Latest / AI for Founders with Ryan Estes / Building a Gen Z Art Platform without the Algorithm Trap: Devika Sarin of Soal

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Building a Gen Z Art Platform without the Algorithm Trap: Devika Sarin of Soal · AI for Founders with Ryan Estes

• 0:00
  Welcome back to AI for Founders. I'm Ryan Estes, and today we're
• 0:03
  exploring how AI can transform the way we discover and live
• 0:06
  with art. My guest is Devika Saran,
• 0:09
  founder of Soul at This is soul.com, a new daily ritual for
• 0:13
  art discovery built for millennials and Gen.
• 0:16
  Z. You'll hear how Souls
• 0:17
  recommendation engine blends behavioral science with curation
• 0:21
  to map your taste while their early artist community is nearly
• 0:25
  90% women, and how prints, context, and community can open
• 0:29
  a map massive on ramp to contemporary art without all the
• 0:32
  gatekeeping. We unpacked the business model
• 0:35
  experiments, the bootstrap first journey, and practical lessons
• 0:39
  on building community before monetization, human curation
• 0:42
  before algorithms, and taste before transactions.
• 0:46
  If you're a founder, building, consumer, AIA, marketplace, or
• 0:50
  any product where recommendation, trust, and
• 0:52
  culture all collide, this conversation is for you.
• 0:55
  By the end, you'll know how to design delight loops, measure
• 0:58
  meaningful engagement, and turn curiosity into a daily habit.
• 1:02
  And if you love smart founders shipping real products, get the
• 1:06
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  interviews into field manuals you can actually use, subscribe,
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• 3:28
  All right, Devica, welcome to the show.
• 3:30
  Thanks so much for joining me. Yeah, Thanks so much for having
• 3:34
  me. Really looking forward to our
• 3:36
  conversation. Me.
• 3:36
  Too, you know, and this is kind of a rare instance of like a fun
• 3:40
  conversation that was struck up on LinkedIn.
• 3:42
  I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn and usually it's just,
• 3:46
  you know, a lot of folks pitching me and I appreciate
• 3:48
  that, but I'm not sure how we got connected.
• 3:51
  But I saw what you were doing. I was like, oh, you got to come
• 3:53
  on the podcast and you were gracious enough to to come.
• 3:56
  So thank you so much. Now to get things kicked off.
• 4:00
  I know that you're just about to launch your application and the
• 4:04
  corresponding company that goes with it.
• 4:06
  It's called Seoul. And the website
• 4:08
  isthisisseoul.com. Please give us a a quick
• 4:11
  introduction to what Seoul is. Yeah, thanks, Ryan.
• 4:17
  So Soul is is built on a mission to make the art world more
• 4:23
  accessible for a wider audience. So essentially our app is going
• 4:28
  to be creating a daily ritual for art discovery, specifically
• 4:32
  aimed at millennials and Gen. Z who are interested in art but
• 4:35
  not really sure where to start. Our AI is very unique.
• 4:38
  It looks at scientific and behavioral principles.
• 4:41
  So there's a really deep emphasis on creating deeper
• 4:45
  connection and meeting throughout this process.
• 4:47
  So it's really about people who are interested in culture but
• 4:50
  really haven't had a ability to have their context or confidence
• 4:55
  to get involved in the art world.
• 4:56
  So we're really aiming to introduce people, help them
• 4:59
  figure out their tastes, and then provide context,
• 5:02
  conversation and education to help them dive deeper into the
• 5:06
  industry. Very interesting.
• 5:08
  How do you how do you help someone find their art taste?
• 5:14
  Yeah, it's pretty nuanced. You know, I think a lot of
• 5:17
  people will say that finding art is extremely personal, but it's
• 5:20
  like any other affinity that people have, like music or
• 5:24
  sneakers or jewelry. It's about really getting to
• 5:26
  know the individual on a personal level and then trying
• 5:30
  to match them with content or context that's going to relate
• 5:35
  to where they are in life. So it's a little bit of getting
• 5:38
  to know you as an individual and then also helping US you help us
• 5:45
  by providing different insights into what images and artworks
• 5:48
  you like or might be interested to learn more about.
• 5:51
  So it's a little bit of an art and science really trying to get
• 5:55
  to know you, what you stand for, where you spend your time, what
• 5:59
  you're looking at, what you're obsessed with, and then trying
• 6:01
  to match you based on those qualities.
• 6:05
  So exactly how do you use the, the application?
• 6:08
  How is it figuring this stuff out for me?
• 6:11
  And then what's the outcome? So once it I, I'm, it derives my
• 6:15
  art taste and what I like and what I'm interested in and we
• 6:18
  have maybe a, a bevy of places to go.
• 6:21
  What do I do next? Yeah.
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  The emphasis on this particular version that we're we're
• 6:27
  watching is really around the discovery specifically.
• 6:31
  So how do you actually learn to see different artworks, learn
• 6:35
  about different art genres? We provide you with a daily set
• 6:39
  of artwork that you're going to explore through, and then you
• 6:42
  can learn more depending on what piques your interest.
• 6:45
  And the more you spend time with Seoul, the more we're able to
• 6:48
  actually get a sense of what these particular tastes and
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  requirements are so we can suggest other artworks to you.
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  So it's really about encouraging people to kind of go down these
• 6:57
  rabbit holes and be inspired and really learn about different art
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  and artworks because ultimately a lot of users and this is a
• 7:06
  journey I went through myself. It's it's about connecting to
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  contemporary culture and a community of like minded
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  individuals, similar to how you would discover and learn about
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  your music taste, you know, and really get to know the artists
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  and the different types of genres or music that they
• 7:21
  produce. You can spend a lot of time
• 7:23
  through their catalog. Similarly, with artists, you can
• 7:25
  do that more visually with their portfolio of artworks.
• 7:28
  So we're really serving up the platform for you to spend time,
• 7:33
  discover, engage. And then what comes next is, you
• 7:37
  know, what we're working on specifically with the magical
• 7:40
  elements of our AI and how we're going to help you continue to
• 7:43
  engage in multiple different ways, whether you want to go to
• 7:46
  a show or you want to buy or you want to support an artist in
• 7:50
  whatever capacity you can. So is this mainly for like
• 7:53
  contemporary working artists now or is this kind of like an art
• 7:57
  history tool? Yes, it's a little bit of a
• 8:02
  blend of both, but primarily our goal is to empower and uplift
• 8:06
  working contemporary artists today.
• 8:08
  And we're focused on artists that are mostly doing 2D works
• 8:13
  like painting, photography, and then within painting and
• 8:16
  multiple different genres. So a lot of the artists that
• 8:19
  you'll get to know and connect with, you might recognize
• 8:22
  because we have some master legends on the platform.
• 8:26
  But then you'll see how living, working artists connect to
• 8:29
  artists that you might recognize, like a vet Go or a
• 8:31
  Monet, and then find out that you could actually go visit this
• 8:34
  artist in LA or New York City or buy a print from them.
• 8:38
  Oh, I love it. That's amazing.
• 8:41
  And I think there's a real need for it, right?
• 8:43
  Because contemporary art, and correct me if I'm wrong,
• 8:45
  basically just means anything, you know, it's they're so vast
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  that are there even like schools?
• 8:52
  I mean are we at post post postmodern yet or?
• 8:57
  Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, I think now we're just
• 9:00
  in the postmodern contemporary bucket.
• 9:03
  But you're right, there aren't a lot of avenues for people to
• 9:06
  just spend time and explore. And that's really the goal of
• 9:09
  what we want to accomplish with this first phase of the company
• 9:13
  is just creating that space. So I think about it a lot like a
• 9:16
  third space. It's not a physical place yet,
• 9:20
  but you know, you can go there to spend time to learn, to
• 9:23
  engage and really get to know art and have it meet the
• 9:27
  education, kind of meet you where you are.
• 9:29
  So, you know, I think the goal if you want to be an art history
• 9:32
  expert, that's available to you. But if you just want to figure
• 9:34
  out how to talk about your vibe or share artworks with other
• 9:37
  people that you're interested in, you have the ability to kind
• 9:40
  of plug in, you know, wherever that that fits for you.
• 9:45
  It's cool and it's super important too, because there's
• 9:48
  different art moves you for different reasons, you know?
• 9:51
  Like, I love Rembrandt, who doesn't?
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  But I don't necessarily want that over my dinner table when
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  I'm eating breakfast. It's a little too intense.
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  Right. Yeah, totally.
• 10:02
  I might want something a little more graphically inspired.
• 10:07
  I mean, you brought up a good point, too, because, you know,
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  there's different types of art. There's art that sparks
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  something in you, inspires you, creates conversation.
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  And then there's art that a lot of people want to be
• 10:18
  aesthetically pleasing to have in their living room or their
• 10:22
  kitchen, you know? And there's also art that blends
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  the two where people have an aesthetic, you know, affinity
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  for it, but it also has the ability to spark a very specific
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  emotional response. So a lot of what we are looking
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  at too, and something I'm really interested in, which is kind of
• 10:37
  kicked off a lot of this is how art impacts our well-being and
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  our overall mood, you know, and ability to be creative,
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  empathetic and remain inspired. So I think it's really important
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  as a place to go for people when they're feeling overwhelmed or
• 10:53
  disconnected or just need to kind of tap back into that
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  personal well of inspiration that might be running dry.
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  Yeah. Or you're looking for something
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  new, you know. Yeah, I think the, the, the
• 11:06
  creative instincts, like for me, it would just kind of like, I
• 11:08
  just run out of ideas sometimes, you know, like we moved
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  recently. We were living in a house for
• 11:13
  about 10 years and then we moved kind of out to the country a
• 11:16
  little bit and it was a new build, which meant it was just
• 11:19
  like this white palace. It's just like everything is
• 11:24
  white, you know? And I was just like, Oh my God,
• 11:27
  it was like so overwhelming. And, you know, behind me, I was
• 11:29
  like, well, I'll make that wall dark, OK?
• 11:31
  Not everything is white, you know, So you don't talking to my
• 11:35
  wife about like, OK, let's let's decorate.
• 11:37
  We have art, but like, let's, let's do something new.
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  But if I start thinking about it, I was just like, well, I
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  like, you know, cactuses and I like candles and I like old
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  clocks. Is this an aesthetic?
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  This is, you know, like I need like something to inspire me,
• 11:54
  you know, I need to see different things.
• 11:55
  And I kind of went through like Google images for a minute.
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  I was like, I don't know, man, I'm not, I'm not finding
• 12:00
  anything, you know, So I, I think this is really good
• 12:03
  timing. It probably happens with a lot
• 12:04
  of people, you know, you kind of end up with maybe the, the
• 12:07
  couple of old posters on the wall you had and it maybe
• 12:11
  inherited a, A, a doll from your aunt or something.
• 12:15
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• 12:18
  Antiques Roadshow. And you're like, dude, I I want
• 12:21
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  And you know, it's, it's interesting because I feel like
• 14:32
  what you're talking about relates to so much more than art
• 14:34
  specifically, which is, you know, what's your source of
• 14:37
  creativity? How do you describe your taste?
• 14:40
  So a lot of people I talked to will say to me, I don't know
• 14:43
  anything about art. I don't really have a specific
• 14:45
  design aesthetic. But you know, even in just your
• 14:48
  description, you listed like 3 or 4 things like cactuses and
• 14:51
  clocks. And they might seem really
• 14:53
  random, but there are starting points for where you can kind of
• 14:57
  go on your own journey to connect the dots.
• 14:59
  And then if you have a place that is inspiring you to do so
• 15:03
  and you can actually actively buy and support artists instead
• 15:06
  of going to home goods or, you know, another type of like off
• 15:09
  the shelf solution, it's it becomes really interesting.
• 15:14
  And again, like even just as a source for your own creative
• 15:17
  well, which we definitely need to top up, I feel like more
• 15:21
  often than than usual these days.
• 15:25
  Yeah, well, it's been like a great conversation with, with my
• 15:28
  wife of like what we want to do and where we want to come
• 15:31
  together and how we can merge styles and and expectations and
• 15:35
  things like that, you know, and I mean that truly because, you
• 15:39
  know, a lot of times in a relationship, especially, you
• 15:41
  know, we got two kids, it's like a lot of your conversation
• 15:44
  becomes revolves around work. It revolves around just the
• 15:48
  logistics of being a human, you know, but like talking about
• 15:51
  like what we how we want to display, what we want to
• 15:54
  display, what we want the energy of the room to look like.
• 15:58
  It's really cool and brings up some fun, you know, arguments
• 16:01
  and things because, you know, you know, I like candles and
• 16:05
  cactuses, but I also like crystal balls and I like nares,
• 16:10
  you know, so that if it was left to me like this would look like
• 16:14
  some kind of fun house mixed with some kind of like like
• 16:18
  psychic kind of den if it was up to me.
• 16:21
  And then I was just kind of the energy of my office, which is
• 16:25
  great. I love it.
• 16:26
  But you know, for my wife, she's like, she is an art history
• 16:29
  major. So she has like a real a knack
• 16:32
  for the classics, but also like she's very creative and, and,
• 16:36
  and you know, so like literally what we were doing was like
• 16:39
  going to Ross and being like, what about any of this stuff
• 16:42
  just to get, because there's some good stuff at Ross or go
• 16:47
  into IKEA and like, OK, what do we like IKEA stuff?
• 16:51
  Like I don't, I don't know. I don't know if we do.
• 16:54
  So I'm really intrigued now. What's the business model?
• 16:57
  So like you're, you're creating this kind of cool platform to
• 17:02
  introduce people, educate them a little bit, and then like make
• 17:06
  connections to artists that are kind of all over the country.
• 17:09
  Like what? How do you make money from from
• 17:12
  the app? Yeah, we're, you know, we have a
• 17:17
  couple of different ideas and plans of what we're going to
• 17:20
  execute with our test version that we we ran a pilot with with
• 17:25
  artists and users from our wait list.
• 17:27
  We did facilitate transactions of prints through the app.
• 17:30
  So you know, that's always going to be a, a method of
• 17:34
  monetization for us. And I think given that we have a
• 17:38
  community that's focused on engagement, we can get more
• 17:41
  creative in terms of how we want to monetize.
• 17:44
  Not not ads, but there's a couple other things we're
• 17:47
  looking at that helps us really kind of be able to collaborate
• 17:50
  with different partners inside and outside the industry, as
• 17:53
  well as help artists kind of monetize in different ways from
• 17:58
  just participating and sharing. Because right now, you know, I
• 18:01
  don't know if you're familiar with or if you and your wife
• 18:04
  have even looked at artists on social media.
• 18:06
  You know, there's a real pressure to be posting reels and
• 18:10
  having to be influencers and create as much content as they
• 18:13
  can. But it feels like they don't get
• 18:15
  a lot back from that universe. So, you know, for us, we think a
• 18:18
  lot thoughtfully too, about how do we help them continue to
• 18:22
  promote and share more of who they are, but not really put
• 18:25
  that strain on time and resources for them.
• 18:27
  Or if they do do that, how can they get something back while
• 18:31
  somebody like a user is getting confident, learning and
• 18:34
  engaging? Yeah, you know, to this point,
• 18:38
  like prints, especially large prints, I, I was shopping for
• 18:43
  and I didn't find it. You know, I was, what I was
• 18:44
  thinking is, you know, I would love to have prints that were
• 18:47
  like really big, maybe 6 feet wide by 4 feet.
• 18:51
  Maybe it's like newspaper and I could just hang them from clips.
• 18:55
  Like just like kind of different things.
• 18:58
  Really hard to find anything like that.
• 19:00
  You know, you, you have kind of like the big printing houses
• 19:02
  that are doing like murals that are kind of wallpaper, which is
• 19:06
  kind of cool. But like, again, you're not
• 19:08
  getting the uniqueness and the originality.
• 19:10
  You know, for for me, I'm not going to drop 10,000 on an
• 19:13
  original art piece, but I might drop 500 on a cool print.
• 19:17
  You know that that would be amazing.
• 19:20
  You know, way to kind of monetize it and introduce, you
• 19:24
  know, new audiences into your point.
• 19:25
  Like, you know, social media right now, if art comes in in
• 19:30
  front of you know, if it, if it comes by my algo, whether it's
• 19:34
  Reddit or TikTok or whatever, it's always because usually the
• 19:39
  artist is like really, really physically attractive.
• 19:42
  So they're like looking with a picture that that I made of a
• 19:45
  cactus and has like, well, that is a nice picture, but you
• 19:49
  happen to be unbelievably good looking.
• 19:51
  And I think that's probably why that it's hitting the algorithm.
• 19:54
  So it doesn't, it just feels disingenuine a little bit.
• 19:57
  Not that they're not true artists or whatever, but you
• 19:59
  know, it's like ultimately it's just getting picked up because
• 20:02
  they're exceptionally good looking.
• 20:03
  There's not like an algo that really is like feeding art based
• 20:08
  on the merit of the piece. Yeah.
• 20:13
  And I think you also raise another point where a lot of
• 20:15
  artists feel like they can't control that side of the
• 20:18
  equation or it's like a pay to play model where they have to
• 20:21
  invest to somehow like manipulate the algorithm.
• 20:24
  So yeah, I think it's it's definitely something people have
• 20:28
  tried to figure out on different social media platforms and some
• 20:32
  art marketplaces have looked at it.
• 20:34
  But I think it is it is challenging to have a nice
• 20:37
  balance between suggesting artworks that somebody might be
• 20:42
  interested in just based on the content of the artwork itself.
• 20:46
  And that there's not anything wrong with that.
• 20:47
  I then I, I kind of felt self-conscious because I went
• 20:50
  and looked at the artists here featuring on the website and
• 20:52
  they're all beautiful women. So maybe there there's something
• 20:56
  to it. Is is there a particular kind of
• 20:59
  focus on women artists? You know, I didn't in intend any
• 21:06
  of them, but it kind of happened naturally.
• 21:08
  I feel like given what we're trying to do at Seoul, the
• 21:12
  community we're trying to cultivate, I naturally connected
• 21:14
  with a lot of women artists that were looking for some sort of
• 21:19
  similar community. So having a little bit more
• 21:22
  intention community at the center engagement depth of the
• 21:27
  connection as well really resonated with a couple of
• 21:31
  individuals. And then part of, you know, just
• 21:33
  the natural network effects of being introduced to other
• 21:35
  artists that they're friends with, you know, like minded
• 21:38
  people started to get connected in the community and we ended up
• 21:42
  being able to promote an onboard almost 90% women artists.
• 21:46
  So I think it's, it's pretty cool that it naturally happened
• 21:49
  that way. But no, we're, I mean, we're
• 21:51
  open to any type of artist. But yeah, I think again, like
• 21:55
  the the culture that we've tried to cultivate even before
• 21:59
  launching the brand that we're building, the new letter that we
• 22:02
  put out, the piece of content that we put out.
• 22:04
  We're really hoping to attract artists who are interested in
• 22:08
  this type of space, doing something different, having a
• 22:11
  different entry point and then looking to commute, you know,
• 22:14
  connect with a community that's very interested but doesn't
• 22:17
  really have all the the tools. Yeah.
• 22:20
  You know, the last big art movement that happened was NFTS.
• 22:26
  Any interest in bringing NFTS into this?
• 22:32
  You know, it's funny, when I was, I was at my first startup
• 22:35
  was in art as well. We were doing some work with
• 22:38
  blockchain there. And then around like 2021, I had
• 22:41
  a ton of people message me telling me to pivot into NFTS
• 22:45
  and I should do a web three platform.
• 22:47
  And I think NFTS are really interesting.
• 22:50
  They offer a different, again, entry point for people into the
• 22:54
  collectibles and art market, which I think is really great.
• 22:57
  But from just like a technology structural standpoint, it
• 23:01
  introduces a completely different layer of complexity.
• 23:06
  And, you know, we're happy to promote artists that make NFT
• 23:09
  art. Some artists do make multiple
• 23:11
  different mediums because they felt compelled to enter into
• 23:15
  NFTS when it was, you know, during the boom.
• 23:17
  So, you know, there's still an opportunity to be discovered,
• 23:20
  but that's not really our focus. What's your personal take?
• 23:25
  What's your art aesthetic? By art aesthetic is very
• 23:32
  abstract heavy. I'm really big into abstract
• 23:35
  art. Mark Roscoe is one of my
• 23:37
  favorite artists, probably like my entry point into the art
• 23:40
  market. So I'm really also someone that
• 23:44
  likes to mirror my art based on natural landscapes.
• 23:48
  So sunsets, speech scenes, like community table gatherings, like
• 23:53
  that type of content is really interesting to me in the art
• 23:57
  scene. And then any artist that has the
• 23:59
  ability to create like an abstract or surrealist kind of
• 24:02
  take on that is, is, yeah, really interesting to me.
• 24:06
  So it tends to be very like dreamy vibes, but also has a lot
• 24:11
  of nature kind of mixed in. And then I also really love
• 24:15
  artists that are able to do interesting thing with
• 24:17
  portraits. I think that's the ability to
• 24:20
  capture someone's essence is really interesting as well.
• 24:24
  And sort of an artist is able to do that and get you attracted to
• 24:27
  someone that you've never even met before or seen.
• 24:30
  I think that's that's pretty. Yeah.
• 24:33
  Impressive. Yeah, yeah.
• 24:35
  I think we might have similar tastes.
• 24:36
  I'm looking at Mark Rothko. I don't really know.
• 24:39
  I didn't know his work before, but it's, it's like calm and
• 24:42
  pretty and, you know, pleasing, you know.
• 24:49
  Yeah. And like, tons of big blocks of
• 24:51
  color, which is really interesting.
• 24:54
  And a lot of the artists of that time, like Mark Rothko's period,
• 24:57
  kind of intuitively knew how to choose the colors, how to lay
• 25:02
  them out in a way that would make people respond in a
• 25:05
  positive or if it, you know, led to it, a negative manner.
• 25:09
  But just to have a reaction in general, which again, like even
• 25:12
  like the history and storytelling behind that is
• 25:14
  super fascinating too. Yeah, did you ever read that
• 25:18
  book Diary by Chuck Palahniuk? No, I haven't heard.
• 25:23
  Of that it was, it was, it's a great book.
• 25:26
  He's he famously wrote Fight Club and Chuck's a really fun
• 25:31
  writer. He was, he was one of the first
• 25:34
  people that created Burning Man. So he's been in kind of like
• 25:38
  this anarchist like kind of artist community for a long
• 25:42
  time. But he wrote this book and it
• 25:45
  was really interesting. It was about a woman who was a
• 25:47
  painter and she was really self-conscious because she went
• 25:52
  to art school. And the artists, you know, this
• 25:55
  would be late 80s, early 90s. Their idea of art was like, you
• 26:00
  know, dyeing their dog's hair with kool-aid and then gluing it
• 26:04
  to a tree being like art. And they're judgmental to her
• 26:09
  because she did like, these, like, pastoral scenes, kind of
• 26:13
  classic with like, a farm, you know, just been made like, what
• 26:17
  would just be like, pretty art, you know?
• 26:20
  So and then there's a time machine wrapped in there, and
• 26:23
  the whole world is about to end for something.
• 26:24
  It's a really fun read, but I just love that idea because
• 26:28
  there's kind of an innate snobbishness that always kind of
• 26:32
  turned me off to art in a way, which, you know, with my wife
• 26:35
  being an art historian, she's like, oh, you're just into
• 26:37
  craft, you know, because I I really, if I had an aesthetic
• 26:41
  aside from cactuses, clocks, you know, crystal balls and mirrors,
• 26:45
  it's probably like feudal Japan, you know, where everything is
• 26:48
  just like just so you know. But but that being said, do you,
• 26:55
  do you find that there still is kind of like a, an insider club
• 27:00
  with artwork? Or do you feel like over the
• 27:02
  years it's gotten more embracing of like everybody's different
• 27:05
  style and like people that maybe aren't into like fine art that
• 27:09
  like maybe pretty things or like, you know, architectural
• 27:13
  things? What's the what's the vibe of
• 27:15
  art right now? Yeah, it's, it's pretty split.
• 27:20
  I think it's, it still has an air of exclusivity.
• 27:24
  You know, there is still a distinction between fine art and
• 27:27
  craft art, hobby artists and full time professional artists.
• 27:32
  I, I, I'm not sure how or when that will blend, if it will at
• 27:37
  all. Because I think in every
• 27:38
  industry of craft, there's always layers of expertise
• 27:43
  that's just like a natural order of things.
• 27:45
  I think where I think it's interesting is how that interest
• 27:48
  that you have in arts in general, crafts can lead into an
• 27:53
  interest in the fine art category.
• 27:55
  So the world in that sense is blending in terms of how are you
• 27:58
  getting introduced to art and artist.
• 28:02
  You know, illustration is making its way into the more fine art
• 28:05
  world. Some cartoon and type of art is
• 28:09
  making its way into the traditional world too, which is
• 28:13
  another way to make it a little bit more accessible because
• 28:15
  people have more kind of context and exposure to illustration and
• 28:20
  kind of characters that they might recognize from different
• 28:23
  shows or or comic books. So I think unfortunately it is a
• 28:28
  a stereotype that in deep parts of the art world, people in the
• 28:32
  art world are very caught conscious of and they, I think
• 28:36
  it's, it's kind of talked about how the art world needs a little
• 28:38
  bit of a shake up or, you know, some sort of of reset, but it's
• 28:43
  not certain when or how it's going to happen.
• 28:45
  I think it will through just exactly the conversations that
• 28:48
  you and your wife are having where you have the commonality
• 28:52
  between the experts and you know someone who's a novice.
• 28:56
  And then are, you know, part of what we want to do at Soul is
• 28:59
  help bridge that gap. Remove some of the intimidation,
• 29:02
  the exclusivity to say like even if you don't know that you like
• 29:05
  XYZ type of art, you like something that's adjacent to it.
• 29:10
  And that can help you kind of be a bridge back into the more
• 29:14
  traditional world, which, you know, in terms of like
• 29:18
  accessibility has become more accessible over the last few
• 29:22
  years just in price points and artists, you know, making
• 29:24
  smaller works, prints like that. Diversity has definitely helped
• 29:29
  the market too. Yeah, you know, and I think like
• 29:31
  Gen. Z too, like a lot of the
• 29:33
  snobbishness of like the the lunchroom tribes that existed
• 29:38
  when I was a kid. It's kind of gone, you know,
• 29:41
  probably thanks to Spotify, you know, where you used to have to
• 29:44
  go to like the country western part of the record store or
• 29:48
  you're on the hip hop part of the record store, you're in the
• 29:50
  jazz. Like there's like there was like
• 29:52
  literally segregation of the genres.
• 29:54
  So you're like, oh, I'm a hesher.
• 29:56
  I, I go to the metal section and that's who I am as an identity.
• 29:59
  When you lose that, then you're just like, oh, all these songs
• 30:02
  are great. And you, you know, both of my
• 30:04
  kids have amazing playlist and unbelievable taste because they
• 30:07
  can go outside of what are their tribal affiliations were, you
• 30:11
  know, and perhaps, you know, soul becomes something very
• 30:14
  similar for the art world where people aren't even thinking like
• 30:16
  that, you know, and I, I think it's kind of disappearing too,
• 30:20
  from what I've seen from the art community here in Denver.
• 30:23
  So, you know, what was it 1015 years ago, there was this huge
• 30:27
  mural culture that blew up in every single like metropolitan
• 30:31
  area, you know, as it did in Denver, just gorgeous murals.
• 30:34
  People from all over the world would come for what they were
• 30:38
  called, were called crush crush Denver.
• 30:40
  And they do all these murals and in the neighborhood and, you
• 30:44
  know, being a local kid and in a skater many lifetimes ago and
• 30:50
  these are still my buddies. But a lot of these guys are like
• 30:52
  graffiti artists, you know, So you had you had these like deep
• 30:55
  trenched divisions between I'm a graffiti artist.
• 30:59
  That's not you're doing a mural on my streets.
• 31:02
  You don't get, get a little territorial.
• 31:04
  But I, I had a buddy, a good buddy of mine, Dee, who's like
• 31:06
  part of a famous graffiti crew and in Denver for many, many
• 31:10
  years, but also does murals and also does oil painting.
• 31:14
  And he's man, the very few words.
• 31:17
  But I remember asking him, I was like, dude, what do you think?
• 31:20
  Is there going to be a war between the, the muralists and,
• 31:23
  and the and the graffiti artist? He's like, I don't care.
• 31:27
  I was like, well said. But I think a lot of these like
• 31:33
  kind of tribal affiliations over time will just kind of
• 31:36
  dissipate, you know, because Gen.
• 31:38
  Z seems to be just this mass amalgamation of styles and
• 31:42
  enthusiasm where kind of the the snobbishness I appreciate
• 31:47
  because I am a jazz guy. So you get you got to feel some
• 31:50
  kind of superiority some way. But they just don't have that
• 31:53
  baked into their culture at all. Like it seems like it's much
• 31:55
  more welcoming and more excited and enthusiastic about a lot of
• 31:59
  different things. You know that to kind of feed
• 32:02
  what they're into. Yeah, definitely.
• 32:06
  I think the enthusiasm is, is important distinction that you
• 32:11
  just mentioned. I feel like that taste for a
• 32:15
  variety of things, especially because they grew up with so
• 32:18
  much technology, you know, at their fingertips and the ability
• 32:22
  and start the start of like Spotify and personalization.
• 32:25
  It's almost kind of assumed to them that they'd have somebody
• 32:29
  helping them filter through a bunch of different things.
• 32:32
  Whereas I feel like the generation before would kind of
• 32:35
  stick to something that they knew because it took a long time
• 32:38
  for them to really develop their tastes and expertise like jazz
• 32:42
  in that area. Though I still do think there is
• 32:45
  some sort of pride in being someone that knows a lot about a
• 32:50
  specific topic that kind of seems to still be there, which I
• 32:54
  think is is part of human nature.
• 32:56
  You know, people are very proud and excited to share what
• 33:00
  they're learning, you know, how it's changed them and why they
• 33:03
  recommend it to somebody else. So that I think is not going to
• 33:07
  go anywhere, which is, you know, super beneficial for a lot of AI
• 33:11
  products, personalization products that are thinking about
• 33:14
  recommendation. How have you used AI in your
• 33:19
  tech stack in building the app? A lot and had yeah, we kind of
• 33:27
  have like proprietary work around it, but we really have it
• 33:31
  more as a recommendation engine that's kind of guiding how
• 33:36
  we're. We're serving up the
• 33:38
  recommendations and we're also looking at different ways that
• 33:42
  we can use AI to make a lot of the content and like context
• 33:47
  dissemination a little bit easier for us.
• 33:50
  So I think it's going to be a little bit of a blend of, you
• 33:55
  know, human and AI intervention and how to support kind of what
• 33:59
  naturally happens in the space before kind of deciding to go
• 34:02
  more AI heavy. Because I still think there's a
• 34:04
  lot to be learned on the best way to engage with people,
• 34:08
  whether or not they want a copilot or a guide or a friend
• 34:11
  or we just want someone to help them decide.
• 34:15
  There's still a lot of, Yeah, I think there's still just a lot
• 34:19
  of discovery to be done there, you know?
• 34:21
  And it's kind of like the classic usage, you know, it's
• 34:23
  called AI now, but it used to just be called machine learning.
• 34:27
  And, you know, that's probably Facebook's greatest, probably a
• 34:33
  contribution to AI, and they've been doing it for 20 years.
• 34:35
  So just like if you like this, you're probably going to like
• 34:38
  that. You know, it's really good at
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  Now back to the show. Right, exactly.
• 37:03
  So now it's like anything at the scale.
• 37:05
  Yeah, at the level of scale. And for me, I think about a lot
• 37:09
  of how can we also make the artists side easier to using AI?
• 37:14
  Like is there anything that we could use to help them better
• 37:17
  tell their story? Yeah.
• 37:19
  I like this too because it's, you know, there's so many
• 37:21
  applications. Obviously AI has just become a
• 37:24
  term for everything. But you know, the generative AI
• 37:26
  stuff is what I've been really experimenting with a lot and
• 37:29
  it's it's at the frustration level 99 because it's so close
• 37:33
  to being perfect that but it's so annoying that it's not what
• 37:37
  you want. You know, where it seems like
• 37:42
  soul is a perfect place where it's like, I don't want to make
• 37:45
  anything all the time. I'd like to receive sometimes,
• 37:49
  you know, and it's. Yeah, definitely.
• 37:52
  It's nice, you know. Right.
• 37:55
  Yeah, and people have asked us if we're getting into generative
• 37:59
  art, AI art. We are not.
• 38:02
  That's also not really part of what we're offering right now.
• 38:06
  So yeah, I think you're right. Like sometimes you just want to
• 38:09
  go and be fed certain things to look at rather than have to make
• 38:14
  it or create or come up with a prompt or the concept yourself.
• 38:18
  And there's, there's just kind of a, there was an aesthetic
• 38:22
  for, for AI derived everything. And sometimes it's like, I want
• 38:25
  analog. I don't want that digital.
• 38:29
  I mean, even if it's a picture of a scenery, you're like, OK,
• 38:32
  nice. This is, this is great.
• 38:34
  I mean, I think more and more so there's going to be bigger and
• 38:36
  bigger demand for that of like diminishing the screens in the
• 38:39
  house and like creating an environment, you know, for, for
• 38:44
  other things, for a space for other things to emerge, you
• 38:47
  know? Yeah, I don't know if you hang
• 38:51
  out on sub stack at all, but that is the major, at least from
• 38:55
  my what I'm seeing, the major call to action is like let's
• 38:59
  take a step back and go analog. People are sharing, you know,
• 39:02
  daily rituals and routines that have nothing to do with screens,
• 39:06
  you know, their walks in nature like handwriting notes going
• 39:10
  back to landline. So it's definitely really
• 39:13
  interesting how now the more rare and craft and slow it might
• 39:18
  take more precedence for people, especially in their non work
• 39:22
  life. I saw somebody on Reddit called
• 39:25
  cigarettes analog vapes. It's like, wow, what?
• 39:33
  It's wild. How did you finance the project?
• 39:40
  Bootstrapped for a very long time and then just recently
• 39:44
  brought on some early investors. So yeah, it's been pretty much
• 39:48
  funded by myself and I haven't been lucky to have some really
• 39:54
  awesome team members, supporters, contributors along
• 39:58
  the way. But it definitely was a bit of a
• 40:01
  longer journey because of the, you know, the bootstrapped kind
• 40:06
  of methodology. But at the same time, has really
• 40:09
  kind of helped hone in what we're building because there was
• 40:12
  a lot of prototyping, testing, interviewing and time to really
• 40:17
  like think more thoughtfully about what we wanted to build.
• 40:21
  Great. And you live in San Francisco.
• 40:23
  Was there, did you feel pressure that you needed to create
• 40:26
  something that would launch to the moon or some mission that
• 40:30
  was going to change humanity forever?
• 40:34
  Yes, I think it's hard to it's, it's hard to escape in that
• 40:39
  environment and ecosystem. And I feel like I felt a lot of
• 40:43
  pressure and you know, necessity to build and like create a pitch
• 40:51
  deck and a product that was going to do that.
• 40:53
  I still believe that our mission and our our product are going to
• 40:57
  be hugely impactful. I just think that this is
• 41:00
  probably because this is my second time doing this.
• 41:03
  It's better to find people that align with your mission and what
• 41:06
  you're trying to build and really figure out product market
• 41:10
  fit and then how you want to scale from there.
• 41:12
  Rather than having the pressure to just say that you want to be
• 41:16
  this disruptor and then inevitably kind of change your
• 41:20
  business model or path. Because you know, taking venture
• 41:23
  opens up a lot of doors and opportunities.
• 41:25
  And there's definitely something that would change the the
• 41:29
  outcome for an entrepreneur, but it also has certain kind of
• 41:32
  requirements that come with it. And I didn't really realize that
• 41:35
  when I first got to SF, but, you know, learn that just from like
• 41:39
  meeting investors and and trying to figure out like where we fit.
• 41:43
  Yeah. And I mean, you know, it's, it
• 41:45
  would completely change the whole trajectory of the thing,
• 41:48
  which isn't good or bad, but you know, it's there's a there's
• 41:51
  such a pressure with all these venture backed startups that
• 41:54
  like literally you're you get you're chasing Unicorn.
• 41:58
  And if you don't have that in your trajectory, they're just
• 42:02
  going to walk right past you, you know, But maybe you got, we
• 42:06
  should do book club and we'll both read diary together and see
• 42:09
  if there's some parallels there, because maybe that's the your
• 42:12
  art. School.
• 42:13
  I got to check out that book. Your art school, but.
• 42:16
  You know what? I.
• 42:17
  Go ahead, Sorry. Yeah, I was, I was just going to
• 42:20
  say that it it might be slower to not take that that money
• 42:25
  upfront. But I think when you're if you
• 42:28
  are building something that resonates and you figure out
• 42:31
  what you want as a founder and what kind of life you want as a
• 42:34
  founder, once you get to a certain level of, you know,
• 42:39
  prominence as a product, then the doors really open for you
• 42:43
  automatically. I think, I think there's a
• 42:45
  tension when you first start as a founder where you're like, I
• 42:48
  want to build to get investment. And then the founder investors
• 42:51
  are telling you you need more traction.
• 42:53
  And so, you know, in the early days, it's kind of like neither
• 42:55
  is useful advice because you don't have the ability to get
• 42:59
  the traction because that's where you need the money.
• 43:01
  But if you keep at it and you go a little bit slowly, you know,
• 43:05
  eventually you can get somewhere where you start to figure out
• 43:08
  like, OK, there's different investor options or different
• 43:10
  funding options and maybe venture is the right path.
• 43:15
  Yeah, it's not, definitely not the easy, the easy Rd. none of
• 43:18
  it is easy. But it it depends on what kind
• 43:21
  of person you are to I think. Yeah, 100%.
• 43:24
  I mean, let's see, I'm looking at, yeah, because I'm just
• 43:28
  trying to think there's like, no, I don't know of any art
• 43:31
  discovery marketplaces. I mean, you could say Etsy or
• 43:34
  something, but that's not really it, you know, it in there.
• 43:37
  I'm looking at like Depop, you know, for example, Depop's doing
• 43:42
  about 115,000,000 annually, you know, which is unbelievable
• 43:47
  amounts of money, you know, and it's, it's serves such a great
• 43:50
  purpose where you're like, oh, I want some snakeskin boots.
• 43:53
  Let's see if it's on Depop. I don't want to pay 500.
• 43:55
  I want to pay 100 and so you get to you can curate and find all
• 43:58
  these things that you need, you know, so it's you know, it's
• 44:02
  Depop venture backed. I don't think it is, but still,
• 44:05
  you know, there's so much opportunity.
• 44:08
  I don't know, it's very cool. All right, I want to go to
• 44:12
  QuickTime with slime. Are you are you open to a little
• 44:15
  game here? I think so.
• 44:21
  OK, let me bring it up. So basically the rules of the
• 44:24
  game is you have to pick this or that, you cannot pick neither,
• 44:29
  and you cannot pick both. And if you do, you have to hit
• 44:32
  yourself in the head with a pillow.
• 44:34
  That's the rule. Both up here you have to do.
• 44:41
  OK, I don't have a pillow here. OK, we'll have to use imaginary
• 44:45
  pillow to be very soft so it doesn't hurt all.
• 44:48
  Right. OK, so curate or democratize?
• 44:53
  Would you rather personally curate every artist on Seoul or
• 44:56
  let the community self publish? Oh man, I can't caveat.
• 45:09
  I can't have a first then that, no.
• 45:11
  You can't please whatever you think and then just explain a
• 45:13
  little bit of how you think about it, I suppose.
• 45:18
  Yeah, I was going to say curate, then democratize.
• 45:21
  So I think there needs to be a little bit of guidance and
• 45:24
  initiation and intention and then you can open it up to more
• 45:28
  people. And creating standards,
• 45:31
  something like that. Cool.
• 45:38
  It for curating these kind of artists that will be on the
• 45:41
  platform. You use predominantly emotion or
• 45:44
  you use predominantly logic, which might come down to you
• 45:52
  think it'll sell more or you think you you like it better.
• 46:00
  If I had to choose emotion. Why so?
• 46:07
  Because I, I feel like they're, they're kind of connected.
• 46:10
  It's almost like heart and mind just depends on what type of
• 46:14
  person you are, which which is going to win out.
• 46:17
  But eventually you you reach both in your process of decision
• 46:21
  making. So I tend to go with my emotion
• 46:25
  1st and then the logic. So I think that's how I would,
• 46:29
  yeah, think about this. Seems like this usually the
• 46:34
  emotions are it's either click bait or it's rage bait.
• 46:40
  It seems to be the governing emotions which are you afraid
• 46:45
  that if if you don't think logically, of course you would.
• 46:51
  Of course it's both, but is there as you're curating kind of
• 46:54
  a recommendation engine that ultimately what what gets fed to
• 47:00
  people are things that like are maybe rage baity.
• 47:08
  I think again, that goes down back to the first of curation,
• 47:12
  first democratization. It's like, I think, you know,
• 47:17
  it's it's a very tricky subject about how much oversight is
• 47:21
  going to be involved in a lot of these products.
• 47:23
  But there needs to be some sort of standard set.
• 47:26
  And if the intention of a product is to just get an
• 47:29
  emotion out of somebody, then it's not going to achieve its
• 47:33
  goal because, you know, ultimately for us, like we want
• 47:37
  this to be a space that makes you feel good.
• 47:40
  So however you can figure out that along with us is the best
• 47:45
  rather than us just continually trying to say, Hey, this is
• 47:47
  going to be a, a rage bait, click bait kind of space, just
• 47:51
  tapping into the quick, quick reaction, you know, but people,
• 47:56
  some people can do that. Well, like Banksy is an artist
• 47:58
  that does both, you know, he's, he's kind of mastered that.
• 48:02
  So there's probably again like a little bit of a balance in
• 48:05
  there. Yeah, because, I mean,
• 48:07
  Zuckerberg is completely. He's done it terribly, you know,
• 48:11
  like, I can't even go to his products because, you know, I
• 48:14
  could tell it that, like, OK, I I like cactuses and candles and
• 48:20
  this is it. But then what happens is like,
• 48:23
  there'll be like a beautiful woman in the gym doing squats
• 48:26
  and I'm going to stop for three seconds, be like, whoa, what is
• 48:29
  that? Obviously.
• 48:31
  And then it feeds me that constantly.
• 48:33
  So it like knows what I actually I'm going to stop for.
• 48:35
  But it's like, yeah, man. But now I don't even want to use
• 48:37
  the product because it's embarrassing.
• 48:39
  I open Instagram and it's just all beautiful women working out.
• 48:42
  It's like, I didn't want it to be like this.
• 48:43
  I wanted cactuses and and candles.
• 48:46
  But now this is obviously what I stopped on, you know what I
• 48:49
  mean? So that it's just an interesting
• 48:52
  hat that we're in right now and particularly in this moment,
• 48:55
  because, you know, if Trump is selling American TikTok to
• 48:58
  another entity and like we're going to have some kind of
• 49:00
  government controls into the algorithm, creating kind of
• 49:03
  machine learning guardrails of like how you want to how you
• 49:09
  want to treat human dignity, I think is ultimately the
• 49:11
  question. It's like we're all going to
• 49:13
  have these base responses to to rage baby stuff or violent stuff
• 49:18
  or scary stuff, like, but do we really want to be appealing to
• 49:22
  that? You know, I think what, what I
• 49:25
  really like about what you're building is it it, it has this
• 49:28
  kind of like this kind of like, I don't know, like, like good
• 49:38
  intentions, for lack of any other word.
• 49:41
  It's like no man, like let's help people find stuff that they
• 49:44
  would like for different reasons.
• 49:45
  And it there, it has a potential to like be something really
• 49:50
  unique and novel, I think. Thanks.
• 49:54
  Yeah. I mean, keeping the humanitarian
• 49:59
  kind of beneficial ethical aspect of it is really important
• 50:03
  too, especially because of all the stuff that you're you just
• 50:06
  mentioned. Yeah, there's plenty of artists
• 50:09
  though, that use that seat. Sneaky sex appeal.
• 50:11
  So you're like, whoa, it's kind of a classic.
• 50:14
  The Egyptians did that. I mean, hieroglyphics were
• 50:16
  notorious for that. It works, you know.
• 50:19
  So what are you going to do? OK, niche, first mass.
• 50:26
  Do you want to deploy to very niche markets or are you looking
• 50:29
  for kind of like the every person?
• 50:37
  I think, you know, with any product that you're building,
• 50:39
  you kind of have to go niche and work your way out and like
• 50:43
  figure out who you're speaking to directly at first.
• 50:48
  And you you're focused on kind of Gen.
• 50:49
  Z it sounds like. Is it?
• 50:51
  Would that be your niche? Gen.
• 50:55
  Z, Millennial, Yeah, we're trying to find like an
• 50:58
  overlapping qualities between the two as our niche.
• 51:02
  Yeah, nice. OK.
• 51:05
  This one I think you've already answered, but monetize early or
• 51:07
  build community first. Don't community first.
• 51:15
  Exclusive versus inclusive? Should it be selective like
• 51:20
  luxury or curated, or as inclusive as possible to
• 51:23
  welcoming just about anybody who goes to show up?
• 51:30
  Inclusive. We've kind of gone over some of
• 51:34
  these human touch versus algorithmic recommendation, I
• 51:40
  suppose. Is there a, is there a way to
• 51:42
  design features that you're you get both.
• 51:46
  Oh, I got to hit myself in the head with a pillow.
• 51:52
  I mean, a lot of these for me are one, then 2.
• 51:55
  Like you need to have, we need to have, yeah, both stuff in
• 52:01
  there. Again, I think the human element
• 52:05
  is important. And then at some point you can
• 52:08
  figure out how to automate that. Well, it truly is both, you
• 52:14
  know, because if if Spotify is a good example, it's like, you
• 52:18
  know, if I I could type in like chill work music and that'd be
• 52:22
  fine. But, you know, Friday night, I
• 52:24
  want to go to hear a DJI want them to make the choice and
• 52:27
  they're going to make the choice on how the the energy of the
• 52:30
  crowd, you know, so it's like the algorithm is very helpful,
• 52:33
  but it's also cool that like if there's somebody you like and
• 52:36
  respect and knows how to keep the party going, like let them
• 52:39
  make a decision, you know, and. Yeah, and I mean, Spotify had a
• 52:44
  lot of human involvement in creating their algorithm in the
• 52:49
  early years. So yeah, it's also same like
• 52:52
  that hand in hand DJ to then automate whatever they would
• 52:56
  recommend. Yeah, totally.
• 52:59
  Or like I remember when I used to when I was getting tattoos in
• 53:02
  early on, I would like, you know, before Photoshop really in
• 53:06
  the mid 90s. And I would, if I wanted kind of
• 53:09
  a distorted look or like a, a rough edge or something, I'd,
• 53:13
  I'd sketch something and then I'd make like 3 photocopies of
• 53:16
  it and like distress it and then bring it to my tattoo artist and
• 53:21
  be like trace it, you know, and then he trace it.
• 53:24
  And those tattoos I have are terrible.
• 53:27
  I mean, they're, they're bad and it's totally my fault because I
• 53:31
  was like, do this very rigid and you realize that you just go
• 53:35
  find an artist you respect and you're like, dude, I'm thinking
• 53:38
  like birds or something. What do you think?
• 53:40
  And then you let them do it. They're the artist, you know
• 53:46
  you. Need to get unless you.
• 53:47
  Yeah, unless you have the drawing ability to create a
• 53:51
  vision. What am I doing making
• 53:52
  photocopies and tracing things from like literally like the the
• 53:58
  encyclopedia. It's different time.
• 54:02
  What are you going to do? Amazing.
• 54:06
  This has been so much fun. The the website is this is
• 54:11
  soul.com. Your art journey starts here.
• 54:15
  You're opening up very soon. If you're if you're an artist
• 54:19
  and you want to get involved with with your application,
• 54:22
  what's the best way to to connect with you?
• 54:27
  Yeah, thanks, Ryan. So you do on our website,
• 54:30
  there's a contact us if you're an artist form and you can drop
• 54:33
  all your information and then it goes straight to the team, so we
• 54:36
  can check it out. And if you're a user, you can
• 54:38
  just sign up to the wait list. That's the best way to stay in
• 54:41
  touch with us. You get a newsletter and then
• 54:43
  you're up to date on when the app becomes public.
• 54:46
  Amazing. And there's.
• 54:47
  Yeah, you can't miss it. There's a big spot to get on the
• 54:50
  newsletter. I know.
• 54:51
  I'm going to sign up right now. Devica, this has been so much
• 54:53
  fun. How about you personally?
• 54:54
  When Where can people connect with you online?
• 55:00
  I'm most, I guess, active on LinkedIn.
• 55:03
  That's pretty much it. I do have an X and an Instagram
• 55:06
  account, but yeah, directly to this whole website or LinkedIn,
• 55:11
  you can reach out to me. Thanks, Ryan.
• 55:13
  I appreciate you inviting me to be on the podcast.
• 55:15
  And yeah, for your your fun questions.