The Next Next: Update #8
Pod is shipping, Fogey Founders is next!
Hi everyone,
Big week at TNN!
Pod is alive!
We (team is still just me, lol) published our first pod episode Monday with Rob May, a longtime entrepreneur and investor who has been focused on AI since 2015. You can listen to to episode here, or on your favorite podcast player. While I hope it is valuable as content, it was a good excuse to get tutored by someone far deeper than I on what’s happening with AI for an hour, haha! That’s the dirty secret about hosting a podcast, the episodes are valuable whether anyone listens or not.
Next one is publishing Monday with Steve Schlafman! Steve was my coach when I was going through my own founder transition, so this discussion was a fun one. I am still working through what the cadence will be and expect the editing/transcripts/show notes/etc will all get better with time. I am doing the editing myself with Descript, which I am proud and happy about, as it is cheaper, the turnaround time is much faster, and the quality is ‘good enough’, at least in these early phases. And the editing doesn’t even take that much time!
Good progress with Fogey Founders
On the satirical counterpart to The Next Next, Fogey Founders, things are continuing to move along, as well. I am starting to have discussions with some forward-thinking showrunners and studios to learn. I am starting to reach out to some creators (and have been observing how they do their craft, what I like/don’t like, etc). And I (in conjunction with some LLMs) have been starting to work together to flesh out some skits to test. There’s a lot more to it, for sure, but hoping this coming week I can get at least one small experiment out the door. Once I do that it’s alive (like the pod is now!), and I can start iterating from there. And it’s cool that I can already see so many ways AI tools can help w/ that process. This interview got my gears cranking on this topic, for sure.
Ideas bubbling around in my head
I am still digging the idea of having two product types - content ones and code ones. And have the content ones (pod, newsletter, maybe a mobile TV show, etc) enable us to identify what products to build (and have built in distribution for them) and have the products we build (that we dogfood ourselves) bring in consumers of the content (waitlist-style for product launches like Dan from Every is doing) and help the content get stronger. Rinse, repeat. I think this could also be done profitably and in a capital efficient way, which feels important to me this time around.
While I don’t think coders are going away and I don’t think creators are going away, I think AI tools will fundamentally change the roles (and many others) and there is a big opportunity to come in now with beginner mind and learn how to do both (and other things!) with an AI forward mindset from day zero.
Asks this week
Interested to speak with (and potentially bring on the pod) people who are
building products 0 to 1 using AI to enable (both tech and non-tech founders who are doing so)
incorporating AI tools into their product creation process in meaningful ways with more established products/companies as well (essentially retrofitting vs building in from day zero)
building high production TV for Insta/Tiktok, either working on a specific show, helping bring multiple shows to life, or building a platform and/or tools to enable this kind of content to get produced. Even better if they are using AI to assist with that process.
comedians/creators doing funny character-based skits on Tiktok/Insta, to learn about their creative process and production tips. Even better if they are leaning into AI tools to assist.
people building interesting things (and in interesting ways) at the intersection of content/code, like I am aspiring to do here.
more women guests across all the categories above! Most scheduled guests are men, and I would like to nip that in the bud and be really intentional about a more balanced guest roster from the outset.
I think that’s it for now! Short update this week, but only because my hair is on fire and I’m not blocked in any way. Have a good week, everyone! And as always, if you have any feedback/tips/ideas/guest or topic suggestions/etc or can be helpful with any of the asks above, let me know!
Jason