For #2, if you're working on a big feature, start with a markdown planning file that you and the LLM work on until you are satisfied with the approach. Doesn't need to be rocket science: even if it's just a couple paragraphs it's much better than doing it one shot.
Huge brand moat. Consumers around the world equate AI with ChatGPT. That kind of recognition is an extremely difficult thing to pull off, and also hard to unseat as long as they play their cards right.
"Brand moat" is not an actual economic concept. Moats indicate how easy/hard it is to switch to a competitor. If OpenAI does something user-adversarial, it takes two seconds to switch to Anthropic/Gemini (the exception being Enterprise contracts/lock-in, which is exactly why AI companies prioritize that). The entire reason that there are race-to-the-bottom price wars among LLM companies is that it's trivial for most people to switch to whatever's cheapest.
Brand loyalty and users not having sufficient incentive by default to switch to a competitor is something else. OpenAI has lost a lot of money to ensure no such incentive forms.
Moats, as noted in Google's "We Have no Moat, and Neither Does OpenAI" memo that made the discussion of moats relevant in AI circles, has a specific economic definition.
Switching costs only make sense to talk about for fully online businesses. The "switching cost" for McDonalds depends heavily on whether there's a Burger King nearby. If there isn't then your "switching cost" might now be a 30 minute drive, which is very much a moat.
That's not entirely true. They have a 'infinite' product moat - no one can reproduce a big mac. Essentially every AI model is now 'the same' (queue debate on this). The only way they can build a moat is by adding features beyond the model that lock people in.
The concept of ‘moat’ comes out of marketing - it was a concept in marketing for decades before Warren Buffett coined the term economic moat. Brand moat had been part of marketing for years and is a fully recognized and researched concept. It’s even been researched with fMRIs.
You may not see it, but OpenAI’s brand has value. To a large portion of the less technical world, ChatGPT is AI.
Nokia's global market share was ~50% in smartphones back in 2007. Remember that?
Comparing "brand moat" in real-world restaurant vs online services where there's no actual barrier to changing service is silly. Doubly silly when they're free users, so they're not customers. (And then there are also end-users when OpenAI is bundled or embedded, e.g. dating/chatbot services).
McDonald's has lock-in and inertia through its franchisees occupying key real-estate locations, media and film tie-ins, promotions etc. Those are physical moats, way beyond a conceptual "brand moat" (without being able to see how Hamilton Wright Helmer's book characterizes those).
This job description made me wish I was a designer :) I'll be keeping an eye on your site for roles that fit me better, as you guys really seem like a great company to work for.
Why is Ryan, the current staff product designer, leaving? Oh wait, it’s right there in the job post with a video from him. Good luck to Ryan with his courage to start his own startup!
This is what we did for Sudowrite. Took a small seed and got to profitability within 2 years by hiring within our means and laser focusing on our users. Happy to answer questions!
Hi, I write as a hobby and really like Sudowrite. There's a huge gap between it and virtually every other AI writing tool I know of. The insight that writers:
A) Largely only want AI when they are blocked, and not all the time
B) Want to consider options (which is how writing happens all the time, IMO)
Is really what sets your product apart. So I'm curious, how did you get these insights? Were you a writer and instinctively knew of these, and so you dogfooded your own product? Or did you do a YC style feedeback loop to writers to find this differentiator?
PROFITABLE, SUSTAINABLE SMALL TEAM, MAKING SOMETHING PEOPLE WANT.
We are a group of friendly, smart, low-drama people, seeking the same to help us make writing tools authors dream about.
Our users have published hundreds of books using Sudowrite, and we're committed to building a sustainable company, not chasing unrealistic growth targets set by VCs.
We're on year two of profitability, and not planning to raise again. This will be the second year we've paid out a profit-sharing bonus.
- Sudowrite is the best AI for authors. We help the next generation of storytellers tell better stories.
- We believe the future of writing is AI & human collaboration.
- We've been featured in The New York Times, The New Yorker, and everywhere else we care about.
- We're 100% remote. We meet in person a few times of year in places like LA, Portland, and Hawaii.
- We work with a coach and value self-awareness and growth.
- We encourage diverse candidates within 2 hours of USA timezones to apply.
>We believe the future of writing is AI & human collaboration.
That's on the right track based on my experience. Human + A.I. is the way for literature. I will make in the following weeks a small open source tool to generate comedy specifically, not general literature. No graphics or databases, just a dead simple org file, and tree sitter manipulation of it's grammar.
Creating good quality literature is a totally unexplored use case of A.I.
PROFITABLE, SUSTAINABLE SMALL TEAM, MAKING SOMETHING PEOPLE WANT.
We are a group of friendly, smart, low-drama people, seeking the same to help us make writing tools authors dream about.
Our users have published hundreds of books using Sudowrite, and we're committed to building a sustainable company, not chasing unrealistic growth targets set by VCs.
We're on year two of profitability, and not planning to raise again. This will be the second year we've paid out a profit-sharing bonus.
- Sudowrite is the best AI for authors. We help the next generation of storytellers tell better stories.
- We believe the future of writing is AI & human collaboration.
- We've been featured in The New York Times, The New Yorker, and everywhere else we care about.
- We're 100% remote. We meet in person a few times of year in places like LA, Portland, and Hawaii.
- We work with a coach and value self-awareness and growth.
- We encourage diverse candidates within 2 hours of USA timezones to apply.
PROFITABLE, SUSTAINABLE SMALL TEAM, MAKING SOMETHING PEOPLE WANT.
We are a group of friendly, smart, low-drama people, seeking the same to help us make writing tools authors dream about.
Our users have published hundreds of books using Sudowrite, and we're committed to building a sustainable company, not chasing unrealistic growth targets set by VCs.
We're on year two of profitability, and not planning to raise again. This will be the second year we've paid out a profit-sharing bonus.
- Sudowrite is the best AI for authors. We help the next generation of storytellers tell better stories.
- We believe the future of writing is AI & human collaboration.
- We've been featured in The New York Times, The New Yorker, and everywhere else we care about.
- We're 100% remote. We meet in person a few times of year in places like LA, Portland, and Hawaii.
- We work with a coach and value self-awareness and growth.
- We encourage diverse candidates within 2 hours of USA timezones to apply.
