Joan Nguyen and Sarah Willersdorf on Building With AI: How Two Non-Technical Builders Are Reshaping What's Possible

20:03And I built the prototype

20:05Joan Nguyen:by myself. By myself. Yeah.

20:11Sarah Willersdorf:Do you think there's any way you could have done this

20:12Joan Nguyen:without AI? Oh, 1000 % no, Sarah. I mean, I didn't even understand what different coding languages were. You could ask me what's on your front end and what's on your back end for your tech stack. I can say this now without feeling embarrassed, but I couldn't tell you what that was. Because I just was not technical.

20:31Sarah Willersdorf:I think too many people wait until they're ready and I don't know what ready means. And so the reality is you need to start playing and trying AI things before you're ready. I mean, I mean, similar to you, I use this in my family life. I use it in my work life. But I just think you have to pick any piece to test and use. And it's interesting. I imagine a lot of people listening to this have used it, but probably as a search engine, I think that's often the first, you know, people are using it a little bit like a replacement to Google, I guess. But it's really that next use case that is a ha-ha moment for most people.

21:15Joan Nguyen:Yeah, I think using AI for orchestration, right, and coordination, I think is really great. And, you know, you'll get there, right? And it does start with just prompting and asking questions, right? What's the weather today? Or make me a plan for my travel. but then in, you know, just be curious and just push it to the limit of what it could do. I mean, again, I've been vibe coding for over a year now and coding a lot. But last night I built like a little like bot in my Slack channel where I could ask questions and about the business. And it was able to pull information and I could probably do the same for my family.

21:57Sarah Willersdorf:That is, that is a, I think that is a great use case. Yeah. Like dumping data or information in a place that you can query is a great use case.

22:06Joan Nguyen:Absolutely. But for everybody who's listening, who's not there yet, it just starts with a simple prompt. And that's, for me, it was find a, I think it's like finding a simple problem and trying to solve it. I think I shared this with you, Sarah, like we, you know, at our school, I think most schools actually, they use this platform called Sign Up Genius, where you can sign up.

22:28Sarah Willersdorf:It's not a genius, spoiler alert. Yeah, it's like very antiquated.

22:34Joan Nguyen:We use it as well. Not a great user experience. And the first thing I built was actually a replacement for Sign Up Genius, right? And it was just more of a fun project. And that's how I got obsessed was I created, you know, ways to get reminders. And I just kept on pushing it. And maybe also part of what people can do when they're prompting, right? Prompting meaning just writing things in and asking questions is, what else can you do for me? What else do you think I should do? Right. And let it guide you too.

23:03Sarah Willersdorf:Well, I think that's it. That is a great piece of advice for anyone getting started. I think with, I use Claude a lot. I think you do as well, along with a mix of other things. And the big unlock there is asking Claude to interview you around something that you want to do. So instead of thinking you need to know what, you know, all the bits to put in, I think asking it to ask you questions is, is the other way that, uh, can be really helpful.

23:30Joan Nguyen:That's such a great idea. Like I love that.

23:33Sarah Willersdorf:Yeah. Um, I think it's good. And so, I mean, there's some of the things that are going right when you were starting out, what, what was the biggest thing you got wrong?

23:43Joan Nguyen:Oh gosh. Um, I think starting off the biggest thing that I got wrong was like overthinking it a little bit, just like, just like everybody else. So I'm just like everybody else who's non-technical is overthinking it, being really scared. I think for Cloud and Codex, which is the version of Cloud Code created by OpenAI, I saw online all of these content creators that are AI content creators opening up these terminals, those little windows where you see lines of code being written in a black background. whatever. And I got intimidated and I was like, oh, this is, I can't get to this next level of coding, right?

24:29Joan Nguyen:But using cloud code and codecs, which are much more powerful. And I think it was just like breaking down that barrier and, you know, realizing that I just need to keep on going. And I think another thing too, that I realized too, was that in work, especially, I felt like I could upskill everybody to AI, right? And I think it's possible, but I think it's also surrounding myself with those who have the AI mindset too. And beyond just giving people tools and saying like, hey, learn this tool now, learn these 10 tools now, you can only upskill your team if you show them what it could do for you aside from what that specific tool can do.

25:18meaning the zone of genius, right?

25:21Joan Nguyen:How can it unlock that zone of genius for you? Like you are a great marketer. Do not spend, you know, 10 hours a week doing A, B, and C that's like mechanical and robotic, you know, make AI do that so that you can think of creative launches and you can think of, you know, creative brand strategies. So it's really like reframing that and I think - A hundred percent. Yeah. At first I was like, this is a tool, use it now. And that was like the wrong approach. Yeah.

25:50Sarah Willersdorf:I think especially with creative people, I mean, I spent my whole career working with creatives. And I think one of the biggest benefits for someone creative or working in the creative industries is freeing up from like administrative or mundane tasks that take a lot of time. So you can actually spend more time being creative, thinking, doing the more higher value added things. I think starting with mundane parts of the daily job is a great way to get people started. And it sounds like you were doing that in your team. You mentioned one other thing. You said the AI mindset. What do you think is the AI mindset?

26:33Joan Nguyen:I think it's unafraid. I think it's curious. I think it's hopeful. I think that a lot of times again, especially for those who are non-technical, um, you're afraid of what seems very technical because you'd feel almost like an imposter syndrome. You feel like you're not qualified, right. To do things that are technical, um, being intensely curious to see how far you can push it and being hopeful, being hopeful that this is going to enhance my life because it's going to free up time. I'm going to have more time to do the things that I love. I'm going to have more time to spend with my family. I'm going to have more time to pick up a hobby like me.

27:18Joan Nguyen:I started playing tennis. Tennis, yeah. Yes, and I'm obsessed because I, a year ago, if you told somebody that I was playing a recreational sport, they would think you're crazy because I was working so much. And I'm not trying to promote exhaustion culture at all, but we were just in this phase of work where I was working so much. Um, and it's allowed me to have this time and what a gift is time is a gift, right? Truly in any, any way. And so, I don't know, I think that's something that I found to be the, the qualities, right. Um, in a person who's more, I guess it's like AI forward, right. Is, is having those three things.

28:02Joan Nguyen:I don't know. What about you, Sarah? I think for you, what's special is that you are working with executives, leaders of amazing companies in what you do every day. And for me, I'm running a team of 12 people. For you, you're working with companies that have teams that are 1 ,000, 10 ,000, 50 ,000 people. And so what are you seeing in this ecosystem right now with AI and how it's being viewed?

28:30Sarah Willersdorf:Yeah, it's interesting because it runs the whole spectrum. There are companies I work with that have really been on the AI path from day one. And they're using it and their teams are using it. And they're also having competitions for team members, five coping competitions, and their executives are using it. And they have licenses for different things. And they're actually using it to transform their businesses. There are other companies I work with who only use Copilot. That's the one thing. And I think, you know, I mean, Copilot has its advantages. I don't want to disrespect anything, but it's, I'd say, a little bit on the basic level, but obviously attached to the Microsoft suite of tools.

29:19Sarah Willersdorf:The companies that have done it well, in my opinion, are those that have taken a top-down and sort of bottom-up approach. So there has to be – if the CEO and the C-suite are not interested, then nothing is going to happen on the one hand. So I think having a CEO and a C-suite who are aware and understanding and really driving a path towards how AI can be used to transform the business, I think that's important. But then there also has to be something bottom up. If this is just pushed from the top, which I've seen, I've seen companies that will bring in a big consulting firm, do a big project and try and push things down through the organization.

30:04Sarah Willersdorf:I think that doesn't work either. there has to be a pull from employees and um and that's a little bit what I was saying before I think some of the use cases that are most attractive for some of the teams are those that help take away the administrative tasks I mean easier reporting um yeah

30:36Sarah Willersdorf:You know, just taking away things that would be sort of mundane or incredibly time consuming. And I think one of the most fun ways, and I think some companies talk about this publicly, is doing these, you know, getting a license to something. And again, could be lovable, replete, curse or whatever. And letting teams have little vibe coding competitions. And whether there's actual cash prizes or whether it's just access to senior leaders. and you and I both know a few of these leaders who have really seen it be a way for teams to get their hands dirty, for teams to teach each other things and really stay up to date.

31:16Sarah Willersdorf:I would say a lot of companies I think are struggling to scale use cases so they often find use cases that work in different teams and then I think one of the trickiest things is determining what you would never use AI for because there's a piece around what you can use AI for and I think you and I you and I talk about this a lot like you there's a especially when it comes close to creative businesses um you know if you're a if you're a big creative luxury or fashion house making taking a stand and saying we're not going to use uh we're only going to use real talent in our commercials for example yeah um but I know you've I know even you know you're you have a smaller team but you've had to make some of those choices around where to and where not to use AI as well.

32:06Joan Nguyen:Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think right now we experiment with creating content with AI and because, and it depends on the company, right? Every company, every business is different. Every person is different, but because we are working with families and children and we just really, our brand is, is the cornerstone of our brand is, is, you know, trust and community. And so there's a part of AI that can help accelerate parts of that, right? Sending out more emails to have more community events or building more brand partnerships, right? But there's a part of AI that can dismantle that too. So if we start doling out just a bunch of AI generated videos that feel hollow and then we start to lose the trust of our community and our brand.

32:57Joan Nguyen:So that's where we have to be really careful about how we use AI. I mean, AI, just like any tool, it has its place and it doesn't have its place in certain things. I wanted to double click on one thing that you mentioned. You said that the executives of these companies, the CEOs, are even using AI. And you're saying CEOs of large companies even are sitting in the driver's seat and saying, I'm using these tools. I am hands-on. I think they have to.

33:26Sarah Willersdorf:I mean, I think if they're not doing that, it's very difficult to drive use of AI through a company if you're not using it or don't understand it yourself. And again, companies are at such different stages of this journey. but I see some actually training their exec team, you know, first to get, whether it's on, you know, whether it's a couple of different methods, it could be getting them actual training around using a tool and whatever. We've mentioned some of the tools today. It could be more like a Claude or, you know, Codex or one of these, or it could be on a Vibe coding tool. And then the other is actually just giving them exposure to AI forward companies having little venture days where you bring in early stage companies and the founders can talk about what they're building and what they're doing um across the value chain of those companies just so they start to get a so well I think one you know you and I talk about this all the time one of the biggest competitors to every company now is not another big company it's someone it's a company like yours it's like a 12 person it's a 12 person company that's that's catching up, you know?

34:38Sarah Willersdorf:So I think opening the mind and understanding what people are building is one of the quickest ways to help executives sort of see where this is going. Yeah.

34:50Joan Nguyen:And I think the undercurrent of what you're saying that I'm seeing, that's really important to point out about the fact that even if you're a CEO of a big company, you're still sitting in the driver's seat learning this new thing. This has never been before seen. No CEO is going to, of any size company is going to say, okay, you know what? I think I need to learn legal now. I think I need to learn finance now. CEOs, executives tend to have their zone of genius. They hire the people who are very good at what they're supposed to do, right? They hire the best lawyers, they hire the best people in HR.

35:26Joan Nguyen:But here, everyone is at the starting line. So you can't find the best people in these fields because we are all at the starting line. We are all at this sort of like stage, right, of like being fertilized into these AI superstars. So for everybody who is saying that they feel like they're too late or they're behind, no one is. We're just getting started.

35:55Sarah Willersdorf:Yeah, we're just getting started. And I think the tool, I mean, what is overwhelming around it is the number of different tools and all the all the other noise. And I think the other thing you and I talk about a lot is you've got to find your room. And I think both you and I had experiences in the past, at least I did when I was trying to, you know, quote unquote, learn AI of being in rooms, largely male dominated, you know, it was, it was a little bit stereotypical, the, you know, young guys in hoodies, but with a lot of acronyms and a lot of heavy coding background, and that just wasn't the right room.

36:32Sarah Willersdorf:I mean, you and I co-founders of this little community kinship, but it's, it's just basically getting like-minded people together so we can talk openly about what's working, what's not working. Um, and that's usually around our professional lives, but also I think, you know, things we're using, uh, day to day and no stupid questions. Um, everyone's at a different level. And I think finding your group of people who you can kind of do this with, I know you even have like, don't you have something mixed with tennis? Like you did, didn't you do something like have a, oh yeah, I have something called Founders Court.

37:10Joan Nguyen:Yeah, yeah. It's a bunch of founders playing tennis and maybe we talk about a little AI, throw it in there. Um, but you know, it's, yeah, it is so fascinating, right? Cause a lot of us who are building, especially women, I feel like we're building an AI, like really in, in solitude, right. And it's, it's not the way that we should be building because the rooms where people are building together, they are rooms that we don't feel like they're not the rooms that, that help us thrive. And, you know, I'll give you an example last week, uh, on Saturday or not Saturday, on Wednesday, I flew out to San Francisco and I did as part of an AI demo summit.

37:54Joan Nguyen:So I was one of maybe eight people on a stage presenting a real AI workflow. I was the only female founder on that stage. And, um, and all the other folks also who were demoing brilliant, amazing humans, much more technical, honestly, much smarter than me, right? I will admit that on a technical front. But after I presented, I had droves of women, the few women in the room, I would say maybe 25, 30 % were women in the room, about 200 people. They came up to me after they, and they said, your demo was the only one that I actually like really understood and they're smart intelligent women and and it's just because things just need to be laid out in a different way when you're non-technical and I think for us when we started the kinship AI fellowship which is our community again of other founders and builders and leaders it was something that was just really like a group text between you emotion, you know, when it's part of it too, of course, like leading the, the, the fellowship, but it was really just like, let's just get a bunch of really smart people together.

39:18Joan Nguyen:Let's talk about it. Let's talk about AI, but let's not just give a keynote about AI to each other. We're just talking about it, being very vulnerable, but what's working, what's not working and just building together and being vulnerable again. I mean, I talked to one of our fellowship members last night on Zoom. And he and I were just riffing about how he has this idea. He's like, dashboards are dead, Joan. I was like, tell me more. And he was just like, yeah, you just get notifications. Why log into a dashboard? And I was like, this is revolutionary. So he actually motivated me last night to go build this little Slack thing where I could message it for data from our dashboard.

39:59Joan Nguyen:I was like, yeah, dashboards are dead. I'm going to build something. And those are the rooms that we all need to be in, right? Those are the communities that we need to start building either in a structured or unstructured way so that we can learn together, be vulnerable together and upskill ourselves together. Yeah.

40:15Sarah Willersdorf:And I should say that, I mean, you mentioned speaking to someone last night, I mean, kinship is, is everyone is not a female only, uh, fellowship. So it's certainly mixed. I do want to spend a second on, I don't want this to become a you know women versus men in AI but I do find it a really striking moment I mean we all we all know the statistics I think when it comes to um founders that I think they receive one percent of venture capital female only founded companies I think when you include having a female not not not a hundred percent female but having a female it jumps to maybe 20 % of funding.

40:55Sarah Willersdorf:So that's obviously a big gap. We also know there's a lot of data to suggest that female founded companies actually return really well from an investment standpoint. I have my investor hat on now, but I think AI is introducing a new variable that could either start to close that gap or widen that gap. And I think, you know, you mentioned you're at this, where you just were, there were maybe 25 % women in the room. And the data does show that women are adopting AI much, I think, 25 % lower rates than men. And I think that's actually an improvement over what it was at the start. And yet a lot of the jobs that are going to be disrupted by AI are held by women.

41:43Sarah Willersdorf:And that's a real tension. Similar to you, I try to take a very optimistic view around this and think that we're really at the start and there's a moment now to close the gap and um sort of you close that gap by by building experience and again I think you know we'll speak about it more as we chat I still believe that other non-ai things are the most important I still think relationships domain expertise, the ability to ask the right question, the ability to communicate and collaborate. I think all of these skills in an AI world are even more important than they were before, but you have to find a community or a room of people to sort of learn and riff with to move forward.

42:35Yeah.

42:36Joan Nguyen:And I think what's important to note too is like, it's not that AI can necessarily just replace the whole job. It can make a job that was once non-AI, it can make the AI version of that job more, I guess, more fascinating, right? I'll give you an example, like marketing, like we still need marketers, right? We still need sales reps. But right now in this AI world, an AI forward marketer is better than a non-AI forward marketer, right? Not because they're building ads with AI models or like AI images, but because they're thinking about how they're streamlining the workflows faster, getting metrics on conversion faster with AI.

43:26Joan Nguyen:So I think that's where it is. And so I think it's just more, if I had to like really simplify it is, I think about the change in this, maybe not the most analogous example, but when Google Suite came on, right? And Microsoft, right? And it's like, okay, now you have to, do you know how to use Word, right? That was a line in your resume. Can you use Word? Can you use Word? Can you use Excel, right? Are those the skills you have? And so I see it as that, right? I see it as that one line in your resume. That's just going to make an enhancer for you, right? Are you AI forward? Because that's going to make you go faster.

44:02Joan Nguyen:Instead of writing things on a piece of paper, you're using Excel. Instead of like doing Dex, like long way, you're using PowerPoint. And so I just see it as an enhancer. And I think that you're doing this because you value your time, right? That's where it has to start. Do you value your time? If you value your time and you want to save time, this is something to lean into um you know we can save more time to do more of the things that we enjoy spend more times with our families have more time for ourselves right this is something that can unlock a little bit of more time that's going to make things just a little bit better

44:45Sarah Willersdorf:yeah so thinking about time and trying to give some real examples of i think how we use AI, talk me through a typical Tuesday, Wednesday, I don't know, talk me through how, you know, what, how you would be using AI on a typical day of the week.

45:02Joan Nguyen:Yeah. I mean, I think in terms of, so this is a mix of probably work and family too, right? A hundred percent has to be. I mean, those are how we live. So as I mentioned earlier, Benny, the AI family assistant, we have group texting. So we do a family huddle every week so every thursday um benny will remind us to do a family huddle to basically go over every single thing throughout the week um who's dropping with the kids or without the kids oh no just me and my husband okay my kids are eight and nine so they don't have phones yet but um so we're just texting back and forth and like okay who's going to take my daughter to horseback riding camp or my son to coding camp or soccer camp, whatever it is.

45:49Joan Nguyen:So we go through the whole week. That helps a lot. Benny also sends us text reminders, calendar invites, the whole shebang. And then, you know, typically for me, I have different automations that I'm using. So for instance, I created an automation on Codex where it sends me, I have an AI agent send me an industry pulse report every single Monday. So it tells me what's going on in the industry. It sends me a competitor report every single Tuesday. It sends me a viral content report every single Wednesday of what's going viral on social. I have a social media agent every single Thursday giving me a social plan for the following week.

46:31Joan Nguyen:And then I can approve the plan. That's all sent to me by Slack. And so I have these agents running and then I have an AI assistant, Howie, that schedules all of my meetings. So I go through my emails. I have fixer drafting responses to all my emails. I send them or I edit the responses and send. I loop in Howie and AI assistant to schedule my meetings. So Howie just scheduled yesterday. There was like a 10 person meeting I felt like. I was like, oh, heck no, I'm not going to. I know for those listening, Joan hates meetings.

47:05Sarah Willersdorf:She doesn't like meetings at all. She avoids meetings.

47:08Joan Nguyen:Anti-meeting. And so, so Howie was in there, you know, scheduling and Howie got it scheduled. I had all these people with their EAs and, you know, really important people. And, you know, a lot of times you get nervous, right? Putting an AI assistant in such an important email. But I was like, I'm not going to spend 45 minutes of my life trying to coordinate this. So, I mean, these are the simple tools I use. And of course I'm vibe coding all the time. You know, this morning I started vibe coding something for my friends and I to plan our next family trip. We go on a trip with four families. I created an expense tracker for a last family trip that we had where we were, and we all put our expenses in and it did all the math for us in terms of who gets, who pays whom and all that stuff.

47:59Joan Nguyen:So, so I'm just always doing it.

48:02Sarah Willersdorf:I think the travel itinerary is a great use case. It's so excellent at that. Yeah. Cause you did one for Japan, right? When you went. I did one for Japan. Yeah. I actually, yes, I did do one for Japan. And you just came back from Italy. I just came back from Italy and I did, I mean, we were there for something specific, but I also, uh I used it then I think it's it's it's really it's so fun using it for for travel itineraries and um advice and information and mixing schedules for kids of different ages and like people with different my whole family we all have very different um interests yeah but I find it excellent I mean I find excellent for that

48:55outside of travel what what else do you use before sarah we mentioned before that um i i use for

49:01Sarah Willersdorf:voice to text whisper so um that's i guess a constant thing that i'm using throughout the day i mean i even use it for my text messages and other things because i find it so much better than any of the others. I also use an AI note-taker. I think you do as well. I use Fireflies, but you use Granola. I'm a Granola girl. I know, I wonder, I think maybe I need to change it some, but I've been using Fireflies. But the points of a note-taker is, you know, I am in a lot of meetings, a lot of them are on Zoom, and just not needing to take physical notes, being fully present in a meeting. And by the way, this could be, I'm using these largely for professional meetings, but this could be a school PTA meeting.

49:45Sarah Willersdorf:It could be, you know, it can really be anything. And at the end of that meeting, getting a perfect summary, a list of to-dos you can send out to others. And so I think each morning I get a daily digest from Fireflies reminding me and checking in that various things, you know, various tasks and follow-ups from past meetings have happened. um and then I mean I'm you know a little bit different workflow from you I'm mainly doing investment research and advisory and I use it all throughout that I mean things that I would need analysts to research I mean building decks I never want to build a PowerPoint deck ever again in my life so I think using literally and actually we've been speaking a lot about vibe coding but vibe coding um a deck whether you're doing that in something like canva whether you're using clawed design just telling it what you need on each different page uploading data if you need it included that makes just a tremendous difference so i think for all those work things i'm using you know research analysis summary um i use it for writing but i am quite I'm very specific that if I write anything, whether it's, I mean, whether it's a report, a LinkedIn post, whatever, I always write first drafts myself.

51:07Sarah Willersdorf:I don't know if everyone still does that, but I feel like that's...

51:10Joan Nguyen:I definitely don't do that.

51:11Sarah Willersdorf:So I really, maybe I'm too old school and I'm showing my age. I always write my draft myself and I really use it much more as an editor. I just can't, I've tried to do the other way and I feel I don't know um but anyway I so you just start with my own you know I start myself but I I use uh AI for all the editing and then I think I mentioned I the few apps I use day-to-day are things I've built on lovable whether they are you know tracking timing and time and expenses other things I mean the other thing someone asked me the other day they're like what's something you would never ever do again and I said I would never you just mentioned expenses I would never manually reconcile expenses.

51:55Sarah Willersdorf:I mean, the power of, and this is a great first use case if people aren't doing it, if you, whether it's for a family trip, for taxes, I don't know, for your work, whatever, literally dumping expenses in a folder and having AI, um, summarize them, resave them, categorize them like in a, in a matter of minutes is, you know, it's such a mundane and boring and not sexy use case at all, but a really, um, a huge time saver, a huge time saver. And I also, I mean, you hate meetings. I hate admin. I hate school emails. I hate looking at kids sports apps. I hate scheduling things. So for all, um, anything admin, I, I really try and try and use it for that.

52:48Joan Nguyen:Yeah, no, that's, that's fascinating. And, you know, I'll double click on one thing, uh, granola. The reason why I use granola is because it has little recipes and it actually has a recipe that I use called, uh, coach me, Matt. Oh, interesting. And it's, it's an executive coach. So basically granola, um, transcribes all of your conversations, whether it's online or in person too. So if I'm in person, it will run and it transcribes everything. And when I click on the button for the recipe, I take a deep breath and I click on it because Matt is brutal. So Matt will give me the most straightforward feedback that I really need to hear.

53:35Joan Nguyen:And before I had an executive coach that was giving me feedback. And I think there's pluses and minuses to both, right? Yeah, but the coach is not in your meetings with you.

53:46Sarah Willersdorf:That's the difference.

53:47Joan Nguyen:Exactly. So Matt was the one that told me I was in too many meetings, Sarah. Oh, wow. Matt has fundamentally changed my life. And so now I'm anti-meeting because Matt says that I shouldn't be in meetings too much. Matt also told me that I'm vibe coding too much. Which is true, which is probably true. I think I'm at like 7 million lines of code now. Oh my God. But I do love it so much. It's a hobby for me. I don't have other hobbies aside from tennis. So it's tennis and vibe coding. I'm glad you have tennis. Yeah, I'm glad too. Then I feel a little bit more sane. I get some sun.

54:20Sarah Willersdorf:Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I think it's, yeah, so it's all those things. But I would hope, I don't know, I worry for someone listening. It sounds like a lot of things. But I think the main, the main takeaway here is to just start with one thing. um and then by the way I mean I've had friends who I've given advice of where to start and I've had a couple of friends very few but who start and they try it and they actually don't want it they don't like it they don't want to do it and I think that's fine as well but I also just think it's important to know what you're saying no to um but most I would say most of my friends who um because I think in a professional sense it's different people have to start doing it and it's there's a different motivation.

55:07Sarah Willersdorf:Um, for those who are thinking about it more in their, in their home life or their personal life, um, I think you have to feel the productivity and feel the change to then really become addicted to it. Yeah.

55:19Joan Nguyen:Time. You want your time, right? It gives you time back. Yeah. Um, and that's, that's just so important. And I think for me too, I get a lot of DMs. I get a lot of messages. I get a lot of texts from friends. Friends of friends are just people who follow me and they are always intrigued by how do you start? You're so, quote unquote, so good at AI. It's really not about being good at AI. I mean, I think it's about being curious, it's about being really intensely curious. And so that's something that has been really interesting to me. And my schedule at a point was getting filled with all these like 15 minute meetings, like talking to you about AI.

56:00Joan Nguyen:And so I was like, oh no. And so Moj and I actually decided to start something called AI Maxing. It's a course, six week course that we're launching at the end of August. And so it's going to be very approachable. It's going to be very digestible. and it's gonna be really exciting for me to be able to teach other people about AI in a hands-on way. And so if anybody's interested, you could go to joinainmaxing.com. Maxing has two X's and use the code goop and you can get 10 % off the course. Would love to see more women joining the course and would love to meet more women who are excited to build.

56:45Sarah Willersdorf:And I love that. And I can certainly attest to the fact, I always joke that Joan is saved in my phone as Joan AI Queen. That's actually how she's saved in my phone. What a compliment. Because I think, well, because you are the person that I will reach out to if I have questions or I'm looking. I think the last one I reached out was trying to work out a new CRM to upload everything too. But I strongly recommend. I think I also love that you're finding a way to do this a little bit at scale because you're clearly in too many meetings all the time.

57:21Joan Nguyen:Yeah. Matt will probably tell me that I'm in too many meetings again. You're meeting with too many people about AI. I do love it though. I mean, I think it's just so fun to unlock something for somebody and to be able to do it at scale is like really funny there, whether it's casually through our fellowship that we have, or we meet with founders once a month and we talk about what's going on in AI and we, you know, have little presentations. That's always really amazing too. And I think it's just like casual conversations about it. I mean, it's always like really great to impart some sort of learning to anybody, especially at this critical time too, where things are changing so rapidly.

58:01Joan Nguyen:And what you were saying earlier about learning so much, and everyone's going to feel like you're not learning fast enough because there's going to a new model out, a new tool. And you just have to set that expectation. You are not nobody, not you, Sarah, not me, not anybody listening. You're not going to know everything about AI. You're not going to keep up with every single tool out there because literally there's a new launch every single hour, I would assume. It's just crazy.

58:28Sarah Willersdorf:I think that's true. I also, well, at least for me, I had to get used to the feeling of being back, like learning and failing and making mistakes. And I do think that can be uncomfortable when many of us have spent our whole careers, you know, so to speak, being good, you know, achieving in the careers to go back to this real failing and trying and experimenting mindset is a little bit different. I do hope a lot of women join you for your course. But what do you think has, well, what do you think holds some women back from just getting started?

59:07Joan Nguyen:I think especially the non-technical women, I think a lot of it feels overwhelming. And I don't think it's them. I don't think it's the women. I think it's external, actually. I think it's a way that this information is being presented. It's being presented in a way that's not approachable. It's being presented in a way that feels like harder than it is, overly technical and it's not so technical. And I think that's such a disservice because you have incredible women who are leaders, brand builders, visionaries, community builders, activists, policymakers. And with AI, if they are, you know, there's another phrase, AI pilled, right?

59:54Joan Nguyen:That's like the... God, I haven't even heard that phrase. Yeah. It's like you're like, just like locked in on AI. And so if, you know, we have this cohort of amazing, incredible women who can be AI pilled, imagine what can be done, right? I mean, 40 % of businesses now are owned by women. I mean, in terms of consumerism, most consumers spend is by women. I mean, women are controlling so much. And so to not have that externally, to not have the tools or the ways that information is delivered, if it's not being delivered in the right way, it's such a disservice. And so I don't think it's women who are not engaging.

1:00:44I think it's also externally, right, that things are just not presented in a way that makes it approachable, which is not great.

1:00:54Sarah Willersdorf:I agree with that. And I think there's I think the information is not approachable. I do think women, well, at least the research suggests women have different concerns than their male counterparts when it comes to AI. but it's true that this is probably, well, this is the largest shift that's going to be happening in our, certainly in business, but probably in our personal lives as well. I think with AI, if I look at every previous shift that I've seen, whether it's digital, mobile, social, it changed the conditions of competition. But this, you know, AI is actually changing the unit capability itself.

1:01:36Sarah Willersdorf:Like one person, one founder, one team can conceive of and execute something that's fundamentally expanded. I think Benny's an example of that. Um, and that makes, you know, cause I feel right now there's a lot of conversations around, is this hype and is it overhyped and different things. But the thing that makes me say that this is, that, that this is not just hype. And I've lived through enough of those hype cycles to be skeptical of my own excitement around these various things is the compounding, the fact that this is happening across every industry simultaneously, not sequentially. I mean, you're not looking at a sector disruption.

1:02:15Sarah Willersdorf:You're looking at a general purpose reordering, I'd say. And I'll be honest, that's what finally made me stop watching and start doing, not because I had it figured out, but because I understood enough to know that sitting on the sidelines isn't a neutral position, but, you know, it's a choice with consequences and that actually we're in a moment where the gap hasn't closed. Um, you know, there's, there's time, there's time to, to learn and be embedded. So I hope, uh, I hope a lot of people listening to this feel that. And, and if they haven't started, they can join you and Moja get started.

1:02:55Joan Nguyen:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think one other thing that I want to add as an addendum, because you mentioned briefly women having a different set of concerns related to AI. And I think a lot of those concerns are valid. But I also think it's very important for us then, right, as women to understand AI, right? I have concerns about AI in children, right? I have concerns about AI and, you know, creative builders. I have concerns about AI and privacy. I have concerns about AI and the environment, right? The thing that we know for sure is AI is here and AI is growing at high velocity. So unfortunately, it's not something that we can just basically make disappear.

1:03:41Joan Nguyen:It's here, but we can learn about it. We can understand it so that we can be the voices to make sure that AI is safe for our children, You know, that AI is safe for our environment, that AI is safer for, you know, creative builders, right? And thinkers. And so I think that there's something about that that's also really important too, because if you have a bunch of overly capitalistic men leading the forefront on AI, you know, I would assume they're not going to care about the environment. They're not going to care about our children. They're not going to care about the creatives in the world.

1:04:20Joan Nguyen:Right. So this is our opportunity to also be the voices in the room to to speak upon those things in a very fluent, adept way.

1:04:30Sarah Willersdorf:Yeah, I think I've come to a similar place as well, and that the people who are going to shape how this technology develops, what guardrails get built, how it gets used, they're not waiting for us to get comfortable. And so the choice isn't really between engaging or not engaging. It's about being part of the conversation. And to be a part of a conversation, any conversation, you have to get smart on that topic. and whether that means you do a little bit and you don't want to do any more, that's fine. Or you actually really, I think as you and I have kind of get a little bit addicted to it and really find it having real value add and usefulness in our day-to-day lives, you don't want to sit outside with no voice and the leverage.

1:05:16Sarah Willersdorf:I don't think there's ever an example in history where that's worked. Totally.

1:05:21Joan Nguyen:And what an exciting time to build, what an exciting time to save time, what an exciting time for anybody who's non-technical to upskill for anybody who's too busy to free up some of their time. It's just really an incredible moment for us to, to embrace. But still, of course, like embrace with caution, but it's, it's truly exciting.

1:05:45Sarah Willersdorf:so if you you know i'm sure some listening are at the start of their careers and so if you if you were starting out your career now you just graduated and you were at the start of your career what would you do differently or how would you think about that i would start a company

1:06:03Joan Nguyen:i mean i did do that after college but i mean i was i would start a company because you could probably go fast you could fail faster that's the thing you could fail faster you could fail cheaper, right? So, so fail fast, fail cheap, fail again, you know, and until you build something that's really exciting, right? Because before to build something like the, the signup form that I made with AI, that would have cost me a lot. I would have had to hire engineers. I would have had to raise capital. I mean, this is a time where women can build, anybody can build, not just women, but anybody can build and retain ownership over what you're building because the cost of building and the cost of failing is so darn cheap.

1:06:49Sarah Willersdorf:I think a little bit the same. I mean, I, I think using this, whether you're starting a company or having a couple of years at a company where it's very AI forward or the like is useful as well. I also think some of the skills that I I think maybe when we were growing up or even when we were going through university, we're probably soft skills are now more important than ever. So, you know, relationships and I hate the word networking, but relationships and networking, I think, taste or, I mean, you can't really, I guess, learn taste, but making sure from a creative standpoint that that muscle is developed.

1:07:35Sarah Willersdorf:and I still think experience I don't think it's going to take away from experience and having having good judgment and having deep domain experience I actually still believe that that having real experience in specific areas is going to be um is going to be value valuable because AI can do some things but there's actually going to be a judgment expertise piece that will

1:07:58Joan Nguyen:still be really important yeah I mean founder market fit founder product fit right those are all still very important things um for sure you know you can have you can build fast and build cheap but if you're the wrong person building it it's still going to be expensive because you're the wrong person a hundred percent and i keep getting asked because i i do quite a lot of

1:08:20Sarah Willersdorf:investing um is there something different now you're looking for when you invest and i actually think that it's it's the fundamentals are kind of the same so i mean to your point it's always for me founder first. I'm always, I mean, I always say, I think I'm investing as much in a founder than I am, you know, the business. And then I, I think it's, I think the one thing that has changed is whether there's a competitive, how big is the competitive moat around a business? Because the one thing AI is changing as we've been speaking about is the ability for new companies pop up and do the same thing.

1:08:58So I think the, you know, investing in businesses that actually solve

1:09:02Sarah Willersdorf:real consumer market problems, which is the same thing that I think as we've always done and really still focusing on the founder means it hasn't changed as much as you would have thought.

1:09:17Joan Nguyen:Totally.

1:09:18Sarah Willersdorf:And actually there's a bit of a risk. There's so many, I think now most, I think every company that's raising money says it's about AI. And I think that's a That's tricky as well.

1:09:27Joan Nguyen:That's tricky because consumer products are still very important, right? You can't find an AI bottle of soap. So it's just not going to happen. I can't eat AI. And so those are still very, very important for sure. All right. So this was a really fruitful conversation about AI and just wanted to tell everybody that and remind everybody that, again, we have two non-technical people who have been in the throes of AI and it's just not too late to start. We're actually all at the starting line. So I want to encourage everybody, if you've listened this far in the podcast, you can do it. Start with one tool, do one thing, and just be intensely curious.

1:10:15Sarah Willersdorf:I would iterate that. I mean, I think This is a really exciting time in history to be starting out, putting all the trepidations and fears to one side. The tools are extraordinary. There are real problems out there that need to be solved. And the people who are going to shape what comes next are the ones who are willing to start now. And you need to start before you feel ready and before somebody gives you permission. My advice is always to find one mundane thing you hate doing and try and use AI to automate that. and you can build from there. But it's been great to speak today, Joan.

1:10:51Joan Nguyen:Yeah, it's super fun. Always love chatting with you about all things AI.

1:10:55Sarah Willersdorf:Yeah.

1:11:00Joan Nguyen:Thanks for tuning in. This has been a presentation of Cadence 13 Studios. I hope you'll listen, follow, rate, and review all of our episodes, which are available for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you.