The Exchanges

Q Okay. Awesome. Uh, Jay-Z, anything you wanted to add?

A One of our goals, probably our biggest goal for starting our own VC firm was that we wanted to be able to focus on just the kinds of companies and the stage of company building that was the most fun to us, but also was where we thought we could have the biggest impact. And so, you know, for us with our background as, as designers, that is the early days, the first couple of months or the first year or two years of building a new business and at GV, You know, sometimes we did that, but sometimes we were working with, with companies that were already well established. And when we'd come into those companies, they kind of knew what they were doing. They knew what they stood for. They knew how they were different in the market and how they were positioned. And so we could help them, you know, answer these big questions and solve these problems and test their prototypes with customers. But when we started investing in, you know, truly precede, sometimes inception stage, you know, pre-product, pre-revenue, pre-everything companies, There was this piece missing at the beginning of that process. So we'd, we'd run design sprints and they would be helpful, but oftentimes it felt like there was, there was a foundational element of that project that we didn't quite have our hands around. And it was things like, you know, what is the problem you're solving and who's the, who's the ideal cus…

AI assessment note: “One of our goals, probably our biggest goal for starting our own VC firm”

Q talking through this, like what I'm feeling this is there's for founders, there's not like a manual for starting a company. You always have, it feels like this dark art of like, I guess I got to find product market fit in this idea. It feels like this is almost a manual of the Everything you need to do to just get the basics of, is this even worth doing?

A Yeah, and, and that's why we created it, because we were, we still are investing in founders who are, you know, they're, they're incredibly talented, and they're smart, and they have a background that is going to give them an advantage in building some particular product, but you're right, there's, there's no manual, and we were just kind of solving our own problem, and, you know, we, we believe in this so much, and we see the ROI as being so great that this is the first thing we do when we make an investment. You know, we invest in a company And then we run a foundation sprint with them right away. We run more foundation sprints with startups than we do design sprints at this point. Um, and, you know, I don't think we can ever encapsulate every single thing that you need to know or that you need to do to start a company, but this is our, this is our best take at like what you should do in the early days to set yourself up for success and maximize the chances that you're going to reach product market fit.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, and, and that's why we created it”

Q So along those lines, where do you find people are leveraging AI most in helping them through these sprints, through either the foundation sprint or the design sprint? Is it mostly just by coding prototypes?

A That's definitely the first and biggest use of AI in Sprint so far is, is in, you know, making prototypes that look more realistic faster. And, you know, it's kind of like, uh, you know, having an entire prototyping team on standby, right? So that you don't have to just make it yourself and sort of piece things together, but you can have, you know, a ton of people ready to jump in, make something look really realistic. But It's also really critical. We found that while you're outsourcing that prototyping work, you don't outsource the thinking, like you don't kind of skip over the, the part where you think about, well, what is the actual copy on the website? How do I actually describe what the product is, how it's differentiated? Um, and so it's, it's one of the reasons why doing the foundation sprint first and then doing a design sprint can really help you. And, and, you know, because it, it allows you to spend time working on that harder part of what it means to design and, and build a product. And then once you have a clear view of that, then you can use AI tools to go really fast. And, you know, in this example that Jake is showing of Axia and Orbital, people get really clever about which parts of this need to be real, which parts of this can be vibe coded, which parts of this can just be a static Figma mock-up. Um, and it's all about kind of creating A simulation, uh, somet…

AI assessment note: “That's definitely the first and biggest use of AI in Sprint so far”

Q No, man. So the key tips here are finding the apps that are sucking your attention. Could be Twitter, could be LinkedIn, could be your email. And delete them and or log out of them. What else?

A There's a few tactics that Jake and I both use that are related to like TV, um, like watching TV and like a really simple one, which is also like kind of a, kind of a luxury one, but, but I think there are ways to do it that are like pretty universal. It's just like not having a TV in your main, like living space. Like again, not having the default be like I'm, I'm home. The TV is on. Like, what are we watching? And so like, you know, for, for me and, and, and my wife, that's, that's always been like, the TV is just like in a different room. Um, and like, Jake, you guys, do you use a, like a projector? Like where you like, if you want to watch something, you have to like, get it out, set it up and like, make a decision to watch something.

AI assessment note: “It's just like not having a TV in your main, like living space.”

Q you recommend, and I think you shared a couple of them. And then, are there any examples of highlights from your guys's, I don't know, past couple weeks that would be good for people to hear an example? And then, Also, there's this calendar component, which maybe fits into the laser, but I guess that feels like a really important element of this. So if you just talk about that.

A For me, and again, this is where the, the framework is intentionally flexible. Um, different people have different highlights, but for me, I am I'm very project oriented. I'm very like work oriented. And for me, most days, you know, a really good day comes from having made progress on something that is really important to me, you know? So, so my highlights are usually kind of focus work, creative work related, and this has become even more important since we started our own VC firm three years ago. And And before that, I was sort of, um, I guess more or less like a writer, you know, full time, like, you know, writing and, and speaking at events and doing some consulting. And before that, I, I was a partner at, at Google Ventures at GV. And before that I was a product designer. So like, I've been through different modes and contexts in my career, but, you know, if you know any VCs, uh, if you're listening to this and you know any VCs, like they're probably like the busiest, like most frazzled People that, you know, who are like constantly on email, like constantly in zoom calls and meetings and on airplanes all the time. And so the, the natural environment of, of that work is, is the busy bandwagon and it's to have a lot of infinity pools that, that you need to care about. And so it, in that context, in order for us to make progress on projects, in order for us to move the ball …

AI assessment note: “move the ball on like, A launch related to, uh, this program character labs”