The Next Next: Update #9
Pod cranking, FF moving along, next step…. first agent!
Hi everyone,
I am here with the latest from The Next Next!
I published two pod episodes this week:
One was with Steve Schlafman, who I have known a long time, and is helping founders and other high performers navigate transitions (like the one I went through recently!). That episode can be found here (Apple) and here (Spotify). Steve does really interesting work, in terms of helping type A’s step back and take stock of their criteria for what’s next professionally (and how it fits into their overall life portfolio) before blindly jumping back in assuming the same criteria as last time.
And one was with Kayla Comalli, a really interesting founder I met through prior TNN guest Rob May, who is building Lovelace Studio. Their platform, Nyric, is a next-gen survivalcraft platform that uses generative AI to create immersive, interlinked worlds based on player prompts. It was fascinating to learn about how Kayla started as a gamer, then learned to code, then combined the two with Lovelace Studio, and about her thoughts (and their vision) on how AI will transform gaming and digital communities. That episode can be found here (Apple) and here (Spotify).
I also recorded another one with Sahil Lavingia from Gumroad/Antiwork today that I can’t wait to share, and am recording with Chris Savage from Wistia tomorrow, which will also be a banger. I am finding that the editing is far quicker than I was fearing, meaning I am going to be going on a content tear! Stay tuned :)
I made progress on the tech stack this week:
I also made progress on the tech stack this week. I spoke with Dan Shipper (who also agreed to come on the pod!), who told me instead of building an agent that tries to be a holistic chief of staff, it would be better to start small and pick off micro tasks for individual agents and automate specific repeatable pieces of my process as I go to get more efficient over time.
I found this advice really freeing, as I went from being paralyzed about where to start to immediately scoping out what I wan my first agent to do: help me research upcoming pod guests to make it more efficient/effective to prep for each discussion. I even took a stab at building this with Claude, and got close but couldn’t quite get over the goal line getting it to show up on localhost. It’s all good though, because an old Runkeeper PM colleague of mine offered to pair program with me to get this first agent built, and we are going to record and publish this working session as content! Kills two birds with one stone, haha.
I still don’t know what other agents I will build, how they will tie together in a seamless operation vs making a mess, etc, but it feels like I am getting closer and closer every week to breaking the ice on the back end, and once I do I will iterate on it ongoing as we crank out more content. The flywheel is early, but showing great promise already!
Fogey Founders is also coming along:
I didn’t actually make much headway on it this week, but I did do the following:
I started posting the beginnings of some brutally bad character sketches on a platform I will never share with you, so the ice is broken on my iterating/learning.
I ordered and had delivered a how-to comedy book.
I scheduled upcoming calls with a rad video production firm, a very seasoned media/film guy, and a seasoned media entrepreneur/Netflix show writer (yes, he’s both!).
I am going to learn a lot from all of the above, and I may even bring some of those people I’ll be learning from on the show to do so publicly. Might as well!
Some random thoughts swirling around for me this week.
The lifecycle of newcos will continue to compress - fast up and fast down unless they can constantly reinvent themselves successfully. Moats seem like they will be harder and harder to come by.
Software will increasingly be commoditized, meaning monetization will need to increasingly come from other ways.
As more tasks/roles are automated, it doesn’t just change the quantity and profile of roles, it may actually change organizational structures, means of communication/collaboration, ownership/incentives, etc. Much more in play here than cost and efficiency!
In many industries and established firms, inertia will inhibit changing fast enough, which will create much opportunity for 1) upstarts to unseat the incumbents and 2) third parties that can get pulled in to help incumbents get out of their own way.
Many opps for training/reskilling/etc, in terms of learning how to use these tools, incorporate them, and architect organizations in a way to take full advantage of what’s becoming possible.
Asks for this week:
Listen to some of the pod episodes and tell me what you think!
Suggest guests/topics you’d like me to cover on the show.
Get in touch if you are thinking about and spending time with the topics that I am digging into. I am finding there are a lot of lurkers and tire kickers out there, jump on in, the water is nice :)
Point others heading down a similar path my way if you think it could be mutually beneficial.
I think that’s all for now! I am fired up! Have a good week everyone - LFG.
Jason