独立创业与 Chat PRD 的起源

我搭建了由九个 OpenClaw 组成的星座。我有一个营销的，一个行政助理，一个销售智能体，一个支持智能体。所以我围绕自己建了这个团队，这样在推进事情时我就不是单点故障。完全自举，没有投资。我是唯一的员工，唯一的老板，我只和我想合作的人合作。

I've built this constellation of nine open claws. I have a marketing one, and I have an EA, and I have a sales agent, and I have a support agent. So, I built this sort of like team around me so that I'm not the single point of failure on moving stuff forward. It's fully bootstrapped, no investment. I'm the only employee, I'm the only owner, and I only work with who I want to work with.

那么，不选择独立创始人的理由是什么？

So, what's the reason to not be a solo founder?

如果你确实没有完整的技能组合来完成手头的所有工作。我认为做独立创始人其实非常难。如果进展不顺，责任在我。如果进展顺利，功劳也在我。

If you honestly just don't have the complete skill set to do all the jobs at hand. I think it is actually very hard to be a solo founder. If it goes poorly, it's on me. If it goes well, it's on me.

那么，支持独立创始的理由是什么？

So, what's the case for solo founding?

真正拥有自己的公司能让你塑造真正想要的生活。我可以直接对不想合作的客户说不。真的，我可以只发布让我感到快乐的东西。

To truly own your own company allows you to shape a life really want. I can just say no to customers I don't want to work with. Literally, I could just ship stuff that sparks joy for me.

这不是独裁，而是真正选择你想要的。我称之为作者身份。你仍然是唯一全职做这件事的人，这相当了不起。有很多人在使用 Chat PRD。嗯，所以也许你可以讲讲最初的起源路径是什么。

It's not about the dictatorship, it's about choosing really what you want. I call it authorship. You still are the only full-time person on this, which is pretty remarkable. You have tons of people who are using Chat PRD. Um, so maybe you could talk through kind of what that what that original origin path was.

是的，这就像那种经典的产品市场契合故事：你做了个东西，然后直到做完之后才意识到人们真的非常想要它。其实我是在两份工作之前就开始做了。人们以为我是在 LaunchDarkly 期间开始的。但实际上我是在 Color Health 担任 CPTO 时开始的，当时我管理着一个庞大的产品和工程组织，我们在疫情期间做抗疫工作。那非常紧张，业务规模极大，非常非常复杂。尽管我有花哨的头衔，我也是团队中的一名 PM。事情就是这样。所以，对于我们许多更技术性的项目，当我们没有足够人手配备 PM 时，我就会举手说：“是的，我可以做这个 PM。这很简单。”所以，Chat PRD 的起源故事是，你知道，我们都经历了那个 ChatGPT 时刻，也许是当时的 GPT-3.5，我用它来做一点产品工作，了解这是什么。有一天，我和一个客户开会，他们有一个非常复杂的数据审计问题需要我们解决。所以我们需要为我们的平台构建一个完整的数据审计和处理产品。项目上那位可爱的 PM 看着我说，我既没有能力也没有技能来做这个特定的 PM，这个特定的产品。我说：“没关系，我来做。我喜欢。我知道我在做什么。我喜欢数据产品。”那次会议是 9 点，到中午我就把 Google Doc 链接发给了她，这份文档非常扎实，介于 PRD 和技术规格之间。她说：“Claire，你是怎么做到的？这有五页长，非常详细，完全符合客户的要求。”这都没问题，但我看了你的日历。你在这期间有会议。你到底是怎么完成的？我说：“哦，天真的孩子。让我给你介绍一个叫 ChatGPT 的东西。”然后我整个团队都说：“请教我们你是怎么做的。”因为他们被文档和规格之类的东西淹没了。这大约发生在 ChatGPT 推出那个我已经不知道现在叫什么的东西，像是 GPT 市场的时候。它不是商店，因为我从中赚了零美元，但市场。所以我就把那个提示塞进了一个共享的 GPT 里。我放了一个最荒谬的 Midjourney 生成的我坐在笔记本电脑前的头像。我把它叫做 Chat PRD，因为我觉得这样很可爱。现在三年后，我被这个 Chat PRD 的名字困住了。嗯，我把它发给了我的团队，他们开始大量使用。然后下一步非常自然，我没有不赚钱的爱好。所以我想，你知道，ChatGPT 不会让我在这个市场里通过这个 GPT 赚钱。所以，我就建一个落地页，看看有没有人愿意给我一美元。这一直是我经典的创业方式。我创办过很多初创公司。每次我都是这样开始的：“有人愿意刷信用卡给我一美元吗？”所以我把 chatbrd.ai 放在这个落地页上。我解释了 GPT 是什么。我实际上只是在我的网站和公开可用的 GPT 之间放了一个 Stripe 结账表单。

Yeah, it was like one of those classic product market fit stories where you build something and then you don't realize till after you build it that people really, really want it. And so, I'd started it as actually two year two two jobs ago. People thought I started it during Lunch Darkly. But I actually started it when I was CPTO at Color Health and um I was running this large product and engineering organization and we were doing pandemic work during the pandemic. It was incredibly intense, very, very high scale business, very, very complicated. And despite my fancy title, I was also a PM on the team. That's just how it happens. And so, for a lot of our more technical initiatives, when we weren't well staffed to put a PM on it, I would just raise my hand and say, "Yeah, I can I can PM this. It's easy." And so, uh the origin story of Chat PRD is, you know, we had all had this like chat GPT moment um GPT 3.5 maybe at that time and I was using it to just do a little bit of product work, learn what what this was. And one day I had a meeting with a client who had a very complicated data auditing problem they needed us to solve for them. So we needed to build this whole full data auditing and processing product for our platform. And the sweet PM that was on the the project looked at me and was like I have neither the capacity nor skill to do this particular like PM this particular product. And I was like, "That's cool. I'll do it. I love it. I know I know what I'm doing here. I like data products." And that meeting was at 9:00 and by noon I sent her the Google Doc link of this like very robust it was like a split between a PRD and a technical spec. And she was like, "Claire, how did how did you do this? This is like five page long. It's very detailed. It's exactly what the client wants." That's all fine, but I saw your calendar. You had meetings between now and then. How did you actually get this done? And I was like, "Oh, sweet summer child. Let me introduce you to this thing called chat GPT." And so my entire team was like, "Please teach me how you're doing this." cuz they were drowning in docs and specs and all that kind of stuff. And so that happened about the same time where chat GPT launched the I don't even know what they call it anymore like the GPT marketplace. It's not a store cuz I've made zero dollars from it, but marketplace. And so I just shoved that prompt into a shared GPT. I put the most ridiculous Midjourney generated avatar of myself at a laptop. I called it chat PRD because I thought I was being cute. Now three years later I'm stuck with the name chat PRD. Um and I sent it to my team and they started using it a lot. And then the next step was very natural which I don't have hobbies that don't make me money. And so I was like, you know, ChatGPT is not going to let me monetize this GPT in the in the marketplace. So, I'll just put up a landing page and see if anybody will give me a dollar. This has been my classic like startup. Started a lot of startups. And every time I've started by saying, "Will somebody put in a credit card and give me a dollar?" And so I put up chatbrd.ai on this landing page. I explained what the GPT was. And I literally just put a stripe checkout form between my site and the publicly available GPT.

你有没有隐约觉得这可能是你会花更多时间在上面的东西，还是更像“我很好奇。也许这是人们会付费的东西。看看会很有趣。”

Did you have an inkling that this might be something that you were going to be spending more time on, or was it more just like, "I'm curious. Just maybe this is something that people will pay for. It would just be interesting to see."

对我来说，我看到人们在使用它。我好奇是否有任何商业价值。我做过足够多的初创公司，知道不是每个想法都是好想法。所以当有人不得不拿出信用卡付款时，才是真正见真章的时候。所以，我只是好奇。我想：“让我们看看。”我告诉所有人，我最初的目标是：“如果这能每月给我买一杯酒，我就开心得不得了。”嗯，然后它开始每月给我买一瓶酒。然后开始每月给我买一箱酒。现在远不止这些。所以，你知道，我真的只是想在我的想法和市场之间加入变现的摩擦，看看我能不能赚到钱。它开始起色。然后我想：“嗯，在一个实际上免费的东西前面放个付费墙真的很奇怪。”所以同时，我又开始编码，再次借助这些 LLM。所以我构建了第一个独立版本的 chatbrd。再次，它大约是一美元一个月。一年 12 美元。有成千上万的人注册并给我 12 美元一年。所以我不断提高价格，不断构建产品。我在产品生命周期的头两年多里基本上都是这样做的。我在 Color Health 和后来的 LaunchDarkly 担任 CPTO，然后回家编码。我早上做支持工单，晚上做支持工单。最终，它发展到足够成为一个业务，我想也许我应该花更多时间在上面，然后大约一年前转为全职。

It would be in To me, I saw that people were using it. And I was curious if there was any commercial value. And I've done enough startups that I know that not every idea I have is a good one. And so the rubber really hits the road when somebody has to get out a credit card and pay for something. So, I was just curious. I was like, "Let's see." And I tell everybody my original goal was like, "If this buys me a glass of wine a month, I'm like happy as can be." Um and then it was like it was starting to buy me a bottle of wine a month. And then it was starting to buy me a case of wine a month. And now it's it's much more than that. And so, you know, I really just wanted to put the friction of monetization between my idea and the market and see if I can make any money. And it started to pick up. And so then I thought, "Well, it's really weird to just put a paywall in front of something that's like actually free." So then, at the same time, I was starting to code again, again with the help of these LLMs. And so I built kind of the first standalone version of chatbrd. And again, it was like a dollar a month. It was like $12 a year. And I had thousands of people sign up and give me $12 $12 a year. And so I just kept increasing the price, kept building the product. I did this while basically for over the first 2 years of the product's lifetime. I was being a CPTO at large companies at Color Health and then at LaunchDarkly, and then I would come home and code. I would do support tickets in the morning, support tickets in the evening. And eventually, it got to the point where it was enough of a business that I thought maybe I should spend maybe I should spend more time on it and then went full-time in about a year ago.

当时是什么，显然可能有一段时间你可以更早这样做。你可以更早全职投入。

What was what was the obviously there was probably some time when you could have done it earlier. You could have gone full-time on it earlier.

是什么让你觉得现在是正确的时机？因为我相信，这是一个很好的例子，但未来也会有人，过去也有人可能遇到类似的情况，他们试图弄清楚，到底是什么决定让你转变，说现在是时候了。

What was the thing that kind of caused you to say like now is the right time? And because I'm sure that there you're you know, this is a really great example, but I'm sure that there will be people in the future there have been people in the past who maybe had something similar happening, and they were trying to figure out for them like what was the actual decision that kind of caused you to flip and say now is the time.

嗯，有几个原因。你知道，我一直在思考这个业务，首先，我想成为什么样的业务？所以，它是完全自举的。我没有接受任何投资。我是唯一的员工。我是唯一的拥有者，我只和我想要合作的人合作，而且主要是我想和 AI 智能体合作。所以，我从一个框架开始：相对于我想过什么样的生活，我想让这个业务成为什么样？我本可以很容易地获得资金。嗯，我本可以做很多事情，但我很清楚我想过什么样的生活，然后我会从那里倒推我要做什么。然后，在早期几年，我在做 Chat Peridot 时总是问的第二个问题是：相对于投资回报，我真正在资源上受到限制的地方在哪里？所以，如果我没有资本限制，它现在是一个盈利的现金流实体，并且继续如此。所以，并不是资本限制，我认为资本不一定会让业务转向让我快乐的方向。嗯，甚至在头两年，我也没有时间限制，因为我在 AI 的帮助下比以往任何时候都更多地编码。就像，即使那时，与我现在编码的量相比，感觉像是石器时代。但即使那时，感觉我像有 10 个工程师的力量在编码。嗯，我大概一年时雇佣了一个兼职工程师。所以，我并不觉得资源受限。所以，直到我真正觉得我的时间是业务增长的实际限制时，我才全职投入。这确实是一个权衡，因为我确实认为 Chat Peridot 做得好的部分原因来自我作为首席产品和技术官的经验。我知道产品团队如何工作。我知道 PM 如何工作。我知道 PM 如何使用 AI。所以，作为一个真正的高管，同时建立这个业务，给了我视角，我认为这使产品随着时间的推移变得更好，我并没有轻视放弃这一点。

Well, there were there were a couple things. You know, I always think about this business, and one I think what shape of this business do I want to be? So, it's fully bootstrapped. I've taken no investment. I'm the only employee. I'm the only owner, and I only work with who I want to work with, and mostly I want to work with AI agents. So, I started from the frame of like what kind of business do I want this to be relative to what kind of life do I want to live? I could have funded it very easily. Um I could have done a lot of things, but I was very clear on what kind of life I wanted to live, and I was going to like work backwards from there on what I was going to do. And then the second question I always asked when working on Chap Ready, especially in those early years, was where am I actually resource constrained relative to return on investment? So, if I wasn't capital constrained, it is it is and continues to be a profitable cash flowing entity. So, it wasn't capital constrained in that I thought that capital would necessarily inflect the business in a direction that made me happy. Um I wasn't even for the first 2 years time constrained on it because I was coding more than ever with the help of AI. Like if it's still even then and then I it feels like the Stone Ages compared to how much I'm coding now. But even then it felt like I was coding with the power of 10 engineers. Um I had hired an engineer probably a year in part-time. So, I didn't feel like resource constrained. And so, it wasn't until I really felt my time was an actual constraint on the growth of the business that I went full-time. And that did come at a trade-off because I do think part of why Chat Peridot does so well is it comes out of my experience of being a chief product and technology officer. I know how product teams work. I know how PMs work. I know how PMs use AI. And so, having, you know, skin in the game as a real executive while also building this business gave me, I think, perspective that made the product better over the over time that I didn't take lightly giving up.

你知道，你之前谈到你在 Color 工作时，团队对你能够用 AI 做到这一点感到惊讶。显然，如今每个人都使用 AI。所以，有一个有趣的时刻，AI 甚至还没有完全突破到像 Color 这样的前沿团队。而且，我认为在那个时候，也许稍后，也许你开始做 Chat Peridot 时，有整个关于 GPT 包装器的负面含义，对吧？嗯，但最终，我认为有很多伟大的公司是建立在这些所谓的 GPT 包装器之上的，尤其是当人们有独特的洞察力，关于世界如何运作或他们的行业如何运作。作为产品领导者，我多年来合作过一位创始人。他的名字是 Adeel。他以前是高中校长。所以他使用 AI 为教师构建工具，它非常成功，是有史以来增长最快的教育工具产品。我很好奇你怎么想，你有什么更元层次的反思，关于在你有独特获得的洞察力的地方利用 AI，以及这如何有助于建立伟大的企业。显然，它对你和 ChatGPT 有效。我认为它和那个叫做 Magic School 的公司合作得很好。但我很好奇你学到了什么，关于应用你的洞察力，也许如果你有其他做得很好的人的例子。

You know, you you were talking about how you were working at Color and how um they were surprised that the team was surprised that you were able to do this with AI. Obviously, nowadays like everybody uses AI. So, so there was this interesting moment where AI had not sort of broken through even to really cutting edge teams like Color uh fully. And and I think there was also at this point maybe slightly after maybe you got started with Chat Peridot, there was the whole idea of like the the negative connotations of like a GPT wrapper, right? Um and you know, ultimately though, I think there have been a lot of great companies that have been built off of these quote-unquote GPT wrappers, uh especially as it relates to people who have like distinct sort of unique insights around how the world works or how their industry works. You as being a product leader, there's one founder that I've worked with over the years. His name is Adeel. He's a former high school principal. And so he built tools for teachers using AI and it's massively successful, fastest growing education tool product of all time. And I'm curious sort of what you think, what kind of like more meta reflections you have around kind of like utilizing AI in a place where you have sort of unique distinct earned insight and sort of how that lends itself to building great businesses. Obviously it's worked for you with ChatGPT. I think it's working really well with that The company's called Magic School. But I'm curious like what what things you've learned about sort of applying your insights and also maybe if you have other examples of people who've done a really good job of this.

是的，嗯，你知道，一个是我早年常说的，她可能只是个说唱歌手，但她是我的说唱歌手，我确实认为我作为伟大产品领导者的新颖洞察。我说用 ChatGPT 写作就像和 Clearvo 一起经历考验。人们付我很多钱来管理他们的产品组织。和我一起写规格，凭借我 20 年的产品经验，你知道，我一直说，如果你能用 Claude 或 ChatGPT 一次性输出同样质量的东西，我就不会有生意。所以我确实认为在应用层通常有机会，尤其是如果你对工作应该如何完成或独特的工作流程有非常独特且未经证实的观点。你知道，第二件事我认为现在市场越来越饱和，噪音很多，所以我认为创始人和他们的公司在市场中越来越合二为一，你看到更多关于创始人主导的营销。我认为这是第二个真正让我受益的事情，我认为任何街上的人都有可能，你知道，用 GBT 组装一个产品。理论上拥有相同的工具，理论上近似相同的体验，但它不是由 Clairevo，三次 CPTO，在 TikTok 上的首席产品官，在 X 上发帖，拥有我所拥有的市场信誉，那种为品牌增添光彩的东西。所以我认为这既实际有利于产品拥有那种专业知识，也有利于你的品牌和营销，与产品和你正在解决的问题非常创始人一致。所以我认为，你知道，我从来不喜欢这个概念，你知道，人们在这方面取得了成功。我只是不喜欢在没有个人联系或经验的情况下解决任何问题作为创业的方式。我知道人们坐在那里，他们只是说，‘哦，什么能让我赚钱？’这个正在流行，或者那个有趣，或者也许我可以做那个，但他们真的没有任何解决那个问题的经验，甚至不知道那个问题感觉如何。那从来不是我想要解决问题的方式，也从来不是我想要创办公司的方式。我总是创办公司，因为我说，‘这是一场噩梦。我经历过这场噩梦，我想解决这场噩梦，我认为我可以构建一个解决方案。’所以我在考虑创业时确实倾向于采取这种方法，就是我的个人经验，以及我能否以技术帮助扩展的方式将其发挥出来。

Yeah, well, I you know, one I say I used to say in the early years, she may just be a rapper, but she's my rapper and that I actually do think the novel insight I have about being a great product leader. I say writing with ChatGPT is like going through the ringer with Clearvo. People pay me a lot of money to run their product organizations. Going through and writing a spec with me with my 20 years of product experience and you know, consistently I said I would not have a business if you could one shot with Claude or one shot with ChatGPT at the same quality that this is outputting. So I do think there's just generally opportunity at the application layer, especially if you have a very unique and unproven point of view on either how a job should get done or a unique workflow. You know, the second thing I think is more and more now market is saturated with noise and so I think founders and their companies are becoming one in the same in the market and you see a lot more around founder-led marketing. And I think that was a second thing that really benefited me is I think anybody off the street potentially could have, you know, put together a product to GBT. In theory had the same tools, in theory approximated the same experience, but it wasn't by Clairevo, three times CPTO at Chief Product Officer on TikTok like posting on X with the market credibility that I had that kind of put some shine on the brand. And so I think it's both it practically benefits the product to have that expertise, but it also benefits your brand and marketing to be very founder aligned with the product that you're the problem that you're solving. And so I think, you know, I I never loved this concept and you know, people have been successful at it. I just haven't of solving any problem without a personal tie or experience to that problem as a way to start a startup. I know people sit around and they just go, "Ooh, what's going to make me money?" And this is this is trending or that's interesting or maybe I could do that, but they don't really have any experience in solving that problem or even know what that problem feels like. That has never been the way I've wanted to solve problems and never been the way I wanted to start companies. I always start companies because I said, "This is a nightmare. I have experienced this nightmare and I want to solve solve this nightmare and I think I can build a solution." And so I do I do tend to take that approach when considering businesses to start is just my personal experience and can I bring that to bear in a way that technology helps scale.

当你加入公司时，你如何看待这些公司以及创始人与他们所做事情的联系？我想这之间也有某种延伸。

When you've joined companies, how do you think about the companies and the founders' connection to what they're working on? I imagine there's some extension there as well.

是的，这很有趣。在创始人手下做产品负责人是件难事。我往往是那个在经历了一连串与创始人关系不佳的产品负责人之后留下来的产品负责人。我认为产品和 CEO 创始人是紧密相连的，通常 CEO 就是产品创始人。所以我确实认为这种关系非常重要。显然，我只想为那些我极其尊重、创造了我觉得有趣产品的人工作。在这一点上，我带着对创始人角色和 CEO 的巨大尊重进入这些组织和角色。事实上，我尊重创始人和 CEO 能够做出没有数据支持的决策，即没有数据，但方向仍然正确，因为他们与问题相处的时间最长。所以我确实喜欢这种关系。我认为它非常富有成果，但我觉得这是因为我曾身处那个位置，我知道作为创始人 CEO 有多么特别，你对问题的理解要深刻得多，即使你并不总能如你所愿地有效沟通。所以我有过这些关系。它们非常协作且有趣。我不介意在别人的东西上工作。

Yeah, it's been interesting. Being a product leader under a founder is a hard job. I tend to be the product leader that sticks after a sad trail of product leaders that have not made nice with founders. I think product and being a CEO founder are very tightly aligned, and often the CEO is the product founder. So I do think that relationship is very important. I obviously only want to go work for people who I have massive respect for, who built products that I think are interesting. On that particular piece, I come into those organizations and those roles with massive respect for the founder role and massive respect for the CEO. In fact, respect that founders and CEOs can make not data-backed decisions, so with no data, that are still directionally correct, because they have sat with the problem the longest. So I do like that relationship. I think it's really fruitful, but I think it's because I've been in that seat and I know how special it is to be a founder CEO, how much more deeply you understand the problem, even if you're not able to communicate it as effectively as you want all the time. So I've had those relationships. They've been really collaborative and fun. I don't mind working on somebody else's stuff.

完全同意。我想我很好奇的是，你曾说过 Rizz 就是护城河。所以请多谈谈这一点，因为我觉得这与你共事过的人以及你现在正在构建的东西非常契合。

Totally. And I guess what I'd be really curious about is you said at one point that like Rizz is the moat. So say more about that, because I feel like that ties in really nicely to the people that you've worked with. Also what you're building now.

是的，人们总是问我，克莱尔，当 AI 来抢我们的 PRD、代码、Jira 和站会时，还剩下什么给我做？我认为在这个世界上，我经常告诉创始人或产品人员，还有几件事留给他们做。一是弄清楚他们的产品问题与市场商业胃口在哪里交汇，这又回到了故事的开头，产品和公司存在是为了赚钱，无论我们是否总是表现得如此。所以，人们花更多时间不是在建东西，而是在弄清楚市场中的价值交换，无论是与消费者还是企业，我认为这是一个值得花时间的有趣地方。第二件事是从第一性原理出发提出新颖的想法，老实说，我认为 LLM 在这方面相当糟糕。它们是好的构建伙伴，但实际上并不是那么有创造力的头脑风暴伙伴，我做过很多次。但第三件事是，我认为你必须激发同道之情。作为创始人、领导者、市场中的一员，你需要激励你的团队与你一起踏上这段旅程，构建你希望他们构建的东西。你必须激励投资者认同你正在做的事情。你必须激励市场相信你是他们的正确解决方案。这就是为什么 Rizz 是唯一的护城河，即人类激发他人行动的能力，我仍然认为这是在这个 AI 世界中具有差异化的价值。我希望看到更多人发展这种影响力、魅力和面向市场的沟通技能，因为我认为机器人可以做其余的事情。

Yeah, I mean, people ask me all the time, like Claire, when AI has come for our PRDs and they come for our code and they come for our Jira and they come for our stand-ups, what is left for me to do? And I think there are a couple things that I often tell either founders or product people are left for them to do in this world. One is figure out where their product problems intersect the commercial appetite of a market, which is again back to the beginning of the story, like products Companies exist to make money, whether or not we act like that all the time. And so, people spending more time not on building but on figuring out this exchange of value in the market, whether with consumers or enterprises, I think is an interesting place to spend time. The second thing I think is coming up with novel ideas from first principles, I honestly think LLMs are pretty bad at. They're fine building buddies, they're not actually that creative brainstorming buddies, and I've done this a lot. But the third thing is I think you have to inspire fellowship. As a founder, as a leader, as someone in the market, you need to inspire your team to come along with you in this journey and build what you want them to build. You have to inspire investors to buy into what you're doing. You have to inspire the market that you're the right solution for them. And this is where this like rizz is the only moat, which is a human's ability to inspire movement in other humans, I still think is a differentiating value in this AI world. And I would love to see more people develop that skill of influence, charisma, market facing communication because I think the robots can do the rest.

如果你喜欢这次对话，也许你正在创办自己的公司。如果是这样，你应该申请 Solo Founder 项目。我过去 7 年一直在与初创公司和创始人合作，帮助他们解决问题。我告诉你，取得最大进展的是那些确保自己拥有能帮助他们走得更远的关系的人。Solo Founder 项目旨在将 10 位独立创始人聚集在一起，让他们可以一起独立构建，而不是独自独立构建。我会与你合作，我们将投资 10 万美元，并确保你在 3 个月内取得尽可能大的进展。如果这听起来有趣，你应该在 solofounders.com/program 了解更多并申请。

If you're enjoying this conversation, then perhaps you're starting your own company. And if so, you should apply for the Solo Founder's program. I spent the last 7 years working with startups and founders who are figuring things out. And I'll tell you, the ones that make the most progress are the ones who make sure that they have relationships that can help them go the distance. The Solo Founder's program is about bringing 10 solo founders together so that they can build solo together versus building solo alone. I'll work with you, we'll invest $100,000, and we'll make sure that you make the most progress that you possibly can in 3 months. If that sounds interesting, you should learn more and apply at solofounders.com/program.

这里有点跑题，但你知道，在来旧金山之前，你在奥斯汀花了大量时间构建。在许多方面，奥斯汀在文化上非常不同，甚至不仅仅是科技方面，文化上与旧金山非常不同。你认为奥斯汀有什么？每个人都谈论旧金山有多棒。我的意思是，它很棒。你认为奥斯汀在魅力或讲故事或某些在旧金山可能缺乏或不同的方面有什么？

Random tangent here, but you know, you spent a lot of time building in Austin prior to coming to San Francisco. In many ways, Austin culturally is very different, not even just the tech side of things, but culturally is very different than San Francisco. What do you think that Austin has? Everybody talks about how great San Francisco is. I mean, it's great. What do you think Austin has in terms of things like maybe charisma or around storytelling or around something that maybe is lacking or different in San Francisco?

我说奥斯汀的每个人都皮肤黝黑、身材健美、快乐。在奥斯汀有一种东西，没有 996 的苦干，比如我要去代币矿场，不惜一切代价实现某种风险投资支持的结果。我认为奥斯汀的产业基础稍微多样化一些。我的意思是，它是一个大学城，所以是一个研究型大学城。它有政府。它在政治上相当多样化，也许两极分化，科技不是主导产业。所以，我认为你在技术方面会得到一个更加平衡的社区和生态系统，这使得——我的意思是，我会说它不是前三的科技城市。

I say everybody in Austin is tan, fit, and happy. There is this thing in Austin where there is not the 996 grind, like I'm going to go into the token mines and do whatever it takes to achieve some venture-backed outcome. There is, I think, in Austin a slightly more diverse industry base. I mean, it's a university town, so it's a research university town. It's got government in it. It's politically quite diverse and perhaps polarized, and tech is not the dominant industry. And so, I think you get a much more balanced kind of community and ecosystem in technology, which makes—I mean, I would say it's not a top three tech city.

确实。

Definitely.

但你开始看到媒体从中涌现。你开始看到像 Alpha School 这样的社区的其他有趣分支。有很多播客。你有 SpaceX 的邻近城市以及德克萨斯州发生的一些硬件事情。所以，我确实认为从奥斯汀出来的人更平衡。然后我确实认为，你知道，我在奥斯汀认识的每个人都过得很好。所以，我不确定旧金山的每个人都过得很好。旧金山的每个人都在印钱，但我不知道他们是否过得开心。

But you're starting to see media come out of it. You're starting to see other interesting offshoots of communities like Alpha School. There's a bunch of podcasts. You have the adjacent cities of SpaceX and some of the hardware stuff happening in Texas. And so, I do think you get this more balanced person out of Austin. And then I do think there it's, you know, everybody I know in Austin is having a good time. So, I'm not sure everybody in San Francisco's having a good time. Everybody in San Francisco is minting money, but I don't know if they're having a good time.

是的，我认为，我的意思是，我认为那是真的。我也认为，如果你——我不知道，感觉在像德克萨斯这样的地方，某种程度上确实有更多的个人主义。

Yeah, I think that I mean I think that's true. I also think that if you I don't know it does feel like there is a little bit more individualism in some ways in a place like Texas.

是的，我同意。我也认为，在人们认为什么构成成功生活方面有更多的多样性。就像我认为我们在湾区确实有一种围绕成功的单一文化。我认为很多人有成功焦虑症，他们不知道自己有多好，不知道自己有多处于 1%。我认为在德克萨斯州，在其他非沿海城市，你会看到生活方式的多样性。你会看到经济成就的多样性。

Yeah, I do I agree with that. I also think there is a little bit more diversity in what people think makes for successful life. Like I think we do have a monoculture here in the Bay Area around success. I think a lot of people have success dysphoria where they have no idea how good they have it, no idea how in the 1% they are. And I think in, you know, in Texas, in other non-coastal cities, I think you're going to see a diversity of lifestyles. You're going to see a diversity of economic achievement.

你还能看到各种各样的企业。我觉得这就是我在 Chap PRD 所做之事的特别之处——我告诉人们：“看，这是一家科技公司，但不是科技创业公司。我其实是在做一门小生意。我希望它有现金流，希望它高杠杆，希望它属于我，希望它服务于我的生活，而不是我去服务它。”在奥斯汀，你能看到各种类型的创业者，消费品、零售，形形色色。所以我觉得你也能看到不同形态的企业，它们能启发你去思考自己该做怎样的软件生意。

And you also get to see a diversity of businesses. And I think that's what's different about what I'm building with Chap PRD is I tell people, "Look, it's a technology company, but it's not a tech startup. I'm really building a small business. I want it to be cash flowing. I want it to be high leverage. I want it to be mine. I want it to serve my life. I don't want to serve it." And you can see those sites types of entrepreneurs, CPG, retail, all sorts of different ones in Austin. And so I think you also see different shapes of business that can inform what kind of software business you might build.

我觉得这其实是围绕 Chap PRD 继续聊下去的一个很有意思的方向。因为在很多方面，旧金山有一套关于公司该如何建立的标准剧本。在很多方面，这套剧本对某些类型的公司确实有效。但与此同时，如果你严格照搬它，它其实剥夺了人们的能力——你本质上是在遵循一种工厂化的制造模式。而其实还有很多其他方式可以做出成功的产品，甚至可能达到风险投资级别的成果。我有个朋友叫 Yasser，他创办了一家公司叫 Chapbase，三年做到 1000 万美元 ARR，做得非常好。他们从没融过资。这并不是说做同样生意的人不能或不该融资。但他选择那样做，而在这里这被视为一件非常奇怪的事。而如果你在其他地方做那家公司——你最初是在加拿大开始做的——也许就没那么奇怪了。但我觉得你所采取的方式真的很有意思。不是说它适合所有人，就像做加速器或融资也不适合所有人一样。不过我很好奇，什么样的人会来找你寻求反馈，或者过去人们对你所做的决定以及为什么这么做，都问过什么样的问题？

And I think that that's kind of, you know, an interesting an interesting sort of avenue to go on next with conversation around Chap PRD because you know, in many ways there's such a sort of standard playbook for how companies should be built in San Francisco. And in many ways that playbook works for certain types of companies. But at the same time it kind of robs people of the ability to if you if you follow it in an exacting way, you're essentially following a factory model of making things. And there's so many other ways to make things that could be successful and that could have the outcome potentially, you know, a venture scale outcome. Um you know, one of my friends uh is guy named Yasser. He's the founder of a company called Chapbase and they're at 10 million ARR in 3 years. They're doing really well. Um they never raised any money and that's not to say that somebody who is building the same business couldn't or shouldn't raise money. Um but, you know, he chose to do it that way and here it's looked at as a very bizarre thing, you know? Uh whereas if you were building that company someplace else, which which you started out building it in Canada, uh maybe not quite as weird. Um but, I think there's something really interesting about the approach that you've taken. Not to say that it's right for everyone, just as to say that, you know, doing an accelerator or raising funding isn't right for isn't right for everyone either. But, I'm curious kind of, you know, what what kinds of people maybe have reached out to you for feedback or like what kinds of questions people have had in the past about sort of the decisions you've made and why you've made them.

嗯，你知道吗，对很多人来说，情况并不清楚。ChapR&D 我没有拿过一分风险投资。并不是没人提供过，但确实没有拿。我上一个创业公司是融了风险投资的。我经历过加速器，融过风险投资，公司被收购了。我玩过那个游戏。而如今，在我科技职业生涯 20 多年后，我带着一个非常清晰的想法来到这一步——我想要我的生活是什么样。抱歉，我其实不想要董事会。我其实不想为了一个可能数十亿美元的成果而拼命。我家里有三个很棒的孩子，我不会用任何金钱去交换和他们相处的时间。我确信面向产品经理的 AI 平台的 TAM 是 100 亿美元吗？不，我不确信那是 TAM。我确信它会让我赚很多钱吗？绝对确信。所以，我是带着非常刻意的设计来做这件事的，清楚为什么要以这种特定方式建立这家公司。现在，我经常被问到：“Claire，你是自举的。为什么我不能自举？或者你是怎么获得分销的？你是怎么获得这些受众的？”我认为人们没有意识到的是，我之所以能够自举，之所以能独自做到这一点，是因为我积累了二十年的技术专长、人脉和分销渠道。我写代码写了三十年。我做过光鲜的科技工作，如果想的话，我可以自筹资金，有资本投入业务。我知道我不知道什么，也知道我知道什么。所以我拥有这 20 多年积累的全部专长，让我能做到这些。我第一次创业时是做不到的。我当时不会有内部和外部的资源来做成这件事。所以，我认为如果没有某种资源——无论是财务上的还是其他方面的——你是无法自举到这一步的。但我确实会被问到：“我怎样才能同样做到？”我说：“那就在 5 年前开始建立受众，在 20 年前开始积累专长。”这确实需要时间。就是那种经典的“20 年一夜成名”，人们看不到走到这一步所付出的所有努力。

Well, I you know what what So, for people that you know, it's not very clear. I've taken zero venture capital for ChapR&D. Not that it hasn't been offered, but I have taken it's it's not very clear. I I I raised venture capital for my last startup. So, I went through an accelerator. I raised venture capital. It was acquired. I I did that game. And I came to this now 20-plus years into my tech career with a very clear idea of what my I wanted my life to be. And sorry, I don't really want a board. I don't really want to grind to a potential multi-billion dollar outcome. I've got three amazing kids at home that I will not trade a a penny for time with them. And am I convinced that the TAM for an AI platform for product managers is $10 billion? No, I'm not convinced that that's the TAM. Am I convinced that it's going to make me a lot of money? Absolutely. And so, I came to this with a very intentional design of why I was building this business in this specific way. Now, what I get asked a lot is like, "Claire, you bootstrapped it. Why can't I bootstrap it? Or how did you get distribution? Or how do you get this audience?" And I think what people don't appreciate is the reason I am able to bootstrap this and the reason I have been able to do this by myself is I have accrued two decades of technology expertise, network, um distribution. I've been coding for three decades. I have worked, you know, fancy tech jobs where I could self-fund and have capital to put into the business if I want to. Um and I know what I don't know and I know what I know. And so, I have all this like built up 20-plus years expertise that allows me all this stuff. That I could not have done this the first time I did a startup. I wouldn't have the resources both internal and external to to pull it off. And so, I don't think you can bootstrap to this without some set of resources, whether financial or otherwise. But I do get asked, you know, how can how can I do this the same? And I say, "Well, start 5 years ago building an audience. And start 20 years ago building expertise." Like it does take time. Um you know, it's that classic like 20-year overnight success where people don't see all the work that came into getting to this point.

我是说，尤其是现在，技术部分在很多方面其实是最小的部分之一，对吧？比如人脉网络、你所做之事的可辨识度，以及人们因为认识你而产生的信任——他们知道你在多家优秀公司做产品领导已经很久了。这才是给人信任的东西，而不是网站看起来怎样，或者你从几个投资人那里融了钱之类的。这就回到我们之前聊的，资源就是护城河。真正有趣的是这个想法：最终，如果你能弄清楚自己的优势是什么，以及你拥有哪些能给你竞争优势的东西，你就有一个绝佳的机会去构建一些美妙的东西。

I mean, it it's especially nowadays where the technology part of it is really in in many ways some of the some of the smallest part of it, right? Like the the the network, the the the legibility of sort of what you're building, and the and the trust that people would have because they know you, they know that you've been doing product leadership for a quite some time now across multiple great companies. Um that's the thing that gives people the trust, not the fact that the website looks, you know, a certain way or because, you know, you uh you you raised the money from from a couple of investors or something like that. And uh and it kind of goes back to that thing we were talking about, where like the res is the is the moat. The thing that's really interesting about that is kind of this um this this idea that um that ultimately uh if you can figure out what your strengths are and the things that you have that give you a competitive advantage, uh you have this really great opportunity to build something wonderful.

是的。

Yes.

但很多人出于某种原因就是不去这么做。他们回避自己擅长的事。你觉得为什么有时候人们会远离自己擅长的事，去尝试做别的？是因为他们觉得那件别的事，因为自己不了解，所以实际上比看起来更容易？还是你觉得到底是什么导致人们远离自己真正的技能或优势？

Um but so many people just kind of don't do that for some reason. They kind of shy away from the thing that they're good at. Why do you think that sometimes people move away from the things that they're good at to try and do something else? Is it that they think that the other thing, because they don't know about it, it it's actually easier than than it than it actually seems? Or what do you think that actually causes people to move away from their actual skills or advantages?

我觉得人们不知道自己真正想要什么才会快乐。人们以为照着剧本走，以及那些——说实话仍然是离群值的成功故事——会让他们快乐。所以他们想，如果我把自己塞进这台机器，另一端就会吐出一个快乐的我，拥有十亿美元的企业。而我认为，根据我的经验，他们在此期间牺牲了很多，同时给自己讲着那个故事。但归根结底，那并不是真正的源头。这就像“认识你自己”。我花了很多时间在自己身上，观察其他创始人怎么做，观察我真正热爱的企业的结果，也观察我自己经营创业公司的经历。我就是知道什么能点燃快乐。我也非常清楚，在我临终时我会想些什么。

I think people don't know what's going to make them happy. And I think people think that running the playbook and these out honestly still outlier stories of success are going to be what make them happy. And so they think if I put myself into this machine, out the other end will spit happy me that has, you know, a billion-dollar business. And I think it really it and and so they are they, this is my experience, sacrifice a lot in the interim telling themselves that story. And at the end of the day, that is not actually the source. Uh it's like truly know thyself. And you know, I I just spent spent a lot of time on myself and and observing how other founders did things and observing outcomes of businesses that I really loved and observing my own experience running a startup. And I just know what sparks joy. And I also know very clearly what I will be thinking about on my deathbed.

我非常清楚这一点，我向你保证，它不会是 SaaS 业务的续费率。50 年、60 年或 70 年后，那不会是重点。我瞄准的是 120 年，那么多年。到那时我根本不会去想 run rate。我会想什么？我真的想建立一项服务于我的事业，服务于我的孩子、我的丈夫、我雇用并热爱的人、以及一个我认为给予了我很多、我可以回馈的社区。任何其他人对这件事应该是什么样子的想法，那是他们的事，不是我的事。

I know that very well, and I promise you it will not be the renewal rate of a SaaS business. That will not be the thing in 50, 60, or 70 years. I'm shooting for 120, so many years. I'm just not going to be thinking about run rate then. What am I going to be thinking about? I really want to build a business that serves me, that serves my kids, that serves my husband, that serves the people that I employ that I love, that serves a community that I think has given me a lot that I can give back to. Anybody else's idea of what that is supposed to look like is their business, not my business.

我只是希望更多人能达到那个境界，因为我认为 AI 这个时刻如此令人兴奋的一点是，你有很多选择。如果你不想，你不必融资。如果你想，你可以融很多资。实际上，由于所需资本低得多，你有机会将小得多的业务商业化。所以，如果你能知道自己个人的目标是什么，你在如何追求这些目标方面有很多选择。我认为人们没有花足够的时间去质疑：这一切是为了什么，我为什么做这个，它真的会让我快乐吗？

I just wish more people could get to that point because one of the things that I think is so exciting about this moment in AI is you have a lot of optionality. You don't have to raise venture if you don't want to. You can raise a lot of venture if you want to. There's actually the opportunity to commercialize much smaller businesses because the capital required is much lower. So if you can know what your own personal goals are, you have a lot of options in shaping how you pursue those goals. And I think people don't spend enough time questioning: what is all this for, why am I doing it, and will it really make me happy?

有没有某个时刻或时期促使你反思并思考这个问题？还是更像一个逐渐演变的过程？或者你觉得你通常比其他人更关注这一点？

Was there a moment or a period that kind of caused you to reflect and think about that? Or was it more of an evolving thing that happened? Or do you feel like you're generally more attuned to that than other people?

嗯，你知道，这是一个悲伤的故事，但很久以前，很多很多年前，我有一个同事。他们的一位家人去世了。我去参加了葬礼，我数了数公司来了多少人。这家公司有 500 人。我去参加葬礼，我并没有看到那么多人——你有 500 多人。我并没有看到那么多人。我想，“你知道吗？在那些重要的时刻，这一切很少会回到我身边。”所以我真的认为，优化我如何以及何时花费时间，以及我投资于谁和如何投资，对我来说非常重要。我非常确定，就像谁会在一天结束时出现，谁不会。我认为有这样的时刻，非常私人的时刻，但会让你反思你在工作中的行为。你在哪里花时间，你和谁一起工作，你给谁什么，你为什么做事，你为什么从别人那里索取，你为什么给予别人。我认为那对我来说是一个非常清晰的时刻。对我来说是一个外部时刻，但对我来说是一个非常清晰的时刻，让我说：“真正坚守我的价值观和对我重要的事情，将培养出非常幸福的生活。”我会告诉你，每个和我交谈的人，来找我，他们都说：“Claire，你怎么样？”我说：“我过着最好的生活。我很快乐。我很开心。我把时间花在我觉得智力上有趣的事情上。我和我觉得智力上有趣的人在一起。我有太多孩子了。这很棒。”甚至，你知道，人们轻轻地敲我的门。他们说：“你会卖掉它吗？”我说：“看，收入可能有 10 倍的倍数，而我的幸福有 100 倍的倍数。所以，你知道，也许我会在中间某个地方妥协。”

Well, you know, this is a sad story, but I had a colleague that I worked with a long time ago, many, many years ago. A member of their family passed away. And I went to the funeral and I counted the number of people that were there from this company. And this company had 500 people at it. I went to the funeral and I just didn't see that many people from—you have 500 plus people. I just didn't see that many people. And I thought, "You know what? Very little of this is going to come back to me in the moments that matter." So I really thought it is super important for me to optimize how and when I spend my time, and who and how I invest in. And I was very sure, like it just very short of who's going to be there at the end of the day, and who's not. And I think there's moments like that, very personal moments, but then just make you reflect on your behaviors at work. Where you spend your time, who you work with, who you give what, why you do things, why you take from people, why you give to people. And I think that was a very clarifying moment for me. It was an external moment for me, but it was a very clarifying moment for me to say, "Really staying anchored in my values and what matters to me is going to cultivate a very happy life." And I will tell you, everybody that I talk to, come to me, they're like, "Claire, how are you doing?" I'm like, "I am living my best life. I am happy. I am having fun. I'm spending time on things I find intellectually interesting. I'm spending time with people I find intellectually interesting. I have too many kids. It's great." And even, you know, people come like gently knocking on my door. They're like, "Would you ever sell it?" And I say, "Look, there may be a 10x multiple on the revenue, and there is a 100x multiple on my happiness. So, you know, maybe I'll compromise somewhere in the middle there."

你知道，我不傻。但我确实认为，真正脚踏实地，扎根于我想要什么、我关心什么、什么让我快乐，就会让所有其他东西消失。

You know, I'm not stupid. But I do think just being really like two feet on the ground, grounded in what I want, what I care about, what makes me happy, it just makes all that other stuff fall away.

你知道，你以如此快乐的基调结束。但回到葬礼之类的事情。大约 10 年前有一篇非常感人的文章，最近在互联网上重新浮出水面。本质上就是这个想法，我想它叫做“去参加葬礼”。

You know, you ended on such a happy note. But to go back to funerals and things like that. There was a really affecting piece that maybe came out 10 years ago that just sort of resurfaced on the internet. It was essentially this idea, I think it was called like "go to the funeral."

是的。哦，是的。

Yep. Oh, yeah.

你看到了吗？

And did you—do you see it come across?

我确实看到它又出现了。

I did see it pop up again.

它真的真的影响了我。但本质上，对于那些正在收听或观看但不熟悉这个的人，这个想法是：你应该做事情，不是因为它们立即有益，或者因为你觉得自己真的有某种债务要去那里，而是因为你做它们只是因为它们是正确的——它们是正确的事情。我很好奇你在生活中如何思考这一点，因为听起来你和这位同事真的很亲近，但很多人没有去参加这样的活动。为人们现身是怎么回事？或者听起来你读了那篇文章，它引起了你的共鸣。那么，在那类事情上，引起你共鸣的是什么？

It really, really affected me. But essentially for those who are listening or watching who aren't familiar with this, it's this idea that you should do things not because they are immediately beneficial or because you feel like you actually have some real debt to go there, but you should do them because they're just the right thing—they're the right thing to do. I'm curious how you think about that in your life because it sounds like you were really close to this co-worker, but a lot of people didn't go to something like that. What is it about showing up for people? Or it sounds like you read that and it resonated with you. So what's the thing that resonates for you on that sort of thing?

是的，我的意思是，有趣的是，我甚至不会声称和那个人非常亲近，但我每天有 8 小时和他们在一起，持续了 3 年。那不是小事。我真的相信，有些社会纽带需要努力维持，但它们是值得的，它们给予他人的和你从中得到的一样多。所以我一直真的相信，有些时刻你必须现身。有些事情你必须做——享乐追求不是人类的最高使命。所以我确实相信培养社区意识，甚至彼此的义务感，我认为是相当健康的。这是我想为我的孩子们展示的。我确实认为很多——在 30 年、50 年或多少年后，我会后悔做了这件事吗？不会。我会后悔可能没做吗？可能会。所以我试着在生活中经常拉远视角，这真的能帮助你识别什么是重要的。我还认为，当我们通过手机互动，或者我们停止彼此互动，开始和聊天机器人交谈时，我们都会开始失去这种基本的人性。我认为坚守你的人性非常重要。所以我试着这样做。

Yeah, I mean, what's interesting is I wouldn't even claim to have been incredibly close to that person, but I spent 8 hours a day around them for 3 years. That is not nothing. And I really do believe that there are some social threads that take effort to maintain, but that are worthwhile and they give to others just as much as you get out of it. So I've always really believed that there are just moments that you show up for. There are things that you do—hedonic pursuit is not the highest calling of humanity. And so I do believe cultivating a sense of community, even obligation to each other, I think is quite healthy. It's something that I want to demonstrate for my children. And I do think a lot of—in 30 or 50 or whatever years, am I going to regret having done this? No. Am I going to regret maybe not doing it? Probably. And so I try to just zoom out a lot in my life and it really helps you identify what's important. I also just think there is this essential humanity that we all start to lose when we interact with each other through phones or we stop interacting with each other and we start to talk to chatbots. And I think staying anchored in your humanity is very important. So I try to do it.

你能就这一点再多分享一些吗？关于你如何几乎独自一人借助 AI 建立了这个了不起的业务，对吧？你是唯一一个全职做这件事的人。

Can you share a little bit more on that note about how you've managed to build this incredible business pretty much on your own with AI, right? You're the only full-time person on it.

我是唯一一个全职的人。

I'm the only full-time person.

你是怎么做到的？你觉得这是一种性格使然吗？你觉得有些人——有一位创始人，他不是自力更生，他在筹集大量资金，他叫 Ben，他在建一家叫 Pulsia 的公司，他的整个想法就是尽可能长时间地成为这家公司唯一工作的人，如果不是永远的话。然后很多看过——听过他播客节目的人说：“那听起来太痛苦了。我无法想象这样做。”另一方面，你有点在做类似的事情，因为你基本上——全职就只有你一个人。那么这是怎么运作的？你是怎么想的？你从这段经历中学到了什么？

How do you do that? Like how do you think it's a personality thing that sort of lends to it? Do you think some people—there's one founder, he's not bootstrapped, he's raising a lot of money, his name is Ben, he's building a company called Pulsia, and his whole thing is he wants to try and be the only person working on this company for as long as possible, if not forever. And then a lot of people who saw—listen to the podcast episode with him said, "That sounds miserable. I couldn't imagine doing it." You, on the other hand, you've kind of are doing something similar in the sense that you have mostly—it's just you full-time. So how does that work? How do you think about it? What have you learned from that experience?

有趣的是，人们在台上看到我，看到播客，他们会说：“Claire，你一定是最大的外向者。”我说：“我真的是地球上最大的内向者。我可以待在家里，除了家人谁也不见，好几年都很快乐。”所以我确实认为我其实相当内向。我不从人群中获取能量。我爱人们。我爱我的朋友。我爱我身边的人。但那不是我的能量来源。所以，我认为有性格方面的因素。也有技能方面的因素。我只是在很多实践领域都很流畅。所以，我能写代码。我领导过产品组织。如果你领导过产品组织，你实际上就是企业销售。所以，我能销售。我能做营销，因为我在做这个播客，我在客户面前很有说服力，在市场面前也很有说服力。我能在台上演讲。所以，我有技能在业务中做很多事情，这意味着我能够围绕 AI 获得很多杠杆。而一个技能不那么全面的人，经营企业可能会更难。第二件事是我有很多管理经验。你猜怎么着？智能体就是管理。所以，设计组织、给人分配工作、给智能体分配工作、弄清楚规范和运营模式，然后让他们负责。我认为这也是一种能很好地转化为独立创始人生活的技能。我知道很多人，独自做我正在做的事情绝对是他们的噩梦。你确实要承担很多，对吧？如果进展不好，责任在我。如果进展好，功劳也在我。我有时会发现自己做非常低级的战术性工作，因为我喜欢。所以，这个模式有陷阱，但它非常契合我的性格、技能和生活方式。所以，我认为如果你有这种倾向，这绝对是可能的。

It's funny people see me on stage and they see the podcast and they're like, "Claire, you must be the biggest extrovert." I'm like, "I am truly the biggest introvert on the face of the earth. I could be in my home and see no one but my family for years and be very happy." So I do think I'm actually quite introverted. I do not get my energy from being amongst people. I love people. I love my friends. I love people that I'm around. But it's not where I derive energy from. So, I do think there's a personality aspect to it. There's also a skill aspect to it as well. I'm just very fluent across a lot of practices. So, I can code. I've led product organizations. If you've led product organizations, you're functionally an enterprise sales person. So, I can sell. I can do marketing because I'm doing this podcast and I'm very eloquent in front of customers and eloquent in front of the market. I can speak on stage. And so, I have the skills to do a lot of things in the business, which means I'm able to get a lot of leverage around AI. Whereas somebody who is not as, I would say, well-rounded in their skill set would maybe have a harder time running a business. The second thing is I have a lot of management experience. And guess what? Agents are just management. So, the ability to design an org, give jobs to people, give jobs to agents, figure out the kind of norms and operating model, and then hold them to account. I think that is also a skill that translates really well to the solo founder life. I know lots of people who it would be absolutely their nightmare to do what I'm doing by myself. And you do have to carry a lot, right? Like if it goes poorly, it's on me. If it goes well, it's on me. I do sometimes find myself doing very low-level tactical stuff because I like it. And so, there are pitfalls, I would say, to this model, but it fits my personality and my skill set and my lifestyle really well. So, I think if you have the inclination, it's definitely possible.

你知道，我经常问人们为什么独立创始——比如你为什么做独立创始人？你过去在更传统的初创公司有过联合创始人。但是，你知道，为什么你在这样的事情上不会有联合创始人似乎很清楚，这既是个人原因，也非常与你想要的生活方式相关。但也许你可以多分享一点作为独立创始人构建这个项目的感觉，你怎么考虑花时间。我认为很多人，即使你是通才或者很擅长很多事情，通才并不一定意味着你擅长很多事情，但你有广泛的技能。这并不一定意味着即使有所有工具，做所有必要的事情总是容易的。所以我很好奇，作为独立创始人，你在独自创业方面学到了什么，以及这对其他听众可能有什么用处。

You know, I often ask people why solo found—like why are you being a solo founder? You've had co-founders in the past for your more traditional sort of startups. But, you know, it seems fairly clear why you wouldn't have a co-founder in something like this, which is both personal and very tied to the kind of life you want to live. But maybe you could share a little bit more about what it's like building this as a solo founder, how you think about spending your time. I think that a lot of people, you know, even if you are a generalist or really good at a lot of things, generalist doesn't necessarily imply that you're good at a lot of things, but like you have a lot of skills that are wide ranging. That doesn't necessarily mean that it's easy always to do all of the things that are necessary even with all of the tools. So, I'm curious as a solo founder, what you've learned about building a business solo, and what might be useful there for other people who are listening.

嗯，再说一次，了解你自己。做了 3 年之后，有一件事非常清楚：我骨子里是个工程师。为了避开营销，我真的会构建任何功能，地球上任何功能。100% 比如写一篇关于我们这次很棒发布的博客文章，或者发布 10 个其他东西，我肯定会发布 10 个其他东西。所以，你必须真正注意自己的倾向，注意你想深入钻研的地方，你必须建立支持你作为独立创始人特殊形态的系统。所以，我建立了这个由九个 open claw 组成的星座。我有一个营销的，我有一个 EA，就是刚才给你发邮件说我迟到的那个。我有一个 EA，我有一个销售人员，我有一个支持人员，我有一个支持智能体。所以我建立了这种围绕我的团队，这样我就不是推动事情前进的单点故障。然后我安排我的一天，先吞青蛙。我先做我最不倾向于自然去做的事情，然后把下午留给构建，反正我也会构建。所以我把所有销售电话放在早上。我把所有营销放在早上。我把所有播客工作放在早上。我有点把所有这些东西前置。然后当我在下午有自由时间时，我知道我会花在编码上，那就是我做的。所以我确实认为你必须了解自己。我还要说，再次，我一直关注我在哪里资源受限。我确实雇了我们的第一位工程师，一年给 Chappie，我这样做的原因，再次，非常与生活方式一致，那是第四——那是两年前。那是 7 月 4 日周末，我们去了 Santa Cruz，当时我有两个孩子。现在我有三个。我有两个孩子。孩子们在背景里玩耍，我在处理一些 Century——一些愚蠢的 OpenAI 故障或一些 Century 问题，我在做 PR，我看着我的孩子们。我说：“这太疯狂了，Claire。你不能在 7 月 4 日周末坐在笔记本电脑前推 PR，因为你是工程上的单点故障。”所以，大约两天后，我雇了今天和我们一起工作的工程师。所以，现在我们在公司工程支持方面有了很好的平衡。所以，每当我感觉，“你知道，Claire，你花时间做这个有点疯狂，相比——”总是相比能够花时间陪我的孩子。这实际上与业务无关。那就是我会雇人做某事的时候。

Well, again, know thyself. And one of the things that is very clear, having done this for 3 years, is I am an engineer at heart. I will literally build any feature, any feature on the face of the earth to avoid marketing. 100% like write a blog post about this awesome launch we did or launch 10 other things, I will definitely launch 10 other things. And so, you do have to really watch your own inclinations to where you want to spike deep, and you have to sort of build systems that support your special shape as a solo founder. And so, I've built this constellation of nine open claws. I have a marketing one, I have an EA, I have who was emailing you that I was late. I have an EA, I have a sales person, I have a support person, I have a support agent. So, I've built this sort of team around me so that I'm not the single point of failure on moving stuff forward. And then I've organized my day in that I swallow the frog. I do the stuff that I'm least inclined to naturally do up front, and then leave the afternoon for building, which I would build anyway. So, I do all my sales calls in the morning. I do all my marketing in the morning. I do all my podcasting work in the morning. I kind of front-load all that stuff. And then when I have this free time in the afternoon, I know I'm going to spend it coding, and that's what I do. And so, I do think you have to sort of know yourself. I also will say, again, I kept this eye on where am I resource-constrained. And I did hire our first engineer a year to Chappie and the reason I did this, again, very lifestyle aligned is it was fourth—it was 2 years ago. It was 4th of July weekend, and we went down to Santa Cruz with—I had two kids at the time. Now I have three. I had two kids. And the kids were like playing in the background, and I was like dealing with some Century—some dumb like OpenAI outage or some Century issue, and I was like doing a PR, and I just looked at my kids. I was like, "This is crazy, Claire. Like you cannot be sitting on your laptop on 4th of July weekend pushing PRs because you're the single point of failure on engineering." So, like 2 days later, I hired the engineer that's working with us today. And so, now we have this nice balance, I'd say, of engineering support on the company. And so, every point where I felt like, "You know, Claire, it's just a little cuckoo that you're spending your time doing this compared—" It was always compared to being able to spend time with my kids. It actually had nothing to do with business. That's when I would hire somebody to do something.

现在，我知道你和我们共同的朋友 Lenny 分享过你对 Open Claw 的看法，但也许你可以给个入门介绍，因为你知道，很多人对使用 AI、使用智能体有不同的哲学。

Now, I know you shared with like our mutual friend Lenny sort of how you think about Open Claw, but maybe if you could give kind of the primer about this because, you know, a lot of people have different philosophies around using AI, using agents.

有些人认为，最好有一个智能体，能在各种事情上拥有大量上下文。听起来你更倾向于采用“星座式”的方法。

Some people think that it's better to have one agent that has lots of context across various things. It sounds like you're taking more of the constellation approach.

是的。

Yep.

作为独立创始人，你会如何描述你做出这些决策的过程？你学到了什么？你尝试过什么？

How would you say, as a solo founder, you've made those decisions? What have you learned? What have you experimented with?

所以，我远、远、远更喜欢代表员工或代表职能的智能体身份。这是我的思维模型。这也是我在以前公司的工作方式，对吧？我没有一个员工，把工作分发给其他所有人。我有我的幕僚长，我有我的产品经理，我有我的工程师，我有我的支持团队。我能够相当清晰地定义每项工作以及理想员工画像应该是什么样，然后我把完全相同的模型应用到我的 Open Claws 上。所以，我没有做一个巨型 claw，而是做了九个迷你 claw。它们都有自己的身份。它们都有自己的工具。它们都有自己的工作空间。它们都会随着时间推移在自己的工作上变得更好。我给它们每个人都做单独辅导。而且这在运营上对我更有效，我认为在技术上也对我更有效，因为把一个智能体限定到一项待完成的工作，比构建一个无所不知、多用途、必须驾驭你整个业务的智能体要容易得多，即使这个业务像我跟你说过的那样相对较小。所以，这就是我的方法。我认为我们会看到——我的意思是，我们在编程领域已经看到了，对吧？没人说：“为什么 Cognition 的 Devin？为什么 Devin 不直接做所有事？”因为它擅长编程。Devin 是你的编程智能体。所以，就让 Devin 擅长那个吧。我对我的智能体也采取同样的方法。然后我会做很多不同的事情。我喜欢这个思维模型：如果我要启动一个项目，我可以直接为那个非常具体的项目启动一个智能体，给它一个非常具体的身份和一组工具，让它在受限空间里自由行动，然后它往往会做得非常非常好，因为定义得很清楚。我思考它的方式和我思考员工的方式一样。比如，我能告诉你你的工作是什么吗？我能告诉你成功是什么样吗？我能给你把工作做好所需的工具吗？我是否花了足够时间和你在一起，让你随着时间变得更好？对我来说，用单个智能体做这些，比用巨型智能体容易得多。

So, I much, much, much prefer agent identities that represent an employee or represent a function. It's how my mental model works. It's how I've worked in previous companies, right? I didn't have one employee that I worked with that federated out work to everybody else. I had my chief of staff, and I had my product managers, and I had my engineers, and I had my support team. And I was able to pretty clearly define what each of those jobs and the ideal profile of an employee should be, and I just applied that exact same model to my Open Claws. So, instead of making one mega claw, I made nine mini claws. They all have their own identity. They all have their own tools. They all have their own workspaces. They all get better at their jobs over time. I give them all individual coaching. And it's just worked better for me operationally, and it's worked better for me, I think, technically, because scoping an agent to a job to be done is much easier than building this all-knowing, multi-purpose agent that has to navigate your whole business, even if the business is relatively small like I talked to you. So, that's been my approach. I think we're going to see — I mean, we've seen this in coding, right? No one said, "Why is Devin by Cognition? Why doesn't Devin just do everything?" It's because Devin's good at coding. Devin's your coding agent. So, let's let Devin be good at that. I take that same approach to my agents. And then I work on so many different things. I like the mental model of: if I'm spinning up a project, I can just spin up an agent for that very specific project, give it a very specific identity and set of tools, and let it loose in a constrained space, and it tends to do a very, very good job then because it's well-defined. I think about it the same way I think about employees. Like, can I tell you what your job is? Can I tell you what success looks like? Can I give you the tools that you need to do the job well, and do I spend enough time with you that you're getting better over time? And it's much easier for me to do that with individual agents than with the mega agent.

我想这是我们第一次收到来自 Open Claw 智能体的消息，而且是多条消息，说某人会迟到，代表他们道歉，并表示如果合适可以重新安排。我不是想让你因为迟到而难受，因为那完全不是问题。我们只是在说，发生这件事多么有趣，而且看起来多么准确。还有，它竟然提前那么久提醒我们。那背后实际发生了什么？带我走一遍这个案例研究，因为基本上我觉得我们收到了你那个智能体的第一条通知，它可能叫 Polly。Polly 大概提前一个半小时说。我们从来不会提前一个半小时收到某人会迟到的消息。知道这一点真的太好了，对吧？因为我们当时想：“好吧，如果我们还需要做别的事，就不必严格准时了。”但那里实际发生了什么？它是怎么运作的？

I think this is the first time we've gotten a message, multiple messages, from an Open Claw agent saying that somebody was running late and apologizing on their behalf and offering to reschedule if it made sense. Not putting this as a way to make you feel badly for being late, because it was not a problem at all. We were just remarking about how interesting it was to have that happen and how seemingly accurate it was. Also, how it was warning us sort of far in advance. What's actually going on under the hood there? Just take me through a case study of this, because essentially I think that we got our first notification from your agent, which is maybe called Polly. And Polly said that maybe it was an hour and a half before. We never get a message that somebody's running late an hour and a half before. It was super nice to know, right? Because we were like, "Okay, we don't have to be exactly on time if we needed to do something else." But what's actually going on there? How does it work?

好，我带你走一遍。Polly 是我的行政助理。她负责日程安排、研究、会前简报。所以，每 15 分钟她就会说：“嘿，提醒一下，你马上要参加这个播客，这是你要见的人，地点在这里。”所以她有点像我的工作个人助理。我还有一个家庭个人助理叫 Finley，为我和我丈夫工作。所以，Polly 今天看了我的日程，然后说：“哎呀，我确实把你安排得太紧了，在城市两头背靠背。”所以，当我在第一个会议地点停车时，我给 Polly 发了一条语音消息，我说：“我肯定能准时赶到这个。你能告诉他们吗？”所以我想她发了。我甚至不知道她是否发了那封邮件。Polly 发什么不关我的事。所以，我想她发了一封邮件。然后，当我堵在死车流里时，我又给 Polly 发了一条 Telegram 消息，因为我通过 Telegram 使用她。那是语音消息，因为我不想打字。我发了一条语音消息，我说：“我堵车了。越来越糟。Config 在市中心。道歉。这是我预计到达的时间。如果他们想重新安排，让我知道。我非常灵活。你处理就行。”你知道，就像我朋友 Hillary 说的：“这是话痨的 API。”她就对他们话痨了一番。嗯，我觉得她做得很好。所以，Polly 有自己的电子邮件地址。她可以访问我的日历。她有我的电子邮件的读取权限，所以她知道正在发生什么。她有指令，规定她什么时候可以发邮件、什么时候不可以，什么时候必须向我简报、什么时候不必。然后，她还有——再说一次，我把她设计得对我来说显得非常主动。所以，每 15 分钟她会查看我接下来要做什么，并提醒我要见谁。每天她给我一份早晨简报，说明正在发生什么。每天下午，她和 Finley，也就是我的家庭智能体，会合谋确保有人去接孩子。所以，就像：“嘿 Claire，你要去市中心，你丈夫要去这边，孩子们在两个不同的篮球训练营。你非常确定有人接到他们了吗？”所以，我们会做很多这类事情，然后她还会构建操作手册之类的，你知道。

Yeah, I'll walk you through it. So, Polly is my EA. And so, she handles scheduling, research, pre-meeting briefs. So, every 15 minutes she's like, "Hey, just FYI, you're about to go into this podcast and here's who you're meeting with and this is where it is." And so, she's sort of like my work personal assistant. I also have a family personal assistant named Finley that works for my husband and I. And so, Polly, to this today, looked at my schedule and was like, "Whoops, I really put you back-to-back on a really tight schedule across the city." And so, as I was parking at meeting number one, I sent Polly a voice note and I said, "I'm sure I'm going to make it to this on time. Can you let them know?" And so I think she sent that. I don't even know if she sent that email. What Polly sends is none of my business. So, I think she sent an email. And then, as I was just sitting in deadlocked traffic, I sent another Telegram note to Polly because I use her through Telegram. It was a voice note because I don't want to type. I sent a voice note and I said, "I am stuck in traffic. It's getting worse. Config is downtown. Apologize. This is when I think I'm going to be there. If they want to reschedule, let me know. I'm super flexible. Just handle it." You know, it's as my friend Hillary says, "It's the yapper's API." It just yapped at them. Well, and I think she did a good job. And so, Polly has her own email address. She has access to my calendar. She has read access to my email, so she has context on what's going on. She has instructions on when she's allowed to send emails and when she's not, and when she has to brief me and when she doesn't. Then, she has — again, I've designed her to be very seemingly proactive to me. So, every 15 minutes she checks on what I'm doing next and reminds me who I'm meeting with. Every day she gives me a morning brief of what's going on. Every afternoon, she and Finley, who's my family agent, conspire to make sure that somebody's picking up the kids. So, it's like, "Hey Claire, you're going to be downtown and your husband's going to be over here and the kids are in two different basketball camps. Are you very sure somebody's got them?" And so, we do a lot of that stuff, and then she builds playbooks and all right, you know.

这真的很有趣。所以，想到这些智能体并以这种方式利用它们时，有一件事浮现在我脑海里，就是智能体何时透明地是 AI，对比某个东西试图不表现得像 AI、试图在后台行动。我的看法是，一般来说，人们只要知道那是 AI，就乐意与 AI 互动，但他们不喜欢某个东西感觉可能不是 AI，或者可能是 AI，存在那种模糊性。

That's really interesting. So, one thing that comes to mind with these agents and utilizing them in this way is this idea of when an agent is transparently AI versus when something is trying to not be AI and trying to act in the background. My sort of take on this is that generally people are happy to interact with AI as long as they know that it's AI, but they don't like it when something feels like it's maybe not AI or it's maybe AI and there's that ambiguity.

是的。

Yep.

或者某个东西很粗糙，却试图冒充，这有点侮辱人的智商。所以，我非常喜欢这种非常开放的做法：“嘿，我是 AI 智能体。”我很好奇，这与 ChatGPT 如何衔接，你知道，或者用 AI 生成任何东西。我知道一件事——你的朋友，你也和 Dan Shipper 是朋友。

Or it's something that's sloppy and trying to pass off as this kind of insults their intelligence. So, I really like the approach of being very open that like, "Hey, I'm the AI agent." I'm curious how this dovetails to ChatGPT, which is, you know, or generating anything with AI. One thing that I know — your friends, you're also friends with Dan Shipper.

他最近提出的一个观点是，让 AI 生成任何你想要的内容，但你要对 AI 输出的实际内容负责。所以，如果你无法解释或辩护 AI 生成的文档中的任何内容，那你就没有尽到作为团队成员的责任，因为你甚至都没有校对之类的。我很好奇你怎么看待 AI 用于生成、AI 用于智能体，以及人类问责制这方面的问题。

One thing that he put out fairly recently was this idea that you have AI generate whatever you want it to, but own the actual content that the AI puts out. So, if you can't explain or defend whatever is in the generated document by AI, then you're not doing your job as a teammate because you're just sort of like not even proofreading or whatever. I'm curious how you think about sort of use of AI for generation, use of AI for agents, and sort of that aspect of like human accountability, that sort of thing.

是的，我觉得 Linear 的人也有一个有趣的做法，你不能把任务分配给智能体，你只能委托给智能体。这是一个非常有趣的细微差别，但本质上是同一个概念。智能体不能拥有任何东西。我不知道。我在这里要稍微极端一点。我认为智能体可以拥有东西。最终，我要为我业务中所有系统的表现负责，无论是人还是智能体。我想这可能就是我的经验和视角，就像我说的，我在组织中承担过最终的责任，因为我管理过大型工程组织，P0 故障，工程师睡过去了，他的经理也不好过。猜猜谁在凌晨 2 点被呼叫？是我。所以，我见过人类所有权的失败状态，我不认为人类所有权的失败状态和智能体所有权的失败状态有多大区别。所以，我可能在这个光谱上更愿意把所谓的“所有权”委托给智能体，因为我认为这就是未来的方向。也许最终我要负责。但这和有人类在环 vs 智能体是一样的。所以，我不觉得它们有那么大的不同。

Yeah, I mean I think the folks at Linear also have an interesting approach here where you can't assign things to agents, you can only delegate things to agents. It's a very interesting nuance, but essentially same concept. An agent can't own anything. I don't know. I'm going to be a little extreme here. I think agents can own things. Now, ultimately I'm accountable to the performance of all systems in my business, whether human or agent. And I think this is where maybe I have the experience and perspective of somebody who has, as I said, like held the ultimate pager um in organizations because I ran large engineering organizations, P0, engineer sleeps through it, his manager has a hard time. Guess who's getting paged at 2:00 in the morning? It's me. And so, I have seen the failure states of human ownership, and I don't think there's that much difference between the failure states of human ownership and agent ownership. And so, I think I'm probably on the spectrum a little bit more willing to delegate quote-unquote ownership to agents because I think this is where we're going. And maybe ultimately I'm accountable. But that would be the same as if there was a human in the loop versus an agent. So, I don't think of them that differently.

就智能体的透明度而言，Polly 有一个签名。它有一个小龙虾开爪的签名。所以，懂的人自然懂。就像 Polly 是 Claire 的小龙虾助手。知道的人知道那是什么。可能不知道的人就处于一种模糊的状态。也许他们并不真的在意。嗯，我确实有一个销售智能体。抱歉，ChatGPT 的潜在客户们，Sam。嗯，它负责我所有的入站回复，安排我所有的销售会议，管理销售管道，诸如此类。人们肯定认为 Sam 是真人。嗯，他们来开会时会说：“Sam 会加入我吗？”我就像加入一样，我说：“哦，抱歉。Sam 不是，Sam 不是人类。”

In terms of transparency of agent versus not, Polly has a signature. It's got the little lobster open claw signature in it. So, it's like if you know, you know. It's like Polly Claire's lobster assistant. And so, people that know know what that is. People that maybe don't are like sort of in this ambiguous spot. And maybe they they don't they don't really care. Um I do have a sales agent. Sorry, Chat GPT prospects, Sam. Um who does all my um replies to all my inbound, sets up all my meetings on sales, runs pipeline, all that kind of stuff. People definitely think Sam is real. Um and they show up to meetings they're like, "Is Sam joining me?" And I'm like joining I'm like, "Oh, I'm sorry. Sam is not Sam is not a human."

深紫色。

Dark purple.

嗯，但因为我就是 Claire，How I AI 的，因为我在构建一个 AI 产品，我的客户喜欢这样，因为这正是 AI 优先模式和 AI 优先运营方式的展示，我认为他们觉得这很有趣、鼓舞人心，而不是阴险。所以，我采取这种方法。

Um but but because I'm Claire, how I AI though, because I'm building an AI product, my customers love that because it's just a demonstration of this sort of like AI first model and AI first way of operating that I think they find sort of like interesting and and inspirational as opposed to um devious. So, I I take that approach.

How I AI 真的很成功。我是说，你在 YouTube 上有近 10 万订阅者。嗯，我想你有大约 300 个视频。这真的非常令人印象深刻，非常多产。同时，你说过，如果你不控制自己的偏好或时间分配，你可能不会做这个。你可能会去编码或构建功能。所以，也许你可以多分享一些你决定开始做这个的时候。背后的灵感是什么？你如何看待媒体和讲故事在吸引客户方面的作用，这更多是关于建立知名度或权威，还是你怎么看？

The How I AI is is really successful. I mean, you have nearly 100,000 subscribers on YouTube. Um I think you have something like 300 videos. That's really really impressive, like very prolific. At the same time, you said that, you know, if you didn't sort of kind of control for maybe your predisposition or sort of where you would spend your time, you probably wouldn't be doing that. You'd probably be, you know, coding or something, building features. So, maybe you could share a little bit more about when you decided to start making that. Sort of what was the inspiration behind it? How you think about media and storytelling when it comes to, you know, attracting clients and and sort of is that is that more of a like a thing around getting building awareness or authority or how do you how do you think about that?

好消息是，我表现最好的播客是我在编码的那些。所以，这非常有趣。是的，验证。所以，这是一个我在一年多前和 Lenny 一起推出的播客。我们的整个假设是，人们对真实动手演示 AI 使用有需求。我们开始做了很多采访，采访那些在日常工作流程中使用 AI 的人，探索他们如何使用不同的工具，以及它如何影响他们的工作或生活。它演变成更加平衡。大约一半是采访，一半是我独自讲解具体工作流程、查看模型、解释工具，并总体上为人们揭开 AI 的神秘面纱。

Good news is my best performing podcasts are ones where I am coding. So, that is very interesting. Yeah, validation. And so, this is a podcast that I launched a little over a year ago with Lenny. And our whole hypothesis was that there was appetite for real hands-on demonstration of AI use. And we started with a lot of interviews of people just using AI in their day-to-day workflows and exploring how they were using different tools and how it was impacting how they they did their work or how they lived their life. And it's sort of evolved to be a little bit more balanced. It's about half interviews and then half me solo going through specific workflows, looking at models, explaining tools, and just generally demystifying AI for folks.

我喜欢这个播客的地方是，它完全在我的天赋领域，技术上我是在家里独自完成的，所以我是一个非常快乐的内向者。我能学到很多，因为我只是和有趣的人交谈，他们向我展示他们用 AI 做的有趣事情，然后我拿来用，用在我自己的代码中，用在我自己的业务中。所以，这是一个非常棒的学习经历，它为我作为创始人创造了更多知名度，为我的产品创造了更多知名度，为我认为在市场上做得很好的人创造了更多知名度。所以，这真的是对我的时间的一次极好的投资，你知道，我认为播客和媒体可以是一门好生意，但我最看重的是我学到了东西。就像它是一个借口，去和这个领域最聪明的人谈论他们在做什么，这是一种无形的收益，我认为在我的慈善业务中真的很有回报。

What I love about the podcast, it is actually perfectly in my zone of genius, which is I technically do it alone in my house, so I'm very happy introvert. I get to learn so much because I just talk to interesting people and they show me interesting things that they do with AI and then I go take it and I use it and I use it in my own code, I use it in my own business. So, it is this really great learning experience and it just creates more visibility for me as a founder, it creates more visibility for my product, it creates more visibility for people that I think are doing great things in the market overall. And so, it's been a really wonderful investment of of my time and you know, I think podcasting and media can be a great business, but the thing that I value the most out of it is I learn. Like it is just an excuse to talk to the smartest people in the space about what they're doing, and that's a real like that is a um intangible benefit that I think really pays off in in my charity business.

我认为，我制作 Solo Founders 播客的部分原因是因为我想学习，你知道，从人们那里学习，我觉得独立创业这件事还在摸索中。就像每个人都在以不同的方式做。嗯，你知道，关于如何与联合创始人一起建立初创公司，有更多的剧本和经验法则。所以，这部分是为了学习，如果没有一个途径或借口与人交谈，你根本无法从人们那里学到如此深度的东西。

I think it's a I mean, part of the reason that I do the Solo Founders podcast is because I I want to learn, you know, from from people I feel like solo founding is something that um is still being figured out. Like everybody's doing it differently. Um you know, there are more playbooks and rules of thumb for how to build startups with co-founders. Uh so so part of this is is you know, a lot of this is to learn, and you don't you wouldn't be able to learn from people nearly the same level of depth unless you had sort of a you know, an avenue for an excuse to talk to people.

这是一个借口。

It's an excuse.

播客或 YouTube 频道真正有趣的地方是，你有这种多样性。所以，不仅仅是采访，也不仅仅是编码和产品视频。嗯，这是你早期就开始做的吗？这是你学到的东西吗？因为我认为很多时候人们有点担心，老实说，我不知道我这边应该做什么。对于 Solo Founders，我们主要做采访。有一次我们做了一个视频，是我回顾过去的对话，有一条线索连接每次对话，然后对每个对话有小片段和评论。人们很喜欢。他们说这太棒了。我们做这个坦白说是因为我们的目录有点空缺。

The thing that's really interesting about the podcast uh or the YouTube channel, I should say, um is that you have this variety. So, it's not just interviews, it's not just the the coding and product videos. Um is that something you started with early on? Is that something that you've learned anything about? Because I think that often times people are a little bit worried, and I'll say honestly like I don't know uh on my end uh you know, what we should be doing. With the Solo Founders, we mostly do interviews. At one point we uh we did this video where we did sort of uh it was me sort of going past through past conversations and sort of having this thread connecting each conversation and then little clips and commentary about each of them. People loved it. They said this was amazing. We did it frankly because we we had sort of a a lull in the in the in the catalog.

我们当时想，我们得试试新东西。大家很喜欢，但我想知道的是你学到了什么，因为我们这边除了访谈之外其实没怎么尝试过，但唯一一次尝试还是展现出了一些潜力。所以，我就是想了解你学到了什么。

We were like, we've got to try something new here. People loved it, but I guess it's one of those things where I'm curious what you've learned, because on our end we haven't really tried much beyond the interviews, but the one time we did, it showed some promise. So yeah, I just want to learn what you learned.

播客好玩的地方在于——不知道你能不能看出来——我是个停不下来的学习者。所以去学一门新生意、学一个新产品，对我来说非常有意思。我确实是像做产品一样来做播客的。比如，我们到底想实现什么？我想给观众和听众带来巨大的价值。我想确保赞助商觉得他们被照顾得很好，他们的投入非常值得。同时我也想学到很多东西。所以，我想实现什么？然后我反推：那这个东西应该长什么样？我们怎么把它执行好？还是那句话，就像做产品一样。所以你可以说我们有一个产品组合。我们有访谈产品，有模型评测产品，有迷你单集产品。那这些产品各自的产品市场契合度是什么？然后我们在哪些有效的事情上加倍投入、获得更多杠杆？这经历了很多实验，而且我得说并不是所有实验都是有目的的。早期就是有些我想聊的东西，不适合访谈形式。所以我就直接做内容。那时候甚至没有广告赞助，就是我们做的完全免费的内容，但大家很喜欢。所以一旦我们发现人们喜欢这种特定风格的单人内容，我们就可以围绕它搭建编辑日历和赞助日历，这对我们、赞助商和听众都说得通。所以这是大量的迭代，现在我们非常数据驱动。但这里的“我们”指的是 Howie——How I AI Open Claw 非常数据驱动。Howie 管理得很严格。Howie 负责我们发布后的所有分析，看所有的 A/B 测试，就什么标题、话题和嘉宾可能有效给出建议。所以我们给播客增加了一些辅助马力，确保我们把一切指向正确的方向。但这周早些时候我跟一个朋友聊到的一件事是，我认为访谈形式仍然会非常非常受欢迎，但人们渴望一些不一样的东西。所以，我又把这当作一个机会。我有一阵子特别迷 TikTok。我需要回到短视频竖屏内容。TikTok 上有一些 cloud girls 在做很酷的东西。所以，短视频是不是我们的一个载体？我们是不是应该多做短视频？我是不是应该多写东西？这门生意到底是什么？我就是这么想的。然后什么样的产品需要装进这门生意里？我就是用一种非常迭代的产品思路来做它。

Yeah, so what's so fun about the podcast is — I don't know if you can tell — I am a relentless learner. So it's very interesting to learn a new business and learn a new product. And so I definitely approach the podcast like a product. Like, what are we trying to achieve here? I'm trying to bring incredible value to our viewers and listeners. I want to make sure our sponsors feel like they're really well taken care of and that their investment is a great one. And I want to learn a bunch. So, what am I trying to achieve? And then I back into: well, what should be the shape of this? And how do we execute on it well? And again, you just approach it like a product. So you can say we have a product portfolio. We have our interviews product. We have our models review product. We have our mini episodes product. And what's the product-market fit for any of those products? And then where do we double down and get more leverage on things that work for us? And it took a lot of experimentation, and I would say not all of it was purposeful. So early on, there was just stuff that I wanted to talk about that didn't fit the interview format. And so I just created content. It wasn't even ad-sponsored for us. It was just completely free content that we did that people really liked. And so once we figured out people like this certain style of solo content, we could then build an editorial calendar around it and a sponsorship calendar around it that made sense for us and our sponsors and our listeners. And so it was a lot of iteration, and now we're very data-driven. But by we, I mean Howie — the How I AI Open Claw is very data-driven. So Howie runs a tight ship. Howie is doing all of our analytics post-release, looking at all of our A/B tests, making recommendations on what titles and topics and guests might work. And so we have augmented the podcast with some adjunct horsepower to make sure that we're pointing everything in the right direction. But one of the things that I was talking to a friend about earlier this week is I think interview formats will still be very, very popular, but people yearn for something different. And so again, I use this as an opportunity. I was really into TikTok for a while. I need to go back to short-form vertical content. There's some cloud girls out there doing very cool stuff on TikTok. So, is short-form a vehicle for us? Should we be doing more in short-form? Should I be writing more? Like, what is the business again? Is how I think about it. And then what kind of products need to fit in the business? And I just take a very iterative product approach to it.

这很酷。我想关于 Open Claw 的东西还有最后一个技术问题。你用的是 Mac mini 吗？还是在云端跑？就是，具体是——

That's cool. I guess one last technical question about the Open Claw stuff. Are you using Mac minis? Are you doing it in the cloud? Like, what's —

全是 Mac——一堆，成堆的 Mac mini。我桌上就有四台 Mac mini。一台是我工作用的。一台是我老公的。一台是给家里和孩子用的。还有一台是 Perplexity 电脑，跑的是 Perplexity，不是 Open Claw。你要是能偷看一眼 Vo Lawless 家就好了。我老公就走来走去嘟囔着：“我们需要更多算力。”而我拼命在找 Mac Studio。我们过得非常——我 9 岁的孩子会说：“谁拿了我的电脑？我的树莓派呢？”所以我们非常符合人设。

All Mac — stacks, fat stacks of Mac minis. So I have four Mac minis on my desk. One is my work one. One is my husband's. One is for the family and kids. And then one is a Perplexity computer. It's running Perplexity. It's not running Open Claw. And I would just like a sneak peek into the Vo Lawless household. My husband just walks around mumbling like, "We need more compute." And I'm desperately looking for Mac Studios. So we live a very — my 9-year-old is like, "Who took my computer? Where's my Raspberry Pi?" So we're very on brand.

等等，那每一台——因为你说你有大概八九个 Open Claw。那这些实际上在干什么？

Wait, so each of those — because you said you have something like eight or nine Open Claws. So what's actually happening there with those?

我所有工作用的都在——基本上，我朋友 Jessie Janay 给了我一个概念，我觉得特别棒，就是：你的机器就是你的沙盒。所以我把所有跟 Chat PRD 相关的工作者放进它们自己的办公室，那个办公室就是我的 Mac mini。它们都有自己的工作区，都有自己的工位。但说到底，如果 Polly 溜进 Max 的隔间，大概也没事，因为都是同一门生意。但我不一定想让 Polly 溜进我孩子的作业里，反过来也一样。所以我真的很喜欢按智能体所依附的生意对它们做物理隔离。所以我所有的生意内容在一台上，我老公的生意内容在另一台上，个人内容在一台上，然后我们有一台流动的，用来跑 Perplexity 电脑和 Codex 任务。

So I have all my work ones on — basically, my friend Jessie Janay gave me this concept and I think it's really great, which is: your machine is your sandbox. And so I put all Chat PRD-related workers in their own office, and that office is my Mac mini. And they all have their own workspaces, they all have their own desks. But at the end of the day, if Polly wanders into Max's cubicle, it's probably fine, because it's all the same business. But I don't necessarily want Polly wandering into my kids' homework, and vice versa. And so I really like physically partitioned the agents based on the business they're attached to. So all my business stuff is on one, all my husband's business stuff on the other, the personal stuff is on one, and then we have a floater that we throw Perplexity computer at and then Codex tasks at.

酷。太棒了。我想最后几个问题，我们总是用它来收尾，就是那些惯例问题——你知道，这次有点不一样，因为你在建的是一门非常不同的生意，但我们很想以“不要做单人创始人的理由”来收尾。然后我们聊个一两分钟。接着再聊支持单人创立的理由。那么，不要做单人创始人的理由是什么？

Cool. That's awesome. I guess the last questions, which we always wrap with, are the customary ones, which is — you know, it's a little bit different because you're building such a different type of business, but we'd love to close with the reason to not be a solo founder. And then we talk about that for a minute or two. And then we go to the case for solo founding. So, what's the reason to not be a solo founder?

把钱全拿到手。我不认为从股权所有权的角度去看是对的视角。甚至想成为自己生意的独裁者——我不认为“要么听我的要么滚”、100% 所有权是正确的动机，因为在各种规模和形态的生意里，有很多方式可以推动你的意见。所以我不认为那是做单人创始人的正确理由，因为你觉得你就是那个——因为说实话，每个人都有老板。我的老板就是我的客户。所以你永远逃不掉有个老板。而且股权分割也能带来很多非常令人兴奋的财务结果。所以我不认为那些是做单人创始人的理由。

Have all the money. I don't think ownership in terms of equity ownership is the right lens. And even the desire to be the dictator of your own business — I don't think my way or the highway, 100% ownership is the right motivating factor, because there's lots of ways to drive your opinion in businesses of all shapes and sizes. And so I don't think that's the right reason to be a solo founder, because you really feel like you're the — because honestly, everybody has a boss. My boss is just my customers. So you're never going to escape having a boss. And there can be lots of very exciting financial outcomes with split ownership. And so I don't think those are the reasons to be a solo founder.

对，因为你谈到技能组合之类的东西。你觉得技能组合是另一个理由吗，或者说——我很好奇，就是不要单人的理由，对。

Yeah, because you talk about skill sets and things like that. Do you think that skill sets are another reason, or like — I'm curious, like, to not be solo, yeah.

我是说，我觉得有些人具备某些特质，可能做单人创始人会相当不成功。一个是如果你没有很多内在——如果你是外在驱动的，那么有其他投资于你生意的人作为外在激励会很有帮助，不管是投资人、员工还是联合创始人。如果你不是内在驱动的，而且你又容易犯“闪亮物体综合征”，那通常有个能约束你的力量是件好事。

I mean, I think there are attributes of people who would probably be quite unsuccessful being a solo founder. One is if you just do not have a lot of intrinsic — if you are extrinsically motivated, it is helpful to have extrinsic motivators in the form of other people invested in your business, whether investors or employees or a founder. If you're not intrinsically motivated, and then if you're prone to shiny object syndrome, it's often nice to have a moderating force on you.

如果你确实没有完整的技能组合来完成手头的所有工作，我认为作为一个在某个职能领域有极深专长的独立创始人其实非常困难。我认为在早期，在创始人团队、高管团队，无论是什么，稍微全面一点总是更好的，因为我认为你会避免一些最终能帮助你建立更大业务的事情。

And if you honestly just don't have the complete skill set to do all the jobs at hand, I think it is actually very hard to be a solo founder with an extremely deep spike in one functional area. It's always, I think, better to be a little bit more rounded at the founder table, at the executive table, whatever that is, early on because I think you will avoid things that ultimately help you build a bigger business.

我觉得这很有道理。我很高兴我们在最后加上了这一点。

I think that that makes a lot of sense. I'm happy we added that onto the end there.

我想说说支持独立创业的理由。

I guess the case for solo founding.

哦，那是最好的。你知道，我有过联合创始人，我和员工一起建立过企业，我当然也和员工一起经营过企业，然后我完全靠自己做了这一切。我想说，我是一种非常不同的独立创始人，对吧？因为你可以是独立创始人但接受投资。你可以是独立创始人但有很多员工。你可以是独立创始人但仍然有董事会。我是真正的独狼式独立创始人。所以我认为我的视角会有点不同，那就是真正拥有自己的公司让你能够塑造你真正想要的生活。这与让你建立十亿美元的业务非常不同。我想非常明确地说，这些不一定是——它们可以重叠。也许它们会重叠。我们拭目以待。你们多写一些 PRD。但我确实认为，不听从别人对成功生活应该是什么样、因此你的成功企业应该是什么样子的看法，这种能力对于成为独立创业者，如果不是独立创始人的话，是非常非常有价值的。因为实际上我可以对我不想合作的客户说不。实际上我可以只发布那些让我快乐的东西，也许客户想要，也许不想要。如果我想，我可以放慢业务的增长。我刚有了一个 6 个月大的孩子。你猜怎么着？12 月我怀孕 9 个月的时候，可不是一个闪耀的聊天 PRD 月份。你猜怎么着？没有人抱怨我。甚至没有一个 open claw 抱怨我，因为那时他们还没出现。所以就像我只是认为真正拥有你想要的生活的能力是我现在不会交换的东西。你知道，就像我告诉人们的，你得付我几百万美元我才会回到一个有 500 人的 Slack 里。就像我现在快乐非常非常高，所以我认为真正拥有你的生活，不是你的企业，而是你的生活，是我认为人们不应该低估的东西。

Oh, it's the best. You know, I've had co-founders, I have built businesses with employees, I've certainly run businesses with employees, and then I've done this all on my own. I would say I'm just like a very different shape of solo founder, right? Because you can be a solo founder but take investment. You can be a solo founder and have lots of employees. You can be a solo founder and still have a board. I am like truly lone wolf solo founder. And so I think my perspective is going to be a little bit different, which is to truly own your own company allows you to shape a life you really want. And that is just very different from allows you to build a billion-dollar business. And I want to be very clear that those are not necessarily—they can be overlapped. Maybe they will be. We'll see. You all make some more PRDs. But I do think the ability to not answer to anybody else's idea of what a successful life looks like and therefore what your successful business should look like is a very, very high-value thing for being a solo entrepreneur, if not a solo founder. Because literally I can just say no to customers I don't want to work with. Literally I could just ship stuff that sparks joy for me that maybe customers want, maybe they don't. I can slow down the growth of the business if I want. I just had a 6-month-old. Guess what? December when I was 9 months pregnant was not a shining star chat PRD month. And guess what? No one complained to me about it. Not even a single open claw complained to me about it because they weren't around then. And so like I just think the ability to really have the life that you want is something that I wouldn't trade for right now. You know, as I tell people like many millions of dollars you'd have to pay me to go back into a Slack with 500 people. Like my joy is very, very high now and so I think that like true ownership of your over your life, not your business, but over your life is something that I think people shouldn't underestimate.

这太棒了。我的意思是，我真的很感谢你抽出时间。我知道你是唯一一个在你的业务上工作的人。你一直是唯一一个在你的业务上工作的人。所以我知道这很不容易。而且你知道，我觉得这太棒了，因为你提供了一种非常独特的视角。你知道，我们交谈的很多人都在建立有资金、有团队之类的公司。我认为建立公司的不同方式都很了不起。我认为作为独立创始人的酷之处在于你真正——这不是关于独裁，而是关于真正选择你想要什么。我更愿意称之为作者身份。这种作者身份，决定你想围绕你的目标创作什么样的书或什么样的东西，真的很棒。我觉得能有你来做客真是太棒了，因为你能够分享一种不同的视角，一种我认为将是真正独一无二的视角。所以，谢谢你这样做。

This is awesome. I mean, I really appreciate you taking the time. I know you're the only human working on your business. You're the only human working on your business of all time. So I know this is a lot. And you know, I think it's just so great because you're providing a perspective that is very unique. You know, a lot of the people we talk to are building, you know, companies where they have funding and they have teams and things like that. And I think that different ways of building companies are amazing. I think that the cool thing about being a solo founder is that you truly—it's not about the dictatorship, it's about choosing really what you want. I call it authorship more. And this authorship of deciding what kind of book or what kind of thing you want to create around what your goals are is really great. I think it's so wonderful to have you on because you're able to share a different perspective, one that, you know, I think is going to be truly singular. So, thank you for doing that.

嗯，谢谢。真的很有趣。

Well, well, thank you. It was really fun.

如果你喜欢这次对话，我们希望你能与所有你认识的人分享《独立创始人》，特别是那些正在考虑独立创业或已经在这样做的人。你知道，我们所做的一切目标就是让独立创业正常化，鼓励更多人独立创业，而不是最终与便利的联合创始人在一起。如果你愿意，我们非常感激，你可以去 Apple 上留下评论，你可以给我们点赞，你可以在 YouTube 频道上订阅。任何帮助都有用。当然，如果你正在创业或考虑创业，你应该去看看独立创始人项目。我们在旧金山与一群其他独立创始人一起与你合作。理念是，一起独立比独自独立好得多。我会花很多时间帮助你，我们还会向你的公司投资 10 万美元。所以，如果你兴奋地想了解更多，请查看 solofounders.com/program。

If you enjoyed this conversation, we would love it if you could share Solo Founders with everyone you know, particularly people who are considering starting companies solo or who are already doing it. You know, the entire goal of what we do is to normalize solo founding, encourage more people to solo found instead of end up with co-founders of convenience. If you'd like, and we really appreciate it, you can go leave a review on Apple, you can go give us a thumbs up, you can subscribe on the YouTube channel. Anything helps. And of course, if you are starting a company or considering starting a company, you should go look at the Solo Founders program. We work together with you in San Francisco alongside of a bunch of other solo founders. The idea is it's much better to be solo together than to be solo alone. I'll spend a lot of time helping you, and we also invest $100,000 in your company. So, if you're excited to learn more about that, go check out solofounders.com/program.