we had to charge a significant amount of money.
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  Speaker 2: So we don't just lose a lot of money on
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  Speaker 2: each user. And that was a contributing factor to that.
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  Speaker 2: We had to monetize a lot.
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  Speaker 1: So how did you decide on the pricing? Again, people listening,
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  Speaker 1: how did they decide on pricing on this?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, so the first pricing was that it was actually
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  Speaker 2: too cheap and we lost a lot of money. So
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  Speaker 2: that was when we hadn't launched publicly yet. And then
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  Speaker 2: in the public launch, we made it more expensive. And
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: then we were improving the AI so much that it got...
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  Speaker 2: again got too expensive. So we had to change the
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  Speaker 2: pricing again, and then we improved the product so that
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  Speaker 2: it behaved differently, and we had to change the pricing
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: so that it was not per message, but it's per...
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  Speaker 2: So Lovable is now an agent that goes out and
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  Speaker 2: takes decisions and reads the internet, and now it costs
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  Speaker 2: this tiny amount of credits for each of those actions.
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  Speaker 2: We iterated on that as well.
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  Speaker 1: You went for a monthly subscription model, right? So again,
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  Speaker 1: like I think Whoop, who I've interviewed, the founder of Whoop,
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  Speaker 1: and they did a one-year fixed subscription. Did you look
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  Speaker 1: at those different models?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, so first of all, let me say that Lovable
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: is completely free to use. It's not even a free trial.
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  Speaker 2: You can just keep using it for free. But then
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: if you want to build something serious, you will need
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  Speaker 2: to pay to use it more than just a few iterations.
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  Speaker 2: And the free is still a big part of it.
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  Speaker 1: But the free costs you money when people use the free.
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  Speaker 1: We use money when we use the free. I don't
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  Speaker 1: know if we're allowed to say the numbers because I
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: know the numbers. I'm not sure if we're allowed to
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: say the numbers so we can read it out. But
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  Speaker 1: like 7 million people that will use the free product.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm guessing that's probably 100 million right there
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  Speaker 1: in potential costs. I'm guessing, you know, probably more. But
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  Speaker 1: like for people to use it for free, right? Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, you don't have to make a lot of
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: money in the beginning, but it's worthwhile to think about
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: who are the ones who are going to give so
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  Speaker 2: much value and who are not so price sensitive, ideally.
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  Speaker 2: Like pick someone who's not that price sensitive that are
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  Speaker 2: going to be the main revenue driver. And then you
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: can be generous to everyone else. So if you have
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: built a good product, it spreads by itself. We want
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: to help our users build successful businesses. That's a part
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: of the mission.
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  Speaker 1: It's crucial. I know that's what you care about. Another
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  Speaker 1: reason I invested, by the way, it's a very competitive world.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: How do you view competition? How do you stay ahead?
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  Speaker 2: I'm making sure that Lovable is a customer-focused and customer-obsessed company,
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: not a competitor-focused company. And that means that We don't
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: look at competitors. We look at our customers. We look
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  Speaker 2: at what are they doing? How do we get them
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  Speaker 2: more successful? If we make them more successful, it's naturally
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  Speaker 2: going to be the case that they tell others that
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  Speaker 2: they should be using Lovable. And that's how I think
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  Speaker 2: about it.
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  Speaker 1: And there's a lot of stories about Lovable. I'm actually
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  Speaker 1: one of them where we built a product on Lovable
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  Speaker 1: and we're making hundreds of thousands of dollars from it.
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  Speaker 1: There's a lot of case studies coming out like that
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  Speaker 1: right now. What does success mean for you personally and
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  Speaker 1: for the business? And people are thinking about building a
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  Speaker 1: business or have a business out there. Give them a
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  Speaker 1: bit of advice on what you think success is.
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  Speaker 2: I think you should focus on what do you want
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  Speaker 2: to get out of life. For me, it's very important
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  Speaker 2: that we have a world where humans create things and
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  Speaker 2: they just don't mindlessly consume things. All right, guys.
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  Speaker 1: I hope you got something from this podcast. There'll be
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: links down below where you can, of course, try out
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: Lovable for free. You almost don't realize we're losing money.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: Anton's losing money when he lets you use it for free,
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: but you should learn how it works. Even if you
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: don't right now build something, just learn how it works.
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  Speaker 1: That's how you stay relevant in a changing world. Thanks
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: for listening. We're off to have some chicken.