Why Data Drives Great AI Products

Opening: Founders struggle with decision-making under uncertainty. Quote:

"If you're making a decision with less than 30% of the available data, you're making a big mistake. If you're making a decision only after you have 70%...you have waited far too long."

Takeaway:

• Make decisions with 30-70% of data.
• Balance speed and certainty.
• Act decisively despite imperfect data.

Opening: Founders need to align team incentives to achieve outcomes. Quote:

"People only do what their incentives told them to do... You get what you set out to measure, you get what you give people incentives to do."

Takeaway:

• Design incentives aligned with goals.
• Misaligned incentives hinder progress.
• Adjust rewards to drive behaviors.

Opening: AI is changing startup growth strategies in distribution and marketing. Quote:

"People could see Facebook doing their 10 friends in seven days... At the time it wasn't that obvious because for a lot of B2B companies..."

Takeaway:

• AI tools crowd traditional channels.
• Innovate to stand out in the market.
• Recognize AI may complicate distribution.

Opening: Founders must decide when to discontinue underperforming products. Quote:

"We launched the product... After two years of failure when kind of somebody wanted to pay us money for it, and I look back on that and I'm just like, man, like that was a really big..."

Takeaway:

• Assess product performance honestly.
• Don't let sunk costs deter pivots.
• Regularly evaluate product-market fit.

Opening: Founders grapple with balancing data and intuition in decisions. Quote:

"If you're looking at a piece of data and the result tells you something that your intuition tells you is like insanely wrong...first believe your intuition and go and prove yourself right."

Takeaway:

• Trust intuition when data seems off.
• Use data to validate gut feelings.
• Avoid over-reliance on flawed data.

Opening: Founders gain valuable insights by taking on varied roles, building a versatile 'bingo card' of experiences. Quote:

"My career's been a little bit like a bingo card...finding very different roles for every new job that he takes."

Takeaway:

• Seek roles that fill experience gaps.
• Leverage diverse insights to solve problems.
• Build versatility for better decision-making.

Opening: B2B startups can benefit from a dedicated growth team to drive product-led growth. Quote:

"We set out to go, OK, well, do those techniques work in B2B? And also, like, you know, it's kind of obvious now that a lot of them do..."

Takeaway:

• Prove value with early growth wins.
• Scale efforts systematically.
• Integrate growth with sales and marketing.

Opening: Founders worry that AI could easily clone B2B SaaS apps, threatening existing businesses. Quote:

"People really underestimate where the value is created in these applications, and they just kind of get it completely wrong."

Takeaway:

• Value lies in business rules, not just UI.
• AI may strengthen incumbents, not disrupt.
• Focus on unique value beyond replication.

Opening: In AI product development, managing data effectively is more crucial than the models themselves. Quote:

"You've got this synthesis machine, which is this LLM thing... But if it hasn't got all that data to do synthesis on top of, it's got nothing."

Takeaway:

• Prioritize collecting and managing high-quality data.
• Understand that AI models rely on data.
• Invest in data management for better AI outcomes.

Opening: To build successful products, founders need effective product managers who focus on what truly adds value. Quote:

"Everything, always talk from the customer's perspective, from the market's perspective, from the competitor's perspective, a very small number of PMs do that."

Takeaway:

• Encourage PMs to focus on external perspectives.
• Avoid internal distractions and politics.
• Improve product value by understanding customers and market.