Brandon Gell, the first entrepreneur in residence at Every and former CEO of Clyde, dives into the world of AI startups. He shares insights into building successful ventures, from finding valuable niches to lessons learned in insuretech. The duo discusses the emotional challenges of entrepreneurship, especially after selling a company. They also showcase their innovative AI tools, Spiral and Sparkle, emphasizing the rapid progress made in just a few months. Join them for an engaging exploration of entrepreneurship in the AI age!
Read more
AI Summary
Highlights
AI Chapters
Episode notes
auto_awesome
Podcast summary created with Snipd AI
Quick takeaways
The speaker's early fascination with technology and entrepreneurship was sparked by a desire to create impactful software, culminating in a programming foundation.
Clyde, the insurtech startup founded by the speaker, aimed to simplify warranty offerings for small businesses by addressing communication challenges in the industry.
The transition from founder to exited entrepreneur highlighted the emotional complexities of defining personal identity and handling post-sale stress.
Every's strategic framework combines free content and subscription models to build a community, ensuring sustainable revenue and ongoing product development.
Deep dives
Early Technical Aspirations
The speaker reflects on their early interest in technology, sparked by reading a biography of Bill Gates in middle school. Inspired by Gates, the speaker aspired to create a Microsoft competitor called 'Megasoft,' showing an ambitious yet naive understanding of entrepreneurship at a young age. Through this childhood drive, they learned coding by requesting their father to buy them a programming book, which set the foundation for their future endeavors in tech. This phase illustrated their enthusiasm for creating and building, highlighting the beginning of a journey marked by both passion and the realities of the tech landscape.
Founding Clyde and Realizing Market Needs
The journey into entrepreneurship officially began with the establishment of Clyde, an insurtech start-up that aimed to simplify extended warranty offerings for smaller businesses. The speaker recounts an informative conversation with their father, who voiced the need for a software solution to streamline communication about cemetery diagrams, which later evolved into the idea behind Clyde. The speaker's early experiences navigating the complexities of the insurance industry highlighted the difficulties faced by small businesses, which Clyde intended to address by making warranty establishment more accessible. This venture sparked their awareness of the gaps in the insurtech landscape, illuminating a path towards a viable business solution.
Navigating Growth and Financial Challenges
As Clyde grew, the speaker faced the challenge of balancing rapid expansion while maintaining a clear business strategy, which proved more difficult than anticipated. They emphasized that although they secured funding rounds to fuel growth, the focus on scaling created obstacles in understanding market dynamics, particularly due to new and emerging competition. The disconnect between departments in established businesses often resulted in a struggle to integrate Clyde's offerings effectively, which became a recurring theme in their interactions with potential clients. This reality prompted the speaker to realize the importance of aligning sales strategies with technical capabilities and developing an understanding of customer needs restraint.
Selling Clyde and Personal Reflection
The eventual sale of Clyde marked a significant moment in the speaker's career, accompanied by a mix of emotions, including liberation and uncertainty. The transition compelled the speaker to reflect on their personal identity outside of being a founder, leading to a brief period of introspection to recalibrate their sense of self post-acquisition. Stress accumulated during the sale intensified their emotional response, manifesting in health issues as they processed the emotional toll of letting go of a venture that had defined their professional life for years. Ultimately, this journey underscored the profound effect of entrepreneurship on personal wellbeing and the challenges often unaddressed after selling a business.
Joining Every and the Collective Vision
The journey with Every began as the speaker sought to collaborate with like-minded entrepreneurs to foster a creative and innovative environment. They identified the potential for Every to serve as a platform facilitating the growth of solopreneurs by combining product development with community support. The speaker expressed excitement about the collaborative nature of the team, describing it as a 'creative playground' where ideas could flourish. This collaborative spirit became foundational as the team set out to innovate and build tools tailored to address specific pain points experienced by their audience.
Product Development Journey: Spiral and Sparkle
Within Every, the speaker contributed to the ideation and development of two significant products—Spiral and Sparkle. Spiral emerged from the need to facilitate the conversion of podcast transcripts into engaging social media content, addressing a common challenge faced by content creators. The successful development of Spiral demonstrated a strong focus on user needs and practical applications of AI technology, revealing an intuitive pathway to innovation. Likewise, Sparkle was built to streamline desktop organization, showcasing how Every's products were crafted to enhance user productivity through simplicity and intuitive design.
Strategic Foundation: Building the Pyramid
A strategic framework resembling a pyramid was devised to ensure Every’s long-term sustainability and success, clearly defining multiple revenue streams. At the base of the pyramid lies the free content that builds audience engagement, leading to a subscription tier offering bundled resources and exclusive access. This structure allows for the upper tiers, such as consulting and courses, to fund and support ongoing content creation and product development. By nurturing a community around their offerings, Every aims to leverage its unique audience insights to fortify its enterprise while scaling efficiently.
The Future of Every: Innovation and Adaptation
As Every continues to evolve, the focus remains on innovating within the rapidly changing tech landscape while nurturing a strong community. The founders acknowledge the importance of maintaining high quality and relevance across all offerings to ensure user satisfaction. They remain committed to leveraging the insights derived from user interactions with products like Spiral and Sparkle to inform future developments. This ongoing evolution reflects their adaptability to market demands, reinforcing Every’s position as a creative hub for entrepreneurial innovation.
The journey to a calm, profitable business in the AI age
We’re building a mini-AI media and software empire at Every.
Today on AI & I, Brandon Gell joins the show to turn the tables on me and act as podcast host to explore what we’re doing as a company, how we got here, and where we’re going.
Brandon is Every’s first entrepreneur in residence, and he was the perfect person to host, because he’s one of the key reasons for our recent acceleration.
Before joining Every, Brandon was the cofounder and CEO of Clyde, a startup that helped brands launch their own insurance and warranty programs, where he raised $50 million and led a team of 100 before selling it to global insurance tech company Cover Genius in early 2023.
In this episode, he interviews me about how I learned to code in middle school, how I built and sold my first startup coming out of college, and how it all led to Every.
We also talk about Brandon’s story. He joined Every just four months ago—and it feels like we’ve done the work of years since. We’ve launched two new AI products, an incredible amount of great writing, a new course, and more.
We get into:
My candid thoughts on entrepreneurship in the AI age—including why you should ship fast, and how not to be misled by metrics like TAM
How AI startups can find valuable niches—and live demos of our apps Spiral and Sparkle
Brandon’s hard-earned lessons from running a insuretech business for seven years
The confusing realities of being an exited founder, and how we navigated through those times
What brought Brandon to Every—including the email he sent me before joining
Every’s master plan and what we hope to build over the next few months and years
This is a must-watch for anyone interested in building a calm, profitable business empire in the age of AI.
If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share!
