The Startup Ideas Podcast - 4 microSaaS ideas you can build to make $100k/month

Episode Date: February 3, 2025

In this episode, Sari Azout, Founder and CEO of Sublime,  explores various startup ideas and business concepts. The discussion centers on the evolving nature of startups in the AI era, emphasizing the importance of focusing on specific, well-defined problems rather than broad solutions. Sari shares multiple business ideas, from parental control services to creative tools, while discussing the philosophy behind building successful products in today's market.Timestamps:00:00 - Introduction and setup00:57 - Startup Idea 1: DrScreenTime06:39 - Startup Idea 2: Business-in-a-box ideas13:34 - What becomes scarce in an AGI world? 14:38 - Founders and Their Approaches16:10 - Akio Morita Simplicity Principle 17:01 - Startup Idea 3: Podshot 22:10 - Discussion on micro-startups 25:53 - Testing Ideas and Positioning29:03 -  Feedback and Intuition33:04 - Startup Idea 4: Meme generator Key Points:• Discussion of several innovative startup ideas including "DrScreenTime" (parental control franchise), PodShot, and meme generator • Exploration of business-in-a-box concepts and the future of trades/crafts• Analysis of micro-startups vs. traditional startup approaches1) The "Franchise for Parental Controls" Idea Parents are desperate for help managing screen time. Current solutions = messy.Opportunity: In-home screen time consultants who:- Set up controls- Create family rules- Recommend apps/toolsRevenue model:• $2K setup fee• Recurring affiliate revenue• Think "Dr. Screen Time" 2) The "Business in a Box" Trend Big insight: What becomes scarce in an AI world?Answer: People doing things with their hands!Opportunity: Modern craft business franchise• Partner with local artists• Supply chain + education• Target: offline-first experiences• Status = disconnecting from screens3) The Trade School Revolution Huge opportunity in modernizing trade education:• Lambda School model for trades• Zero upfront tuition• Revenue share after job placement• Bundle with business tools/marketing• Focus: plumbing, electrical, etc.Why? Trades becoming MORE valuable in AI era4) The Micro-Startup Strategy Modern startup playbook:1. Have a 10-year vision2. Unbundle into micro-products3. Start with easiest/viral pieces4. Build distribution firstKey insight: "Nobody searches for an inspiration engine"5) Product Development Philosophy Two types of founders:• Artists (creative vision driven)• Scientists (iteration driven)Choose your path but stick to it.Sari’s 2024 goal: "Take less feedback, trust intuition more"6) The Meme Generator Opportunity Final killer idea: Long-form to meme converter• Input: articles, presentations, links• Output: culturally relevant memes• Train on curated meme library• Potential $10M+ SaaS businessWhy? No idea goes mainstream without memes Key Takeaway:2024 startup strategy:1. Build close to OR far from AI2. Focus on what becomes scarce3. Start micro, think macro4. Distribution not ProductNotable Quotes:"No idea will become mainstream if it's not captured in a meme." - Sari Azout"Screenshots are the new bookmarks." - GregLCA helps Fortune 500s and fast-growing startups build their future - from Warner Music to Fortnite to Dropbox. We turn 'what if' into reality with AI, apps, and next-gen products https://latecheckout.agency/BoringAds — ads agency that will build you profitable ad campaigns http://boringads.com/BoringMarketing — SEO agency and tools to get your organic customers http://boringmarketing.com/Startup Empire - a membership for builders who want to build cash-flowing businesses https://www.startupempire.coFIND ME ON SOCIALX/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenbergInstagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisenberg/FIND SARI ON SOCIALSublime: https://sublime.appX/Twitter: https://x.com/sariazoutSubstack: https://sublimeinternet.substack.com

Sorry. Good to have you. You're a fountain of startup ideas. And you got some. You told me you have some ideas. Is that right? A lot of ideas. Where do you want to start? Let's see. I think the ideas that I have are combination of things I would pay for. And I know a lot of people would pay for. Things that I think basically reflect everything that I've learned about the

building sublime. So I'm just going to, like, I could do like startup ideas on easy mode for you because I've done a lot of things on hard mode. And then I generally, like my general sense of where startup ideas are today is like you have to be as close or as far as possible from AI. So I think I've got a lot of ideas that are like in the heart of it and a lot of ideas that are overlooked because they're just so far from AI. But we could start with the one thing that I was thinking about last night that I would pay for in a heartbeat. Okay, let's start there. Okay, so the gist of it is franchise for parental controls.

So hear me out. So I've got three kids, ages three, seven, and nine. The two older ones have iPads, have had iPads since COVID. Companies like Apple make it so hard to control, like I think I have set up like banned YouTube shorts or, you know, all these things. so many times and these kids continue to outsmart me. I think of myself as pretty tech savvy, but I can't figure this out. Like these interfaces are like an airplane cockpit of features. They're really hard to figure out. And I think that a couple things. Like one is like screen time is not good or bad. It depends on what's on the screen. But parents can't fucking control what's

on the screen. So I think people are willing to pay for somebody to come into my house, like a physical person that asks me what my preferences are and resets basically are family screen dynamic. Ideally the kids are there. It's like, hey, here are the rules. And you cannot use YouTube shorts or this or that. And it depends. Like some families will be different. But I think the business is you essentially

like have one person create a ton of educational content and then license a bunch of people to do this stuff. And I don't know, I think parents have like very little, like, they're very price elastic when it comes to this stuff, because you're basically paying for peace of mind. And would you pay, is it like a one-time fee or is there a subscription element to it? I think that, I think there would be like a one-time set-up fee, but I think where the business could be interesting and recurring is there's, like, as kids get older, there's things like, you know, they need like a green light as like a credit card or like circle to track where they are, things like that. So you could become an affiliate. These licensed people can become an affiliate and recommend stuff.

Or like, hey, you know, like maybe your kid is like really into this thing. So like they should have this app. So I think there could be some recurrence and definitely like affiliate revenue. But I think that the idea of like a reset, like a family reset, people would pay like $2,000. I think if I was starting this idea, I would call it doctorscreen.com. and I would actually start by building like the media business. So basically start by creating content just all around screen time. And, you know, your first goal is like,

how do I get to 100,000 followers of parents who are looking for to consume content to basically curb screen time or just make, you know, time well spent with respect to screen time. Totally. Like, I don't know if you are familiar with Dr. Becky, a good insight.

She's built a huge business. Started off as a media business. Yeah, can you, like, I don't think everyone knows about her. So Dr. Becky is just this, like, incredibly influential parent that built a media business and now has a,

an app that people pay, I don't know, like a lot of money for. And it has, like, I think, tens of thousands of paying customers. But like you said, it started off as a, media business, but I think there's not, like she goes broad. It's recurring, isn't it?

It's recurring. It's a subscription business. It's recurring. But I actually think, like, that's the typical, like, software business where it's like a media company. And then, you know, you build like a content app of sorts. Content to commerce. Content to commerce, like playbook.

But I genuinely think, so I'm a big fan of, I don't know if you know, the Zumba fitness business. So the founder of Zumba. Actually, I don't know anything about the business. I just know Zumba. So the founder is one of my closest friends. like built a business in Miami. The idea was born in a Shabbat dinner that I was part of.

But I love the business because essentially what they did is like, it's a very capital-light business. They have, I think, 15,000 fitness instructors these days that pay a monthly feat to get music and, like, choreographies, and to be a part of the brand. And so I think that, like, there's like a physical presence to that that I think is like really cool relative to just like, I just can't like see more back.

from good inside content anymore. Like, I'm not going to pay for the app. I already have enough. So I just feel like there's an opportunity to, like, to have like a business in a box type of thing where you, like, arm these, like, screen time polices or whatever, doctors. And just, like, I don't know, like, it's a great, like,

side hustle income. Totally. Quick break in the pod to tell you a little bit about startup empire. So startup empire is my private membership where, It's a bunch of people like me, like you, who want to build out their startup ideas. Now, they're looking for content to help accelerate that. They're looking for potential co-founders.

They're looking for tutorials from people like me to come in and tell them, how do you do email marketing? How do you build an audience? How do you go viral on Twitter? All these different things. That's exactly what startup empire is. And it's for people who want to start a startup but are looking for ideas. or it's for people who have a startup,

but just they're not seeing the traction that they need. So you can check out the link to startup empire.com in the description. So I actually think there's a huge trend around business and a box companies. So we're sitting here in Miami. Everything that everyone sees here, like with the mics and the cameras and our whole setup, that was actually, there's a company that sent us all this stuff. So you can rent all your podcasting stuff in a box.

They send you a box. You pick it up at FedEx. But what was missing, in my opinion, is, do we want to name drop the name of the company? Lens Rentals is the company. It's like a podcast business in a box. Yeah. But if I was running Lens Rentals, I would have upsold for sending like a podcast doctor

to come and actually set up everything make sure all the levels are correct, make sure the shot is, the frame is there. Like that's what was missing. And if I was Lens Rentals, I wouldn't be called Lens Rentals. I would be called Podcasts in a Box.com, which, by the way, the domain is available.

Amazing. Yeah. In fact, we should probably just buy that domain. I mean, I think they're like, It's so genius to abstract away the complexity of starting anything. Like, bundle a bunch of things together, narrow the choices, and, like, just present them to you. I have another actually business-in-a-box idea that I'm not the right person to do this.

But the question that I've been asking myself is what becomes scarce in an AI world? And I think what becomes scarce is like people doing stuff with their hands. Like this, we have a generation of people that grew up scrolling. And the tactile joy of, like, making something physical, I think is going to come back. And there's a business in New York that I went to about a year ago. It's called Happy Medium. And essentially, it's this, like, art cafe where basically, like, it's a super cool brand. They partner with brands like Glossier and, like, do brand activations.

But essentially, like, they have, like, pottery, you know, like, a, like, figure drawing, like painting, all sorts of like crafty things. Their tagline is amazing. I think it's something like, be brave enough to be terrible. So it like tries to appeal to not like, to the amateurs, really. But the problem is it's not scalable. It's like it's a business that has real estate and they've had one location. I think they're venture backed.

But I think that this, like you could do this like a business in a box where you essentially partner with local artists, Etsy sellers, whatever, arm them with the supplies, the educational stuff. Like, even, like, I don't know, you could probably, like, do it at, like, restaurants during off hours or, like, homes or whatever. But, like, I think you could build a modern, cool consumer brand around, like, people doing stuff with their hands. If you look at the space, there's, like, Michael's and, like, even just, like, color me mine is, I think, the, like, brick and mortar. Like, they're all dated and, like, boring. And I just think that the status symbol in an AIA is like, you know, it's just going to be like,

I disconnected from the information flow and I like did something with my hands. A hundred percent. I also think that there's probably, there's probably a business that you can create like a status business. Whereas like I've been off my phone for seven days and I get this badge and I can like, you know, there's something there also. Like offline is the new luxury and what do you do with that? Exactly. Yeah.

But yeah, I just really feel like, and even like, and like thinking about doing stuff with your hands, like, if you think about the Industrial Revolution, what that did is like it automated a lot of physical labor. What AI is doing is it's automating a lot of white collar jobs. And so I think a lot of like trade jobs where there used to be a lot of stigma around like you don't want to do trade jobs. It's not perceived as like a status job. It's actually going to be the opposite. Like plumbers, electricians, like these people are making a lot more money and their jobs are a lot more safe. then, you know, your average, like, junior copywriter working in an agency in New York City.

Totally. So I just, I don't know, I feel like we're just on the cusp of this, like, you know, like the status, like what is, like, has status is changing. And, like, doing things with your hands, like, doing things away from your computer, that has status. And so, like, I think the craft thing is, like, a leisure thing. But I really do think, and I see that, like, certainly in Miami, people like it's so hard to find like tradesmen it's so expensive construction costs are through the roof

and I always think about whether you could apply the business model of Lambda school if you like remember of course it's like zero tuition you know like train these train these people but then you make a cut of like their revenue once you find them a job like what have you built like a modern brand around like tradesmen but like I don't know just like elevate the status of it because there's like real money in these jobs and there's a huge huge shortage. Most of the people in these trades jobs are actually retiring in a couple of years. It's a huge problem, actually. So basically is the idea land to school for trades people? I think so. I think there's like an opportunity to be like, choose a vertical, whether it's like painting,

landscaping, plumbing, electricians, like, I don't know, like woodworking, whatever, train these people, find them jobs and then get a cut of like their income. But I think like the, you have to build a compelling brand that elevates the status of these things. I think if I was going to do that idea, which by the way is a big idea in a good way. I think that not only would I want to train these tradespeople, but I'd want to arm them with here's how to get customers. So basically what I would do would be like, okay, you're now trained to be a, you know, call it an electrician. And I'm going to do all the Facebook ads for you. I'm going to create the website for you.

And then you take a cut for that. And then you take a cut for the training. That's where I think a lot of the, yeah, I mean, these businesses operate like fax machines, like 1988-type type stuff. So I think there's a lot of vertical SaaS. But like you said, it's a huge idea. If I was just getting started,

I would literally find somebody to license these people, find, like, companies that are actually hiring instead of, like, them doing this, like, freelance to start. I think it's a huge idea. And I also think it's like one that, like tech people don't touch this stuff. But I think a lot of the ideas that I have that are more like in the heart of tech, like they're just going to be less valuable when an AI can do that. Yeah.

I mean, I honestly think that's the biggest question I'm wrestling with is just in an, if AGI happens, would you have to assume it will? What becomes a commodity and what becomes scarce? Yeah, somebody posted on Twitter lesson, like what happens, like, what, you know, how do people choose one software or the other in a world where, like, AI can do absolutely everything? And I don't know, my take on it is, my answer was like founder worldview. I genuinely think that the motivation and the vision and the intention behind something is something

you can't fake. It's a little bit woo-woo. It's a little bit wishy-washy, but I think that's how people make decisions. It matters. Like, why are you building this? Like, I don't think people, like, humans are not, like, rational. Like, we were talking Econ 11, you know? Like, people make decisions based on emotions.

And I don't know. I think it's, like, far less utilitarian than people's. What other ideas you got? Okay, so here's something I've learned building Sublime is, I think there's two types of founders, broadly speaking. I think there's founders that operate less like business executives and more like artists. They have a creative vision and they're manifesting it and they're not really solving a problem. They're just manifesting a creative vision.

And the kind of like counterpoint to that is like founders that are iterating and validating and like, you know, here's a hypothesis and I'm going to tweak it and like iteratively get to product market fit. and I definitely think I'm the former. Like sublime is the former. It's, you know, in some ways, like I had this idea fully formed in my head about, like, building a sublime internet, and I had to kind of work backwards to reverse engineer that idea because the reality is that most people don't care about their mission.

They care about what can you do for them today. And so I've sort of been in that process of, like, how do you take that big vision and, like, piecemeal it into specific value problems? But I say that because I think that, that, you know, like, Sublime for me is like the missionary thing. It's like the multi-decade project. It's going to like take me decades,

but it's like the moat is so profound. But I think there's a huge opportunity to do the opposite of that, which is do one thing, do it well, and I have two ideas, one of which I'm building, the other of which I would build if somebody in this podcast wants to help.

But essentially, or actually maybe, let me frame it with an anecdote that I think is fantastic. So Akio Morita was the designer for the Sony Walkman. And he had an opportunity when he was designing the Walkman to add a record button on the Walkman for 50 cents. All it would do is add 50 cents to the cost of making the thing. But he decided against it. He said adding a record button would basically like generate ambiguity about what this is for.

This is a device to just play music. It does nothing else. And I just think that that's such a profound lesson for founders that want to, I don't know, I'm going to build you an AI co-founder. Like, no, like build an AI that will do one specific thing. So I have two ideas that are inspired by that, that are just very simple, do one thing and do it right. The first, I have a prototype of this. But essentially, it's capture insights from podcasts with a screenshot.

So let me tell you more. So a lot of ideas are stuck in audio, formats that are just hard to catch. Tell me about it. Preaching to the right audience here. So how do people get around this today? A couple of things they do. So one is like they download other apps

with like convoluted UIs where you can like highlight from podcasts, but the vast majority of people are still doing Spotify, Apple Podcasts. So that's just like a tiny fraction of an audience. Like I think that's a bad idea. Like to build an entire podcast player. Like, no.

Make sure that you operate within the big players. The other thing people do is like after, you know, if I'm listening to a podcast on the car on the way here, if I liked some insight from an episode that you did, I'll go home. I'll use one of these like apps to generate the transcript. I'll highlight it, copy paste it into my notes, whatever. Too much work.

Okay? So here's what we realized. A lot of people take screenshots of Spotify for like to just look at the time. They never go back to look at them. It's a lot of work to say like, okay, minute 836. So what we did with AI is like you take a screenshot from Spotify or Apple Podcasts. We use OCR optical character recognition to figure out what's the name of the podcast, what's the episode, what's the timestamp. Then we go and look at like, do like speech to text to figure out like, all right, what was the text around that time?

And the cool thing is, like, you actually don't have to set a beginning and end. We understand the context. Based on this conversation and the screenshot, like more or less they were talking about, like, Accio Morita story of simplicity. So here's the transcript and here's the audio clip. And you basically have this library of, like, insights from podcasts so that the time you spend, like, listening to podcasts is not wasted. So I absolutely love it. So I believe that screenshots are the new bookmarks. So, and a lot of people, I notice screenshot this podcast.

And they'll send me a DM and they'll be like, hey, at minute, two, minute, you know, 35, you said this. It also kind of reminds me of how I use Twitter bookmarks. So I'm a bookmark person, but I never go back to the bookmarks. And it's too bad because the reality is the interface on X is not conducive to remembering and capturing insights. So if I'm you, by the way, this is exactly what I'm building. Because based on what I know about Sublime and like the mission around capturing insights and becoming more creative and stuff like that. It feels like if I were you, I'd create a bunch of micro apps that do one thing really well. And then become top of funnel.

Exactly. So that's exactly. And that's why I led with the story of simplicity because we could have built this within sublime. But it's like you said, like people's mental model when they use Twitter is like scrolling for the ephemeral. Yeah. It's not archival. So I just think people have a mental model of how they engage with products. And you have to do just one thing and do it well.

Yeah. So what do you think of the name, podcast magic? Podcast magic? You have a better name. I mean, I'm a name guy, you know? I don't have one off the top of my head. That's better than Doctor Podcast. You and Doctors.

It's a doctor type of morning. But why I don't love it is I feel like the trend around the sparkles for AI and like the magic of AI. will lose, it's starting to lose like it's, it's magic, so to speak. So I just wonder, I wonder, like, you know, what makes Google such a good search engine is it's a verb. So I wonder, like, what's the verb for,

for doing, you know, a screenshot that's of a podcast, right? So, like, is it a podshot? Like, maybe it's podshot. And it's like, oh, I just did a podcast. And sent it to you. That's not bad actually. Podshot. There we go.

So, yeah, so I guess the thing for that idea, I think it's starting small. Like people are going to say like screenshots are the future. So do screenshots of this or that. But it has to be strictly limited to podcasts, I think, for it to work. Yes. Because that way, I think the advantage of doing something so specific is distribution. Like, there is no better place to distribute this in podcasts. Whereas if you're doing like, you know, screenshots of a million things,

it's less relevant to a podcast. So you're talking about an insight that I want to double down on, which is, or double click into, which is kind of the future of building startups is not by building a startup, it's by building a micro startup. So the old way of building a startup was you had this big idea and you went and go built this big idea and you iterated your way to product market fit.

But I actually think now, especially with AI and how easy it is to build, it makes sense to be like, okay, I want, you know, here's my big vision. Here's what my startup could look like in five, ten years. This is like draw it out. But then being like, okay, how do I unbundle my startup? So you go through an unbundling process and then you write out, what are the five to ten micro startups? And then from that, you prioritize around which ones do I think have the highest likelihoods of going viral or spreading?

Yes. And then from that, you prioritize what are the easiest, you know, this, yeah, what's the effort estimate for this startup versus that startup? And then you do something with low effort estimate. And then your job, like, as a startup builder, is you're building multiple of these, basically. Yes. Well, what I love about what you're saying is that I think the key is like to have that 10-year vision in your head and work backwards. Because the realities, I think a lot of founders fall in love with, I'm going to build an empire, a one-stop shop, you know, a collection of products. But users don't think that way.

They think about like a job to be done. but for Sublime specifically. So I remember, if you remember the Rome craze from the no-taking days, I remember the founder saying something like, we're not competing with Evernote, we're competing with Google. And as somebody who's been building and living and breathing this space, it's impossible, like from a product architecture perspective to become that if you don't really have that foundation from DeZero.

Like Sublime from day zero, we were so conscious about every decision we made because we felt that even though we don't pitch it as this, like over time, because of the multiplayer foundation, this becomes like the world's best curated inspiration engine for ideas. But you had to make that into the foundation, even though if I start like pitching sublime as like an inspiration engine and a personal law,

it just becomes too overwhelming. Also, people don't look for an inspiration engine. People don't look for an inspiration engine. It's like not a mistake a lot of founders make is they write out their 10-year vision. And it's like, I'm creating the inspiration engine and then go look at Google Trends data.

Like, no one is searching. Nobody's searching that. Right. So, right. But I think it's still useful to know how this, like, ecosystem will work. But I think to your point, I think the most effective thing a founder can do. I mean, there is the meme of like first founders think about products, second founders think about distribution. I think that's spot on.

I think you need to think about, like, what is the headline that will make this thing go viral? And I think the headline for a podshot, app is like a lot clearer and better than like a, you know, a headline for like a mission driven thing that will maybe appeal to VCs, but not really to a consumer that's like scrolling TikTok or whatever. So I think that founders need to like, like think of the headline first. What is that? What is like, and then work backwards.

You know, if you have this big vision, okay, how do you piecemeal that into a headline for a micro product that could go viral and then build that? 100%. And the beauty is you can test that. You can test those headlines. Like create some ads. See what resonates with people. Before you go and raise millions of dollars or spend your own money in time to go to go build a big software product. Yeah. I mean, the whole like testing thing with ads, like I don't really know how to do that. Yeah.

I feel like everything I want to do needs to have a high bar for polish. I don't really know how that could be effective at telling you if it's going to work or not if it's not done to the degree of polish that ultimately the thing would have. So I struggle with the like test with an ad. So how to test with ads, I would say, is you still need to build your micro app or startup. But what you can test is the positioning. So, you know, you can do. a, you can do an ad where it's like, you know, find your creativity or you can do an ad that's like

screenshot your, uh, or get insights from podcasts and you can see like what resonates. And then from that you could do conversion rate optimization on your main product. Yeah. That's, you know, the, the lean startup old school book at this point, but like the lean startup by Eric Reese talks about how you don't need to actually build anything. You can put a landing page. You can send traffic to it. And based on that, you know, you can figure out what to build. I don't think that works anymore.

I think that it's like, why would you do that in an AI world where building isn't the hard part? Yeah. You know? I think that worked maybe a long time ago when like idea to like production took like 18 months. Yeah. But if it takes 18 days, it's kind of, it's a different. I also think that works at a, like, the bar for consumers is so high these days. Yeah.

We've been spoiled with incredible software. Like, every time I use Uber, Instacart, like, this is, like, we are just so spoiled that the bar for polish, like, nobody wants a minimum viable product. People want something awesome. People want something that moves them that, like, is emotionally compelling. And I think you can do that in cheap ways. But I think you need a fantastic copy. I think you need, like, somebody that, like, understands. like humans and emotion.

And I just don't think that it's like an optimization thing. I think it's like an emotion thing. It's tough. I think some people, like you talked about, you know, art versus science basically earlier. Some people get to the positioning and the product via taking out ads, putting their money where their mouth is, and iterating their way to success.

And some people are, And that's like science. Yeah. And some people are more like, I need to go and like go in a journey to like go and figure this out. And it's more of this like intuition. Yeah, it's a sole question. So yeah.

Well, so my resolution for this year is like take less feedback. Like I just want like every time I have a dilemma for like a product question, I ask 10 people. I get 10 different answers. It takes me further from myself. I think there's, like you said, you could succeed both ways, but you have to know who you are. Exactly. And I know that I just need to dial up on my intuition and just like tune out the noise. And I think especially with Sublime where I am building the product I wish I had, the more I hear other people's opinions, the further I get from like what I actually want.

So I think last year I overdosed on feedback. I did over a thousand onboarding calls. And this year I want the opposite. I just, I want to, I want to create things that have more edge, like the language that might, you know, like it might polarize some people, but it's okay. You know, I just think that there's no room today for like the bland. You know, you just have to like stand for something. And you can't do that. Like if you take feedback from everybody, you're reverting to the mean.

How many, how many customer feedback calls do you think you'll take this year? So we actually like promised the first 1,000 paying customers that they'd have a one-on-one-one. an onboarding call. So we got our first thousand customers. So in theory, I owe no more onboarding calls. I still, I mean, I still like to talk to people. You know, I think that, like, being a founder is, like, this very, like, schizophrenic experience where you're going from, like, abstract figma screens to, like, you know, like, so I think talking to people, it reminds you that there are, like, people on the other side of things that are, like, benefiting from what you do. So I think it's important. But I don't know.

I just think that what I want this year is like more time to go deep and like just come up on the other side with stuff that's weirder. I want to hear your other idea that you have. But before we do that, I want to take a quick story of something that happened to me. So I saw that a really well-known founder with a. many multi-billion dollar exit and a mainstream technology product started following me on X. And I reached out and I said, and he started a new startup recently. And I reached out and I'm like, hey, I like what your new startup is doing. By the way, you know, I'm very excited about it.

And he was like, oh, late checkout should use our software. And I was like, okay. And he's like, let me connect you with my team. And then I see on the, you know, okay, so we schedule a time and I see on the calendar invite that the founder is on the call. It's literally like a sales call and he's coming to the call. And I was so shocked because like I couldn't believe that this billionaire was taking sales calls with essentially like random people from the internet. And that inspired me to, for 2025, to take more, more sales calls, more customer journey. So the reason I bring that up is every founder, depending on where they are in their cycle,

they may be like, I need more feedback or less feedback. And it's important to know where you are. Totally. It's interesting. I mean, I feel like one of my kind of like mantras in life is like both are. true. You know, like, I think people, like, don't embrace nuance. Yeah. It's like, you either believe in feedback or you don't. And it's like, no, it's pretty nuanced. Like, I took, I spent all of last year getting feedback. Now I need to, like, go deep and, like, I don't want to stay at the surface

of calls. I need to go deep. I need to actually think about what all of these calls mean, and, like, how do you, I combine those calls with, like, my intuition. So I don't think it's, like, people that, like, my resolutions to take less feedback. Doesn't mean I don't believe in feedback. It just is about where, where am I? You have one last idea for us? I have one last idea. So, again, the theme is like, do one thing and do it well. So the broad idea is take an article, a link, a presentation, a long piece of text, anything, and convert it into a meme.

So I, so I, my flavor of content on the internet is substack. Like that is where I naturally thrive. It's long form written content. I have like 30,000 readers on substack, but again, it's like people that are like super engaged with long form. And it's great, but it's like harder to grow. You know, how many people are going to devote 20 minutes a week to reading what I say? Memes are this like unit of like cultural transmission that in a time crunched world say so much

and so little. And I think that people that are creating like presentations, long form videos, like they would die to have like whatever they're trying to say be conveyed into like the format of a meme. Like I just genuinely think that no idea will become mainstream if it's not like captured in a meme. And so I think the idea is like, it's, you know, it's a GPT rapper of sorts, but you have to train it on a model of like a lot of memes, culturally relevant memes. And the user experience, like the value proposition is like, be funny, you know. like how do you communicate your idea in a way that's like funny and like short form right so

anyone that's creating long form content like like would love to have a meme and I've tried this on Claude I've tried this on Chachapit but it's pretty generic so I think if you train it on like this curated library of like culturally relevant memes and it has a bias for the present which Chachipit and Claude don't have I think there's just like a product UI experience that's just like do one thing, do it well. Paste a link, type text, upload file, whatever. We ingest it, generate embeddings for the thing, understand it, and then like, you know. I hear a lot of ideas, and this might be one of my favorite ideas I've heard in a long time. I'm serious. Let's do it. This is like, the insight is correct. I think there's so much, there's so much insight trapped into long form that could be

put into short form. And how that's being done today is that people are taking long form video and turning into short form clips, but they're not taking long form text and turning into memes. I think that there's a nuance to memes, like certain memes resonate with certain communities. And so there, you know, you don't want to mess up the meme, right? And you want to like, you want to make sure that you're getting the most like you don't want to post a meme when the meme is done like that

format. There's a cultural like relevance you have to stay like in tune with. So that's going to be, that's going to take iteration to get to like prime time. But if you're able to create this if someone ends up building this, this is like a, you know, a $10 million a year plus SaaS business.

Yeah. Well it's it's interesting if you think about an interesting comp is Google's notebook L.M. It was a pretty broad product where you could converse with your knowledge in some way, but what actually made it go viral, this tool, was the ability to convert anything. It could be like text or presentation, like any sort of document into a podcast. And so I just think that this idea of like convert, like take X, like X to me, you know? And like the key is like you can adjust all this stuff with like, you know, like how do you convert and understand the meaning of like the document?

and then train it on the other side. So it's got some curation, but it's really a GPT wrapper. I love it. I love it. Sorry, this has been fun. You've got to come back again. Yeah, anytime. You have to come back on again.

I'm a big, like, ideas person, but, yeah, I think right now I, like, my playbook right now is, like, have this, like, multi-decade project, like, my life's work and then launch microproducts. I think that's right. It's making me rethink some stuff in my own, in my own stuff. So thank you. Yeah, thank you. This is awesome. And where could people learn more about you and Sublime? I'm on Twitter at Sari Azute.

I'm on Substack. I write a weekly newsletter. And then I'm on Sublime. Sublime. Sublime.com slash seri. I love it. I should get on there. Yeah.

Today, we're not leaving this without you having to be on there. All right. Thanks, Craig. Thank you. See you next time. Yeah.