Getting our first users | startup vlog ep. 2

Startup Series Launch & Initial Performance [00:12]

• The first episode of a new startup series was launched 24 hours prior to this recording.
• The video documentation of the startup building process is intended to be a weekly occurrence.
• The first episode has performed exceptionally well, ranking as the number one best-performing video out of the last 10 uploaded.

Hopefully that means people are interested in this documentation, the series that I'm going to hopefully do a weekly video documenting the whole startup building process.

Yorby: The AI Social Media Marketer Vision [00:41]

• The startup is building a tool called Yorby, envisioned as an AI social media marketer.
• The goal is to be a one-stop shop for companies needing social media marketing help, utilizing AI automation and agents.
• The current understanding of the tool's specific functions is still being refined on a day-to-day basis.

Initial Product Focus: UGC Creator Hiring [01:10]

• The first tool being developed is a system to source and hire UGC talent, content creators, and social media talent for businesses.
• This is not intended as a public marketplace but an internal database of highly vetted creators.
• The system will allow creators to build in-depth profiles linking to their social media and showcasing top-performing videos.
• Businesses can search this database to find and hire creators for their marketing needs.

As a result of this, what they need to do is to be able to make a profile, like a pretty in-depth candidate creator profile that links to their various social media profiles.

Strategic Pivot: Content Inspiration Over Hiring [03:17]

• A 2-hour discussion with the co-founder explored future product development.
• The core question was deciding what to build first, as the end-state goal of an AI social media marketer is broad.
• The initial idea of a creator hiring solution was reconsidered because it leans towards a marketplace or service offering, both difficult to scale.
• The new proposed direction is a hyper-curated tool for content inspiration, helping users create viral content.
• This content inspiration tool would analyze viral social media posts across platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.
• Data from these viral posts would feed into a custom-trained model to help users optimize their own content.

"What if we're able to create like a very hyper curated model or a tool for content inspiration to help people make as much viral content on social media?"

Re-evaluation and Decision: Creator Hiring Platform First [05:03]

• An hour and a half-long call with the co-founder was intense and exhausting but productive.
• The decision was made to move forward with launching the creator hiring platform as the initial step.
• This is believed to be the easiest path to gain momentum, acquire new customers, and generate revenue.
• The vision remains to become the "Post Talk for marketers," a one-stop shop for all marketing tools.
• The plan is to build a multi-product suite, starting with creator hiring, then expanding to other features.

"We are just going to move forward with launching the creator hiring platform. That's going to be our initial step forward because we just think it'll be the easiest way to get some type of momentum momentum some type of new customers to get some revenue and that's going to help out a lot uh because momentum is contagious."

Integrating AI into Workflow & Introducing Rub.app [07:02]

• The current state of AI is seen as powerful but siloed, with tools often stuck in their own applications.
• There's a need for AI to connect with other services like Jira, Slack, or Google Calendar without manual intervention.
• Rub.app is introduced as a "super glue layer" connecting AI apps to over 500 different services.
• It integrates directly into existing workflows (Cursor, VS Code, Warp, Cloud) without requiring users to learn a new app.
• Users connect their Rub account to associated accounts and install it into their AI chat interface for seamless integration.

But that is where the sponsor of today's video, Rub.app, comes into play. Rub is basically the super glue layer that connects your AI apps to over 500 different connections.

Building the Creator Roster: API Challenges & Web Scraping [08:42]

• The immediate priority is building out the creator roster, the initial feature for the hiring platform.
• The plan is to reach out to creators and ask them to join the roster for job opportunities.
• The initial plan involved first-party integrations using TikTok and Instagram APIs.
• Meta's API was approved within 24 hours, but TikTok's had not responded after 5-6 days.
• Due to delays and the need for speed, direct API integration is being temporarily skipped in favor of web scraping.
• This is a short-term trade-off for speed, with API integrations to be added later.

So, yes, while I would much prefer using a firstparty connection directly with Tik Tok and Instagram, I think that's just going to take us way too long.

Weekend Work & Dual Product Strategy [11:22]

• The speaker is working on a weekend trip, dedicating early morning hours to deep work.
• The vision is to build the best AI social media marketer tool, a "Post Talk for marketers."
• A dual-product strategy is being adopted: the creator hiring marketplace and a content inspiration tool.
• A part-time software engineer has been hired to accelerate development.
• The engineer will likely lead the marketplace development, while the speaker will focus on the content inspiration tool.

My one of my favorite startups that I personally use is called Post Talk. This video is not sponsored by them. They are a suite of tools. And sure, there might be a better pure play experimentation tool out there.

Completing the Creator Onboarding Feature [14:26]

• It's Monday morning, October 13th, after a busy weekend of building.
• A feature for onboarding creators into an internal database (creator roster) is finally complete.
• This roster will be used to connect vetted creators with brands seeking marketing talent.
• The 3 days of development focused on performance, UI/UX, and bug fixes, rather than advanced AI features.
• The speaker acknowledges that this feature could have been an Excel spreadsheet but was built in-house as a necessary step for the overarching vision.

"The first 80% of building anything is always super easy. It's always that last 20% of like the fine-tune improvements. That's always the really hard part that takes a long time."

Next Steps: Content Inspiration Tool & Accountability [16:35]

• The next feature to build is the content inspiration tool, described as a "content cheat code tool" utilizing AI.
• This tool will aim to make AI creative, understand brand voice, and leverage data on viral content to help users create optimized social media marketing content.
• The speaker emphasizes the weekly vlog format is for accountability and to ensure consistent shipping of features.

So, I think it's a good spot to end the video right here because and then right when I end this video, I'm going to start filming the next video because this is a weekly vlog that I'm trying to drop every single week documenting my startup proc