The Rise of Versel: Insights from Developer Advocate Stephen on Building Viral Products

It's a combination of the words versatile accelerate and Excel it feels like a lot of the things you're You're

Building kind of they seem to blow up [Music] now there's a pattern amongst things

that are seemingly simple to build engineering wise but has a huge fire Factor what was it about Geo that made

you want to work kind of with him it sounds impossible to for someone to know everything but the way he talks it seems

like he knows everything so it's like very very knowledgeable guy incor engineer and now a Founder as well have

you ever considered going like the founder route I considered myself a Founder at hard and it's something that

I definitely want to do uh if I were to leave verel it wouldn't be D joying another company there's a lot of risk in

that obviously but I'm I'm excited and looking forward to taking that risk wait was that it no best advice best advice

oh yeah what's your best advice for someone that I just literally said things that

came he's right though no one has gotten through it that fast you're the first person that actually like did the

[Music] promt all right Stephen welcome to the podcast man thanks man I feel like I'm

starting to say this every time but this is one of our most requested episode since the last most requested episode no

way so we're on the up I'm so excited to be here I've I've heard a lot of good things watch a bunch of episodes we said

your name a bunch of times in the last episode the second last episode this is that's the secret you ever read the

secret no you know what I said I don't know it's just like if you manifest something it'll come true right so you

just keep saying it and then it disappears yeah like I when I get my Equator Coffee they're like you know

what's your name for the Steven T right so I'm going just keep doing it every time I order food it's manifesting it

but he's here now why do you got to keep doing it huh he's here now cuz I get paid every time I say it you P oh he

doesn't know it's a it's a commission based right it's a commission based it's commission exactly so do you want to

give an introduction about yourself for people that might not know sure yeah uh my name is Stephen I am a developer

Advocate at vers build templates write guides educate people on how to use ral's Technologies like nextjs the SDK

yada yada yada and yeah through that I've um before veral I actually was about to start my own company and I

write about when I was about to sign the safe note um the founder of Ral GM marage actually reached out and he was

like what you join us instead uh and and start a career here learn more about Open Source about B2B sales uh and at

the time I was a huge fan of Rell and I didn't have as much conviction as I wanted in my the the company I was

starting so I said yes and the rest is history W how long ago was that that was two years plus now was July of 2021

versel hasn't been around for that long though they actually have it's funny G actually just celebrated his eighty year

vsel anniversary can you imagine that you can go a little bit back from July of 2021 so I was uh basically building

this company it was more of a site project at the time it was called one word domains it's like this platform for

it was back then you were building it but that just recently reached uh or just recently launched like in the last

year I did a relaunch gota so it I launched a way back when I was in college at the time it was like in the

middle of the pandemic May of 2020 I was like I need to learn how to code because I came from data science background and

I was like I can't just be writing Jupiter notebooks all day long I need to like build something that people can use

so domains was sort of like the way I learned how the code I literally built that in flask HTML CSS none of the fancy

web Frameworks nowadays um and through that experience I learn how to code learn how to listen to users add more

features uh actually won like prod product hunt golden Kitty award at one point which is really cool uh but from

that I actually so I was thinking of turning that into a venture back startup and uh add more features and think about

like how I can raise money and and and uh build a team uh so so forth uh and through that actually reached out to

versel I was like I dm'd no actually didn't DM I sent a code email to Partnerships at versel I was like why

don't we partner up you guys have a domains product I'm building domains product so I can offer you guys you know

like API or something they did not respond and then about a week later I I sent an another email directly to Yo and

that's when he responded he was like we're not focusing on Mains but we love to get to know you H and your company

and that's how how we got to know each other that was about how be before like the um July of 2021 interesting and at

that point what was versel up to kind of how were they still like legit were they already legit yeah they were pretty big

they were uh focused a lot on like frontend development and deployment and and they didn't have any like AI

features back then it was more focused on like helping the developer have the most seamless deployment experience and

I tried out the product huge fan right away uh back then I was still using Hoku sort of bought into the versal drug at

the time and it was it was fantastic yeah what do you think it was that made versel beat out Heroku cuz I also

remember when I first started kind of learning well the first thing I ever tried building was a social app like

every other person it feels like and so when I was trying to build the web component everyone was like oh you have

to use Heroku yeah it's I think there's a lot of factors I think the the main thing that sort of made it stood out was

the focus and developer experience being able to push a change to get which is something that a lot of developers are

already familiar with and have that change be deployed instantaneously to globally to the web that was something

that back in the day like it was unheard of and weel sort of pioneered that now it's like everyone's already doing it

but but back in the day it was like really a v factor and from that like we added a lot of more uh intuitive

features and also focus a lot on great design and that's something that really made it stood up the name is so much

better it was a different it was a different name back it was okay it was like that's why okay was yeah it was

Zite zei t in it was German for time Z knockof how how they land over cell it's so clean I know the story actually I

mean I wasn't part of it at the time I had no idea but I read about it it's basically they partnered with a like an

branding agency that named companies like Sonos like all these big that's a good one Big Brand son is a great one

it's a good one yeah it's like this guy who sits by the river and like gets ideas for names to his head I don't know

I heard this from I heard this around the G find so might not and charge CP ton of money so uh but

it was a great name like he came out with that like they basically came out with the name for us it's a combination

of the words uh versatile accelerate and Excel damn so uh three words combined good man vers pretty good that's pretty

good was pretty good yeah that was yeah it was a good time um but um yeah so that's basically how how um how I got to

ver what was it about guo that made you want to work kind of with with him I know a lot of the time especially when

you're going from like you want to be a founder and then someone tries to convince you to join their company which

is the same boat we were in about a year a little over a year ago it really comes down to I think at least for us it was

like oh I want to work with fan um what was it about Geo for you I think there's a lot of similarities to Fan because

funny thing I actually got to know fan a little while after I joined verel like half a year so I did see the Charisma

and like how smart he is and just like the way he cares himself similar with GMO like the first time I met him in

person was him and his wife actually at uh Lafayette Park we were getting like Bob's donuts and we were just talking

Bob's Donuts that good that's what I was telling about best donut man it's best donuts in bro there a meet and greet

spot at this point anytime you go there between like 12:00 a.m. and 2: a.m. you'll run into someone you know there's

like five seed deals happening it's crazy um but yeah it's a fantastic Place La Park highly recommend

but that's where I first met them um and even before that the way like I met with GMO over Zoom a couple of times and just

the way he cares himself and it sounds impossible to for someone to know everything but the way he talks it seems

like he knows everything so it's like very very knowledgeable guy incredibly incredible engineer and now a Founder as

well so that sort of Drew me in being a technical founder uh something that wasn't before I built Oneal more domains

yeah um it was something that was very appealing to me and I really wanted to get better as an engineer really wanted

to get better at fundraising starting a company hiring and managing people uh and that that really drew me in there do

you think those qualities can taught like the kind of that the energy aspect even with Fran right it's like oh you

just feel like the passion in it I do think can be taught like it's like there's this obviously debate of nature

versus nurture right some people are bound Born to Be Founders some are not but I disagree to to an extent like you

got to put yourself out there you got to be uncomfortable and just like like sometimes like even me being here today

I'm not saying it's uncomfortable but like in my comfort zone I just want to like sit at home like code right but

being out there just by putting yourself in a lot of different potentially um opportunistic scenarios it really gives

you the opportunity to grow uh and learn from it even if you fail even if it's embarrassing so it feels like a lot of

the things you're You're Building kind of have seemed to they seem to blow up now the Emoji app recently first time I

saw it this is uh two days ago now and now it has like what something like 17 million like requests or something crazy

like that why is it that you why is it that you think most of these companies that you seem to share online all end up

blowing up I wouldn't say all there's a lot of try and error but I do through all this like failures or like stuff I

didn't do well in the past I've noticed a pattern um it's hard for me to put to words but I can try but there's a

pattern amongst things that are seemingly simple to build engineering wise but has a a huge viral Factor

things that people would really want to share and talk about and one thing I could give a concrete um example of this

emoji app right and not just the Emoji app itself but the fact that people can share the emojis that it create and each

of those emojis has its own unique page and they also have unique um OG images which is like the display image that you

see on Twitter which is something that we we are very proud of at verel because like it's funny there's this meme there

like verel it's like this you know that organization chart it's like verell and then OG Mage engineering is like the

rest of the company because we put a lot of effort and thought into like creating the best OG images but that's that

contributes a lot to how successful a product or how viral you could potentially get and like the Emoji yeah

leap leap the OG image is like if I send you a message on iMessage you know how there's a link on iMessage there's like

a picture that shows up that's the OG image exactly oh really exactly that's a thumbnail image that pops up and um you

can actually customize that using using xjs did you guys see that thing on Twitter where it's like it basically

turn a photo of you into like a a middle school basketball picture of course that's the one thing that you've seen

about they're making 250k a day holy crap yeah that's all it does like and people are just doing it and then

reposting the picture damn right it's like it's eii wave man this is insane 250k a day like dollars yeah wow I

thought requests you to confirm the currency yeah rupes that's wild I've heard a lot of

Founders get success by literally just like connecting apis and and building a nice front end and you can actually make

a ton of money just by doing a good job at marketing and doing a good job at presenting the end product even though

you don't have like a machine learning PhD I have a template right the template works I use the shth template by the way

to build uh to build basically a way to let you talk to Andrew huberman right and so that theoretically if I go just

put a pay wall on it what's your all your fascination with just talking to Andrew huberman have you ever watched

any of his podcast this is why you guys want to be billionaire Founders so you can speak to someone just built like one

of the first AI apps I saw this year was an app that I think is trained on Andrew huberman's podcast and that blew up

because at the time like no one knew how to like do like vector database and like you know connect all these things

together and it blew up so I don't know what what's the fascination with that but it's interesting but now let's just

say for the examp for the sake of this example I have a chat up that lets me talk to Andrew hubman how do I go and

make that blow up like let's say there are little things like the OG image I could make it so that I could share a

conversation let's say I ask him how do I get over insomnia when I send the link to you it'll like seed it with my entire

conversation with him and the image is like how to get over your insomnia and it's like an andrewman picture exactly

yes okay and that's a good way the next step is probably not do it on inor because it's a very small Market um I

mean relatively big from from from a niche perspective but like for example emoji app everyone related to that

someone's building I think Jordan singer uh he was a diagram guy he's building um he's

building an IOS app for that now and it's like it's something that people can relate because emojis have been in

existence and like literally how people communicate in in this day and age so it's you got to find something that

people can relate to Andrew human a small portion of people okay let's take someone that everyone knows then um

Logan pole oh boy Taylor Swift do Taylor Swift Taylor let's do so now I built a nap

that let you talk to Taylor mhm there's the little image thing where I could have a conversation with her and share

it with fishall so he can see a whole conversation and start a new chat right there y so now the app works how do I go

about getting my users Tik Tok Instagram Tik Tok I not I I'm not the best at Tik Tok marketing to be honest I not done

much of it but people have found success like if you do a really good real or or Tik Tok and it blows up what goes into

the real is it me with the green screen effect like talking about my conversation or what it's like those

crudely pretty used shots of like your you literally like record yeah those do really well

actually those actually do well czy someone made a viral video about them like showing their like chat G they were

showing their laptop screen with their phone was it I think so the loom founder literally commented on it and he was

like can I how do I get you to use Loom I saw that the guy replied he was like I love loom but these are the videos that

go more viral if you actually record it with your phone it'll go more viral screen reason for that technical it's

the algorithm people are desensitized to seeing screen recordings now really yeah it feels too artificially like

manufacturer people don't want to get sold they just want to see cool stuff like people say how to Market your gen Z

nowadays is not by you know you're using all these professionally produced marketing posters instead you should be

doing something very like authentic and very seems casual but there's like a Buri message in it I saw this finance

app like back in I think earlier this year that blew up because the founder made videos of um how j z spends money

how billonaire spends money how and Mone no it's I think it's called um oops oops. app anyways it blew up a

Tik Tok that's a really cool case study actually you blew up on Tik Tok because the founder made these videos never

mentioned the app at all and people were like wow this app looks awesome so people are like wow this app looks

awesome oh my God look at the number and then they would be like oh you know it's look look at the number look at the

number show them wow that's crazy yeah 1889 million total dollars oops in the US 2000 this marketing is the way they

Market it is really smart honestly this is a clean landing page too super clean right yeah they don't go into like the

three boxes or like how it works it's l just a screenshot of the app and like minimalist landing pages is that the

better way to do this now under produced is better for Consumer but it still needs to look sharp yeah like it

shouldn't look like the design shouldn't be like mobile phone recording that's funny you mentioned that because GMO

just tweeted out today about how less is better and compared both yaho and Google's landing page oh so Google is

literally Google yeah that's that's a that's a a very good it's very good example for that isn't vsel making a new

website right now oh yeah we teased it out not too long ago but it's going to be a new website I I wouldn't say it's

much that much simpler or like it's just a different vibe and more professional I would say so clean develop you ship do

you know what any of those mean what yes ship yes hell yeah sh shipping it's Fleet Week those are planes

huh plane week no but um that's a it's a very like it's a very Bittersweet moment because

develop preview ship has been in our DNA like maral's DNA for the longest time and now we're moving away do something a

bit more Broad and appeals to a much larger audience and I think it's required for us to get to the next level

but it's definitely you know like parting with your I don't know first car I I told him my first car you totaled

your first car yeah you did wow I just hit somebody something someone something something it was like but the problem

was it was like a steel Dodge like truck like a old one that was something or that was made of steel no no no so I I'm

in a Civic so my Civic crumples that thing doesn't even have a dent like I just sold my first car you did what was

it not too long ago huh what was it it was a it was a 2018 Porsche Maan not not nothing fancy but I it it was a very

nice car okay um sell it because I moved to SF I was in Dallas you just moved to SF like recently it's a long story but I

used to live here moved to Dallas not too long ago okay and now I'm back wow why did you why' you move to Dallas in

the first place my girlfriend partner has a job had a job that was in person that required us to move so we moved

together we both got sort of tired of Texas not having enough like nature stuff or you know beaches or hikes and

also not not a big Tech Community so we're not now we're back here yeah Dallas is tough Austin's a little better

for that still not great exactly remember like we we walked outside for a walk and it was like the we were like on

the side of a freeway I remember yeah like 90° and we were like yeah this isn't the same we were like all right

we're just going to go to a gas station and then we were like walking for a good 30 minutes just to get to the G we were

like on an on-ramp at one point I was like that's the exact experience that we had I was like Hey Google Maps bro like

you don't want to tell me it's an on he he put the car Direction instead of the walking direction so I thought he was a

car it's like a it's always like a five minute drive yeah 2hour walk it's like God damn it's just like a little free

you everywhere that's why I'm always bullish on the SF thing cuz I was like bro you're not going to like go to

Dallas Austin Miami even New York like it's not it's not going to be the same as this 100% 100% New York too yeah like

like New York I mean New York is a different vibe it's great too the vibe like I'm saying like if you want this

Vibe and you like this and you're like oh the vibe is just tech people it's not just like tech people the city has a

very distinct Vibe oh yeah 100% saying you can't find any that also depends on what you work in and like what your job

sure sure like what's your day in the life look like ooh a lot of huh you wake up you cold shower you

meditate none of that no no no he cold showers wakes up and then meditates think no no no I meditate cold

shower and I wake up oh [ __ ] you went up how did you want up me that's crazy sleep is meditation yeah but how do you

cold shower don't ask too many questions don't ask questions you don't have

answers to no but it's it's a very I don't know like people always say that this like cold showers and meditation

like I it's funny I don't do any of that to be honest um it's a I have a very mundane I would say like day-to-day

routine I just wake up just wake up get to my laptop eat some breakfast and uh haven't been going to the gym enough

recently I'm trying to get back to it but usually I would go to the gym uh and then work and then you know um spend

some time in the evening my girlfriend that's pretty much it what is is your is your like dayto day are you in like a

lot of meetings not as much as I used to um I used to do a lot of meetings back then but now this quarter espe we're

focusing more on um guides and written tutorials and like templates so not as much meetings as I used to do but still

a sizable amount so your job like title officially is like you're like a developer Advocate yeah so what does

that entail like what are your responsibilities that's a good question it's quite a broad spectrum um I do

everything from making guides and templates and tutorials to meeting with um potential customers potential

technology Partners all the way to like dealing with uh user requests and user feedback on on social media or on GitHub

discussions and that kind of stuff so it's a bit of everything uh which is what I like because I'm I'm sort of a

Restless founder at heart and like I I I like just being able to have yeah a hand in everything a lot of it sounds like

like customer success too and just just like client manag it's a big thing yeah customer success is like at the root of

our DNA um verel especially because there's we obsess over the customer experience and make sure that everything

is going well so that's a big thing my favorite part of versell is like the product design team and like it it seems

interesting how you guys managed to get almost every single design person on Twitter to work at verel like you have

Rono you have Paco Emily I think we used to have pacco oh Paco a linear now no way yeah he's he's do fantastic things

there though he he was he was one of the best um but yeah we do have a bunch of really amazing

design Engineers that's what we call them folks who are well vers at design but are also fantastic Engineers oh

they're Engineers yeah like for example Shaden you probably heard of it of course we were that's half of the Dylan

episode was talking about Shaden that's awesome yeah he basically he's a fantastic at both having a design sense

and also building out design systems engineering it and and making sure everything works well so there's a lot

of these folks that are veral and and those are like yeah I'm I'm I'm a huge fan of those people too what's is the

events they do too right in terms of like building that Community cuz like a lot of a lot of guys in your stage

they'll stick to online and build that community and they won't spend a lot on events what was the last event called it

was ship Rell ship yeah yeah I think that was that was also we had an iners component to it but in the past we've

always stuck it online I think it was not until last year that we did our first inperson hybrid what was the

reason for like the switch I think it's more like Enterprise pipeline want to generate more of those and it's better

to build those relationships in person yeah okay uh and as we we scale and we focus more on Enterprise um I think

that's sort of the direction we're going into but it's really funny literally today my team like team meeting with

rest of dev's everell um lero who is like the head of their he actually shared this image about uh the uh what's

it called like the there was a survey that was done on a bunch of developers as well as a bunch of Dev leaders at

different companies yeah and turns out developers don't care as much about inperson conferences as much as they do

about documentation or tutorials or even answers on stack Overflow so there's definitely a balance that has to be

struck between doing iners conferences especially when you're a smaller company that makes sense I feel like a lot of

the let's take Abe for example he doesn't strike me as the guy who would like go run around to conferences he's

just like yeah building I think but and then so the accelerator comes into play there I do think

was interesting I feel like everyone I talked to Fel like said it was really it was awesome they got a lot of credits

but it was mostly just a marketing thing more so than like versel try to build an accelerator yeah so the versal

accelerator was more of a like an investor connecting investors with uh AI Founders and we've heard a lot of good

reviews from those Founders about like so many investors reaching out to them and like quality investors as well uh

that they they did really well but I really want to go back to the point about uh iners conferences and how much

sometimes like this is becoming like a distraction in in a bit so like it's important to be shipping like the funny

thing is when I was in Dallas the fact that I wasn't a big Tech Community gave me the time and ability to focus on give

yourself permission to stay at home exactly I was just shipping all day and it was like it was great for like being

able to to ship stuff on Twitter um but obviously like being in person is different and and this this event right

here proves that like you have a much stronger connection with people in person when did you you learn to code

again so I I did I was I came from a data science background but when it comes to V def that was like in 2020 so

not too long ago damn that's not long ago at all yeah when you started do you feel like you were more so inclined to

go to these conferences no really I I have no idea though you just don't like people but but I don't think that's a

him problem I think that's more like how these conferences like you said like you go to a conference you're not shipping

like what's the point what's the opportunity cost yeah so I feel like what what does the ideal like actual fun

conference that you want to go to look like we hosted a thing um almost a month ago now I called it after hours I just

got all my friends together at the office and we locked them in from like 7:00 p.m. to like 12:00 a.m. God and so

everyone brought their laptops and so the idea was like you can come and we'll all work and we'll hang out order pizza

B whatever I love that something less something less programmed something more casual and like that's that works better

with developers people worked for like the first 2 hours and then for the last like four we we all just hanging out

like playing Smash Bros or whatever D that sounds amazing there was this there was this event uh I think it was by

Thomas Schult the Newton guy we were just talking about yeah yeah yeah the Newton house that that's that was really

great I was he actually invited me I was I was playing to go but then my sister my sister came into town so I I was I

wasn't able to make it but that sound awesome and that that's sort of like I think what you guys have here to the

sort of combination of um something a bit the combination of casual and also doing really smart things um

that's that's a good balance cuz I see all these people in New York posting like late night coffee shops yeah and

like kind of the vibe the worst part about SF is everything closes at 8:00 p.m. I was about to say like like the

thing like it's probably way more in demand here than other cities that's why I go to

Dela wow shout out Bob snuts opens 24/7 I think you're going to hack in there there's no tables bro that's CRA you

just PL Bob's donuts for dude that's CRA let's put a picture of

yeah ER you got to put a picture of zho shout out zho no idea what's that it's a company called z Oh Z

yeah he just he like stands around our office with his laptop against his stomach and like looks down in codes

like this oh my God that's how he does it that's what you do in Bob's Donuts right space

exactly it reminds me of uh this this post by levels pet levels of his like he just

posture but like going back like the events thing too like Roi right CU you're talking about Enterprise and like

doing these kind of you about to sell you on an event aware in this place I it's not even necessarily selling you on

event I'm just curious like how companies like yours evaluate that versus a much smaller company that isn't

making let's say as much revenue with Enterprise clients that's the I think that's that's the good that's a million

dollar question if you're a smaller company I'm not sure if events like large scale events would be the thing

but you could potentially do smaller less formal meetups of 20 to 40 folks that you think could be a good fit for a

pipeline obviously if you're a B2B sass right from the start you got to start making pipeline you got to start working

with our customers and that's how like uh folks like Jared Palmer who joined Rell um about two like a year and a half

ago I don't remember but he was also he had like 20 plus Enterprise customers already for for literally the product

turbo I think it was called turbo repo at the time yeah um and that's that's like it's important to be able to build

those relationships and conferences might not be necessary for that you could do small events you could even do

it online async yeah um what's important it's the brand and like how you represent like if you're already well

known you have a good audience that's a big thing too so I feel like the highest Ro I think is for me at least a year ago

where like the 10 to 15 to 20 person Meetup cers like we did Cory's rooftop a year ago so you'd meet like a few people

you had time to connect with exactly was Curry ly yeah nice so like love meetups yeah the cool thing with with those

meetups in general is just like you know the caliber of people is really high and you know you know that there are few

enough people to where everyone gives each other time to have a conversation and so those are the people you actually

end up having the chance to work with later or like you could ask them like you could you know send investor to them

or get an intro from them or like actually like actually become friends whereas at conferences when there's like

a thousand people and everything's moving super fast the ROI is kind of low unless you're one of these companies

looking for something or selling something yeah 100% it's better to do a a smaller event with higher Cali people

than just like blow out if you had to if you had to host an event then a 15 person event who's on the list

specifically for let's just say like developer web devs damn putting me on a spot here I don't know um obviously k

um shatan uh what else uh do don't just do all verell apart from those guys no one

else can work at verell who else are you going to invite you don't have to the whole list but yeah there a lot of

awesome like is does it have to be SF specific or just let's host NSF this is going to be a real thing in like a month

I'm telling you I just literally the funny thing is I know them but their screen name but like I I know their

picture I know their screen name but I don't know their actual name it's the weird thing it's like the most crypto

that's the most gamer thing ever you don't know their name you just know what their like icon is exactly oh my God

that's like when Uber didn't know he was playing with the son of like one of the Lakers owners oh yeah right wait what's

the you should tell the story well it's it's a Kurt ramus's kid do you know who Kurt rambus is okay are you a sports guy

at all not so much okay but Uber so be runs our investments here but he's a huge gamer nice but he's got like all

these people in his Network that he just games with they're like super famous and like well connected people that he's

just oblivious to because all they do is like play games and like you know just just kind of hang out with each other

like they don't really talk about like the business stuff and it's like he's like mentions like oh yeah I know Kurt

ramus's son we're like what you mean you know kurtt Rim is this who's like the GM of the Lakers like a legend Hall of fam

or whatever and then he was like he's like oh he always takes pictures at the Lakers on the Lakers court that makes

sense I was like you never wanted to ask you're a Laker fan or yeah oh my God it's crazy I also think there should be

less well no I I I think that one of the coolest types of events is where you bring together people that are all

somewhat related in the same industry but it has like the event has nothing to do with industry M so one of the things

we've been talking about is there's a movie theater in Fort Mason it cost $10,000 to rent it out and it's a 400

person movie theater with a really big Lobby wow I want to host a movie night for all of SF like all of people in Tech

nice we'll make the tickets free we'll pay for it ourselves but like we should just do a marathon of like Dune and

Interstellar and like 2001 oh my God yes yes I will like literally sign up the me are you going to co-host it with me you

don't got to do anything you just got tweet what's the movie what the movie you would those three movies are

fantastic all right do you Stellar give us like sleeper SciFi one sleeper I have one I have one that everybody needs to

watch if they haven't watched it Inception it's not in so sleeper you get what I'm saying something a little low

like less well known but underrated yeah huh cuz I got a good one her what is it exmachina oh the new one or the old one

the old one oh my God it's fantastic that's so good oh sorry I'll s you a Blade Runner okay sorry is but but blad

run is a good one cuz I feel like a lot of younger people haven't seen the original yeah like

fantastic awesome uh wow I got I should have came prepared for this but there are there are so many like I used to

watch I I'm a huge fan of hen Zimmer I mean hmer is more of he's he's the one who makes the the music in in the films

but why you like Inception David Fincher films are your Fincher guy okay yeah soci it's a bunch of sci-fi movies and

then the Joker because we're an SF I think social network works oh we was Joker no I just like the Joker oh okay

okay just a good movie that's half Gotham the social network is a great one right all right yeah this is happening

by the way end of the month we're going to do it you down yeah actually actually I'm super down yeah we're going to this

I sent you the quote it's not he actually it's not too much oh my God that's that's great maybe a little you

know little versel sponsorship there is this going to be the first versel I in K wait where is it going to be which

theater is it this right here across the street there's a theater on the water it's like up to it seats nearly 500 it's

a really nice theater like red seats everything damn okay I I'll definitely be interested I mean personally I can't

speak with verel but yeah it's you and me don't it don't got to be verel heck yeah but you should bring as long as you

tweet about it it works you just got to tweet about it I'm Happ to and then we're also going to show the AI

girlfriend video no that should be like the the pre Prelude to the the opener right do you

want context on what this AI girlfriend video is well of course so um me and Stephen's Mentor a dill pickle yes made

a legendary video called how I made an AI girlfriend I don't know if it's called that but one of the greatest

YouTube videos of all time yeah if not the greatest YouTube video of all time so there's YouTube Rewind 2018 and then

there's there going to be why was that one so good I was it the one with like uh the guy looking through the like U do

you know what I'm talking about like oh it's rewind time no dude guys come on I feel old now I know what you're talking

I just don't know if that's the one actually that one might have even been after oh

probably that one after which was the one that uh Will Smith opened oh that one sucked no offense will big fan big

fan that's a slap to the face I haven't watched YouTube rewinds in so long I feel like YouTube Rewind was hot during

like the Logan Paul era they stopped doing it cuz they made the last one really bad and they got so much hate

they just stopped doing that is true they stopped right that's terrible man will YouTube ever do rewind again that's

what you get if you Google YouTube rewind I know someone did did Mr Beast do a a YouTube rewind on on behalf of

YouTube Rewind people do their own now yeah yeah the want I think it was Mr Beast or Ryan he I don't remember would

you guys ever do like a like a master YouTube video of everything that's been shipped on verel I think that's what we

did for ship Oh you mean like everything that's been ship in history imagine like a full like it's it's like 20 minutes

and it's like just a quick no actually even what would even be cooler is you know that like you can buy a pixel on a

website yeah D that did a long time ago you just build like a mega website just a big canvas of all the coolest projects

resel has ever shipped oh wow that's a lot of Legacy ones that don't even exist anymore but it could be a good like time

machine yeah so now now you've been at versel for like the last 2ish years how long do you see yourself being at versel

it feels like you know you've built dub. sh you build one word domains a bunch of other projects it feels like most of

your projects end up going viral have you ever considered going like the founder route that's definitely always

been at my heart like I I I consider myself a Founder at heart and it's something that I definitely want to do

uh if I were to leave versel it wouldn't be to join another company or to join like I don't know big tag or Fang it

would be just our company and I think there's a lot of risk in that obviously but I'm I'm excited and looking forward

to taking that risk and obviously a lot of the projects I've launched so far I the reason I Haven been sort of like

acted on them was because they were all I consider them them to be like lifestyle businesses stuff that you can

definitely get to like a million dollars a year or even a million dollars a month but not something that's Venture back

scale like for example dub it's a open source bitly alternative for those who don't have contacts and it's it's been

doing fantastic like Mr has been going up uh there are a lot of customers using it uh but at the end of the day it's

something that I think unless if I go more into like the affiliate tracking uh business that could potentially turn it

into a billion dollar company but if it's keeping itself as it is a link management tool I'm not sure if it's

Venture backal but on the contrary I've heard that folks like bit.ly uh obviously they've been in market for 10

plus years they're the market leader they're making bank they're making like nine figures which is insane making nine

figures yeah fitly yeah it's insane um so there's definitely there's definitely a lot of money to be made but I I'm not

sure if that's something that's like my life's calling that I want to be building for the next 10 years would you

see yourself building something that's more like very technical or more kind of simple with a very heavy distribution

arm that's a question I ask myself every single day because both have obvious benefits like

B2B SAS products that are highly technical you can get to million AR or 10 million or more uh fairly quickly and

and without Luck playing a huge Factor whereas with b2c apps like you got to know the strategy you got to also have

like be lucky enough to get to that um I guess escape velocity and that's what they call it so uh but at the same time

I I'm a huge like I feel like I'm also b2c at heart like I love building stuff that my mom can talk about to their

friends or like my my sister oh man that guy's a freaking Legend yeah the stuff you've spelled

like but it's funny because he's done twice and sold it yeah one to Discord and one to I think Facebook gas and do

we know the numbers are those public nobody knows do you know the I don't think so I think it's private yeah going

back to the question B2B versus b2c honestly for for myself it's up for grabs I think it really comes down to

what the Zeitgeist is I recently found out about this term called founder Zeitgeist fit or product Z fit to be to

be precise it's it's coined by a16z and it's basically talking about how you should be building products that fit the

Zeitgeist for example right now you definitely should be building something in AI if you want to even if it's just a

rapper on gbt you you will learn a lot get a lot of traction um and the the startup has a higher higher chance of

being successful then if you were to build something that's less like for example like dub you know dub is great

but like I don't know if it's something that people can get excited about every single day and talk about it so it's

harder for you to get traction and momentum in the beginning um but if you're building something AI obviously

people are going to talk about it but how do you look at that versus like something like notion slack and it's

like if you told like you know notion hey you should be building in web 3 and crypto or like you know slack when they

were coming up it's like well that's not part of the cultural relevance I don't know I don't know if there's a better

way of phrasing that but yeah I think there's also obviously um there are I I wouldn't say this is like a

silver bullet like products that get fed but there are stuff it's something that you should be considering when you're

building a company so like there so the concept of build shovels not uh whatever like when during a gold rush us be buing

shovels people building vory databases right now are making Banks and like you're blowing up everywhere uh

obviously there's going to be competition during these times but it's definitely a great time to be building

in that space um but yeah or maybe something like it'll have a deeper integration long term with AI I don't

know yeah I like What's um it's it's people have called it um uh a little black muray but like stuff that uh for

example avi's building tab what is it yeah what did were you there when he did it wasn't that was the was the event

yeah there was the event at at Newton I I was oh yeah that's what yeah that's that's something really

interesting though I'm like a huge fan of it because it's like it's something like it's literally from the movie Her

he loves that movie remember I think everyone everyone's a huge fan of movie and like being able to build something

but the thing is like it's hard because of latency right now I think that's something that rale is also trying to

help with is like how do you make those responses instantaneous like when I'm talking to my AI I don't I don't want to

be waiting for like in his demo no offense to him it was fantastic but there was you can notice a latency

between when you speak to the AI and when it responses so if being able to build something that's offline first you

don't need an internet and it responds right away basically Siri but like 10 times better in terms of like um the the

speech processing like every time it say Siri he does not recognize me yeah bro Siri's so for for for the scale of like

what Apple can do Siri's like the worst thing they've ever done I know I don't use it at all you you it you don't like

VI K series start a workout and it's like hi I just booked you an Uber I'm like bro this not what I want you you

get that far for me it's just like uh sorry when you use I've never seen you use Siri yeah cuz it's so bad okay like

I would try to use it I would try to use Siri and it would just say like it'll take me a minute sorry it's taking me a

minute like it's loading it just doesn't work but voice is still I remember like this was like five six years ago but

everyone was like this Amazon Alexa thing is everything I know but it's not has it has it actually penetrated in the

way that it was kind of hyped to be it's mainly people use it to turn off lightsy Google turn off the lights cuz what I

mean what they wanted you to do was essentially be like you're just sitting on your couch and you're like order

peanut butter exactly there's too much Nuance right like I care about the specific peanut butter I care about the

specific Pizza yeah I do I think it's AI just like figure out your be a you probably can store your preferences and

like do stuff like rag which is like retrieval augment generation it was a really cool app that was built last year

and it was like you could text Amazon it wasn't by Amazon but this guy basically built a bot where it was kind of it was

AI so you could say like get me peanut butter and it'll just show you like a specific like it'll show you like the

icon and like how much it costs you could say no like get XYZ instead or you could just say yes and it would buy it

for you CU it has everything on the back end of your credit card your address everything yeah that's pretty cool I

don't want to be building just a just an AI application just for the sake of it but uh I want to be building something

or or I encourage people to be building something that's deeply engraining our lives like stuff like you know like the

tap thing but like you really got to nail down like the the latency aspect when it

comes to um interacting with thei and being able to create something that feels like a like a life companion

instead of just something that leaves in a like a Chrome extension too weird though like let's say I mean you have a

partner right it's like at what point is this if if it is that realistic as a tab like at what point is that going to be

like a an issue in your own relationship both it's more of like a yeah that's a good question I think it's also a way

for people to I don't know it could be something that shared between partners like people can use it together uh it's

like an assistant cuz I'm going be nervous bro if that tab remembers everything she tells it I'm going to be

really nervous your life is over like I'm going to be really like there are definitely a lot of like um privacy and

like right Black Mirror concerns cuz the tab thing isn't thinking about football so that's true you like how's how's it

yeah you know what's interesting we were watching up in the air last night and I was like it was it was shot in like what

2009 2010 and that was like post interet pre- smartphone I feel like that time I was

like I was young at that point right right but so there's something about that time that just feels so nostalgic

like there are even Instagram pages that are popping up that are going viral of just like Nostalgia pages I don't know

feel like now we're going too far into Tech I say this while working in an fund I was in high school during that point

yeah of like that transition but all I remember is the economy collapsed that was when a lot of large companies

got uh created though like Airbnb and like it all kind of stemmed from like that that recession period right and

then they all you know exactly came up yeah people say that recessions are our best time to build companies do you see

this as the same thing are we only time canel if you're like aren't we in a venture VC from like a preced standpoint

aren't there less preed checks I saw this thing earlier today it's like the precede chart versus like how many how

many Investments and then how much money they're getting and then it just like dropped yeah right like this year's like

super down yeah yeah czy the people who know what they're doing are still going to get money regardless fair enough

right now if you don't know what you're doing it's a good time to work at a startup and figure out what you like

learn how to do the things you need to do to build a startup you think hiring will come back in Tech or is it has it

come back I don't I don't know anything about big Tech hiring is tough like you guys are still hiring I we are we are

hiring but it's also a long process I don't know it's kind of interesting cuz I feel like Tech has there are uh an AB

an abundance of candidates for Tech but not every like it's kind of inversed between Tech and the rest of the

industries like my my partner is in finance and it's really hard to find like job listings because a lot of large

companies are like actually closing down and like cutting down and hiring but then with tech it's actually harder I

feel like it's my personal experience but it's it feels harder to find quality candidates at this time at least really

is is that like engineer versus like a you know developer like a deell is that is I think it's like technical in

general like just engineers and support and like cuz they saybe it's just my experience but now it's more it's more

important than ever to actually have a personal brand related to what you do for work like oh yeah the design

Engineers who have Twitter presences are not going to struggle to find work the guys who have a brand of being like the

best frontend Engineers are always going to be someone who wants to hire them do you think that's it's the same case for

like a full-time role at a big company or like a contract job like do you think it's the same thing like at the end of

the day it's people making those decisions okay right it's still there there's still a hiring manager whether

or not they're hiring five people a year or a thousand people a year is different but people will always default to like

what they know or what they like kind of like and when you put yourself in a position of authority when you make

content is it like under your own personal brand you make it that much easier to like prove that you are who

you say you are cuz that's all recruiting and Engineering or like hiring is 100% And like especially in

open source too like if you have a get up profile and it clearly shows that you've worked on all these different

projects that has bunch of traction that's also a big thing so that's why I'm really glad that I made that

decision two plus years ago to join Rell because I've grown so much both in terms of Twitter following and also becoming

better engineer and doing more open source work all of these are I wouldn't have gotten it if I was just doing my

own company uh and I definitely encourage people to to do more open source work and build a name for

yourself like what shatan did uh with his UI um design system there's so much uh good stuff to be made in open source

just because like people like literally like beginning of this year I dropped this template called

president it has like I don't know it's has a crazy amount of stars like 4,000 stars on GitHub it's president. death

and it's literally just a Rebo of all of the utilities and components that I often find myself reusing between all my

projects and it blew up on Twitter it got like 3,400 likes and people really liked it even though it was something

super simple so there's definitely a lot of value in just building these open open source projects that deliver value

to people and has a good design so highly recommend doing it oh I'm in your Twitter oh boy I don't know why I twied

today but how active are you on Twitter with the trend stuff because obviously you post a lot about brel but it's like

or do you see yourself like writing your own threads kind of being a thought leader in the space without versel

that's a good question I don't know I try to there are a lot of like things I love sharing like best design principles

or like I don't know best principles when it comes to next JS or building a company and that's something that I try

to do from time to time but there's obviously a lot of resell stuff too because we're constantly shipping new

products and and new features so that's a that's a that's a balance there and I also maintain a few open source project

like novel which is like this Noel actually all the time now when I when I have to like send really long slack

messages like send really long messages where it shows so and so is typing I just write it out a novel and then I

that's amazing I use that find I find myself using it too when I'm writing an article and I just don't know how to

continue I'm like just just put it in there and let the AI do the job yeah it's just fun fun to use but it's

something that people actually incorporate into their own projects and it's really amazing to see how do you

how do you find your users for like you have dub you have one word you have novel you have so many of these like

kind of Open Source projects how do you find users for them is it just tweeting so all these projects have different I

use different ways like one domains back in the day I didn't really have an audience I was trying to build it so

product hand was the main thing it got to number two product of the day and it got to the FR B I can use so that's how

how I found the initial users T Hacker News okay exactly that was like back in 2020 and then um dab was on Twitter I

launched it on Twitter it actually got to number one on hecken too for you launch everything on half of the day

yeah I try hecken is sometimes it's a hit or miss what do you write as your titles do you just like write what it is

or do you come up with some obscene like one like phrase people love in hacking news people love open source alternative

too oh like I made it they like they like it when you're genuine and not like some marketing I made an open source

alternative to bit.ly exactly that's what I think that was the exact title oh damn that's crazy so yeah Packer news is

a great way obviously Twitter as well and Twitter people love good like videos on Twitter like the one I did for novel

it did really well I think it was the pin tweet see that um and I just edited that myself and it was just really fun

to build something short but also shows value of what you're trying to create and yeah there's a vital Factor bro

Hacker News is getting 3 million views a day are you using the similar web thing yeah I'm shocked that how much traffic

hack gets I thought I don't know it used to be higher 300,000 daily users damn more than 3 million views per day per

day per day wow that's insane I didn't know that okay I thought it was per month okay that's huge right they're

killing it damn wow yeah that's how YY has a mo it's a Big Mo for them we're going to end this off with with a rapid

fire round okay so you got like just question answer we're going to get through all these like under a minute

gotta we never get through them under a minute no it's okay I'll try no pressure favorite book the book teeth favorite

movie Inception main inspiration on Twitter what your main inspiration on Twitter do pickle

Raji it's kind of weird but okay no but he tweets some really good stuff too so that's why I use inspiration okay good

normally people take like minutes for each one so I never really got this far okay I was just like literally say wait

was that it no best advice best advice oh yeah what's your best advice for someone

that I just literally say things that came mind's right though no one has gotten through it that fast like you're

the first person that actually like did The Prompt like like we're like 40 episodes in at this point and they

always just end up taking like 10 minutes so I only get Do's keep going um what's what's the best advice you've

ever gotten just just ship it worst advice you've ever gotten oh gotten or I'm giving you've gotten oh wa how much

bad advice do you give Oh you mean like okay bad B oh my God that's hard do you study biotechnology in

college what's what's the worst advice you've ever given oo given um b salana b Sal yeah I was about to say buy Dogecoin

you gave that you said told us I'm going to do that no it was a very casual like sort of conversation I told my friend to

buy casual costing millions of dollars to put a million in do I mean I didn't I didn't do that but

I have I have so much bad advice I've given like what well the worst by far like the most financially costly is like

my buddy played like a fatty WAP record like cuz he's a manager he was trying to sign him and he were like all in the

room he's like what do you guys think I was like yeah I this guy sucks fetty [ __ ] before he blew up yeah I was like TR it

was literally trap queen and I was like no like I don't hear it like I'm good like like don't sign this dude fail oh

that that reminds me actually there are there there was so many like I do I I do some Angel Investing on the side and

there are companies that I passed down that just race series a series B would you give us one if you can say I can say

it uh Railway oh I even I know Railway ouch ouch ouch ouch what are what are some of your angel Investments that

worked out um yeah there there are a few good ones uh spline for example they're like figma for 3D design um there's like

up stash which is a uh they're like serverless redis and uh there are a few more live blogs there like a API for

Real Time design real time real applications there are a few why did you pass

really uh that's a good question I don't know I think it was just I didn't have I didn't like the founder no he's

like respect like he's he's a huge Hustler I think at the time it was a combination of me not having enough like

Capital to deploy and also at the same time like I was starting ell and it was sort of like conflict of interest bit oh

okay so yeah I mean it's still I'm I'm rooting for him I think what he's doing is cool you know how like Gary V's whole

brand is like he passed on Uber three times like his is going to be real I passessed on Railway three times oh man

it looks like the Jets are are starting up again so I'm going to I'm going to hit you with one final question

okay if you had 15 seconds to say something that was heard by the entire world what would it be be kind to each

other try and make an impact as much as you can and always Doo good um I know that sounds very cliched but that's

something that I personally believe he he's he's the best rappid fire guest ever yeah that was

very I I didn't think we would get this far no I thought this would have taken hours Eric seems happy who's

Eric wait Eric him oh my God sorry I had no idea there I'm really bad with names

guys come on all right rap you told me a Twitter handle I probably remember that but that's crazy that you

remember Twitter handle that's so weird I swear I'm sorry as this jet wraps us wraps us up thanks so much if you made

it to the end make sure you like comment subscribe and if you made it to the end how do you want to be remembered we

already been through this if you died tomorrow oh my God that's very morbid um I don't know I want to be remembered of

someone who made an impact and open sours and and love my girlfriend and my family

nice um was a good enough son and daughter a daughter and brother to my sister Jesus Christ

okay so yeah that's that's probably it if you made it to the end make sure you comment AI girlfriend and we'll see you

next week