Launch 1 Product Every Week: The "Idea Machine" Method | Alex Mehr

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The good news is, if you are an idea machine today

and you don't have the execution abilities of Thomas Edison,

you're given a gift, which is AI, essentially helping you build and execute.

You can mope about jobs being lost due to AI, but you can also say, hey, maybe God has a different plan for me.

Even if you get laid off because of AI, maybe that's part of the plan.

Maybe that is in your future.

It's forcing your hand to have all these ideas that you had over the years did not execute.

List them, knock them out one by one with AI.

We can talk about how to do that, but it's like essentially knock them out one by one until you have a winning idea.

What I struggle to understand about people is,

and maybe it's just because I was raised in the Mill of Woods with no money.

I didn't have the luxury of believing things that weren't true or didn't have any like backing behind them as potentially being a successful strategy.

So if you ask me, I'm like, how can you support Elon Musk?

Because the shit that he says, it works.

You may not want to hear it and you may not want his lifestyle.

But you can't deny the fact that when he says, here is an executable principle, that that principle is most likely accurate and and most likely going to yield positive results.

Like, you just can't deny that.

And

I literally, you know, going on 45,

I can't even be in the same room with people who are going to, who are going to,

they're going to allow or they're going to be willing to discuss and or even pitch ideas that have zero receipts behind them as to them being successful just because they sound good.

I can't even get my head around that idea.

100%.

That's why I left San Francisco.

So I lived in San Francisco for 15 years and I just had it.

I'm like, okay, I can't do it.

I believe that.

I've had these little touches of Silicon Valley and different things that I've done.

I pitched a startup that I was part of for a while, the PMP.

And, you know, I've had these little touches and I just...

I always feel like, you know, one of these things is not like the other.

And that thing is me.

You know, I just always feel that way.

Or also, and I'd be super interested in your take on this, and then we can get into what we want to talk about.

But,

like, I also kind of feel like a lot of people are pretending, like, they'll say something,

and you know, it'll be more of like this ideology than based in reality.

But you can almost tell by the conviction in their voice that they're saying it because they feel they need to, not because it's what they actually believe.

And that is almost worse.

Yes.

That's even harder to be around.

It comes from arrogance.

So people are overly confident in

their own ability to understand really complex things.

And they oversimplify it.

And they go into one of these isms.

And they're like, oh, it needs to be this because it is.

I'm like, okay.

Go throughout history

and look at the exact scenarios.

Think about, you know, humanity is that it has lived many many lives and the same scenarios have repeated multiple multiple times and a lot of them are happening at the same time right now how about instead of trying by PhD part of it was complex systems and one of the things about complex systems is that it humbles you whatever you think is true is probably not true so you have two ways of dealing with that one is you say I am smart and I know exactly what is right and wrong and

try to kind of approach it that way.

The second one is just be humble.

So look at, okay, so if I push this button, let's say we go, we become socialists, okay?

What

happens?

And one instead of trying to go right and wrong, how about I go and look at history and examples of this and try to collect data and try to actually have an informed opinion.

So it's.

But Alex, you understand, it just has never been implemented correctly

you don't it's it's democratic it's democratic socialism

that's the one that hasn't been done accurately yet we just haven't tried that version yet

dude

i told you i left san francisco for a reason

unfortunately it followed

i used to believe you know one of the things i even though new york is it got some things a ton of things about it that i don't appreciate you know um

I always felt insulated because of New York City.

I was like, you know what?

At the end of the day, there's a lot of greedy motherfuckers down there, and I love that because I know they're going to keep things pushing in the right direction, right?

They want to make money, and yeah, maybe they take a little too much from themselves once in a while, but I'm okay with that because they're always pushing us towards prosperity, towards growth, towards technological innovation, and all of that comes down.

And you can go get as much of it as you want, as hard as you're willing to work, etc okay

but now we got this Montami guy and and I'm watching like this isn't like Fox News spinning like literally what like he's on social media with the camera at his face saying shit that like is straight out of Mao Stalin I mean Hugo Shah I mean it's like he's verbatim saying the same shit, except at the end, he smiles and goes, but I'm a democratic socialist so so that makes it okay and you got all these morons behind him chanting his name and you're like

you one Google search one chat GPT or claude or whatever stupid one

and you literally watch he's he's reading verbatim it's the same shit we're gonna give you all this free stuff except he now he just said the other day he wants to start capturing IP Yes.

Not just repatriating a property.

He wants to start capturing IP, which means you you literally can't create a single thing

in the city limits without him owning a piece of it.

Yes.

It's fucking bananas.

It's bananas.

Ludicrous.

Yeah, but I tell you something funny about Mamdani.

So when he started running, I have friends in New York.

They said, oh,

it's a joke.

He's not going to win.

I'm like, watch.

He's going to win.

And I really think he's going to win.

And again, look at Bolshevik revolution.

Look at Mao Zedong.

Look at Venezuela.

It actually, what it is,

I think humanity goes through these waves.

And unfortunately, in parts of this great country, we're going through that exact scenario where that populist message doesn't matter how many times in history, it has played out disastrously.

People are unable in masses, unable to actually put two and two together.

So they're like, yeah, free grocery stores.

I'm like, great, that is.

it's like i'm like people fall for that so it and people will fall for that i really think he's gonna win i think he's gonna win too yeah i absolutely think he's gonna win um

i i have a question for you here so

i

like

i'm a hundred percent willing to talk about politics right because i and and there's a whole bunch of reasons for that uh uh i'd say the two biggest are one politics directly impact my financial and lifestyle so i want to have conversations and understand who's around me and where they are.

We don't have to get into major debates, but I at least want to understand where your head is at.

And the second is the psychology of how political messages are spread

relates so closely to how business messages and movements are spread.

And it's so incredibly important to understand.

And here's where my question comes in.

And there's a few other reasons as well, but here's where my question comes in.

So many people that I do business with or that I work with,

not my close circle, because obviously they wouldn't be in your inner circle of people if you weren't willing to have these kind of depths of conversations, but so many people I bump into,

they're like afraid to talk about politics or mix politics in any way with business for a whole myriad of fears.

And

I can't get past that anymore.

Like, I feel like the reason we're here today is because, like, I'll give you an example.

I was in a mastermind, 60 people in the room, and the topic of politics came up.

And I stood up and I said,

I think it is cowardice to play this I don't talk about politics thing in business.

I think that's pure cowardice.

And you should have, it was like, dude, you would have thought that I just ripped the biggest fart in the middle of Catholic mass ever.

I mean, it was like everyone was aghast at the fact that I would say that I thought it was cowardice.

And

it sparked this incredible debate that really didn't have a,

no, we didn't, couldn't come to a conclusion.

So,

but the general sense was people are very, very nervous, incredibly nervous and scared about talking about politics in any way as it relates to business.

Like, one, do you think that that's a good thing and a good business practice?

And two, like,

like,

how do you handle politics and political conversations in these topics?

Because for who I do business with, it's incredibly important to me at least to know where your head is at.

I don't have to agree with everything, but it's important.

Yes, and I can tell you from personal experience.

So

I've always been, you know, you can call me a right,

you know, Republican, or I call myself a libertarian person.

I believe in individual liberty and, you know, the right of individuals to build and prosper and own property and provide for their family and all that.

I immigrated to America for that reason.

Okay.

I came from a totalitarian country and I came here because I read stories of George Washington and Alexander Hamilton's Federalist Paper and stuff like that.

So to me that is absolutely in the core and I believe America is a very unique country in that sense.

However, I did not myself talk openly about politics.

for years because it does hurt, especially living in San Francisco.

It does hurt your ability to conduct business.

People sort of shun you and they are like, you know, you don't get like they, you kind of get greyballed, to put it mildly.

But something switched.

It wasn't actually business, because look, end of the day, I will survive because inside my head, my skull, I'm a free person.

So you can put me in Venezuela, in the ghettos of Venezuela, in a totally dictatorial country.

I'll be free inside my skull and I'm fine.

The thing that switched, flipped the switch for me was actually having kids.

So,

and once I had kids, I realized, look,

I may be able to live and survive in any scenario.

I don't really care.

But do I want my kids to grow up?

in a completely like totalitarian,

I wouldn't say we are like Mao Zedong level, but we were actually going in that direction a little bit.

Especially COVID opened my eyes.

I'm like, do I want to live in a country?

So I started talking about it myself after years of being an entrepreneur.

Essentially, after COVID, I'm like, this, I don't want my kids to have their individual rights and liberties being taken away by the country, by the government.

And that's the whole purpose.

That's why we have First Amendment, Second Amendment.

They have all these things that limit

the level of government involvement in our lives.

And that's why we have been a prosperous country because

all the founding fathers, they were on board.

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Rejected the concept of a strong totalitarian government and that's why they did what they did.

So

it's like I gotta do it for my kids.

In other words, you said, you know,

I need to do it for business and stuff, and I get it, and I agree with you.

To me, it's even one level more personal.

I don't know if you have kids or not, but

yeah, so for me, it is like, I don't want my kids to grow up in that country.

So,

yeah, that's that was a deal breaker.

So, now I gotta talk.

Yeah,

so I completely agree.

And

you know, I guess

the context of the question was I feel like people use business as an excuse.

I actually share 100% your reason for being vocal.

I just don't think I'm willing to accept the consequences, any consequences that may come with someone

not doing business with me because they disagree with me politically, I've just accepted.

And I just, I struggle with why so many people, like,

I just struggle with this.

And I'll give you another example.

So I just did a speaking gig yesterday.

I had a keynote yesterday.

And the night before, we went out for dinner and a couple beers with the people that were organizing it.

And they brought in some, you know, some of the VIPs from the event, you know, standard kind of keynote thing.

And it was great.

And the guy who brought me into the event, he and I started talking about some of the crazy shit that's going on in schools right now to get to your kids thing.

Yes.

Living in New York, I shared with him that while my kids go to private Christian school,

for all the reasons that I'm about to explain,

you know,

I would take on 10 jobs if I needed to to pay for this private school to not go.

Because on day one, there were

my best friend or my older son's best friends, sixth grade.

He had two furries,

four lesbians, and the teacher said, Your pronouns and your gender identity

will be kept 100% secret from your parents, and I have no obligation to tell them.

So, whatever you tell me to call you, whether it's dog or whatever, is completely acceptable.

That's day one.

That's the homeroom, day one, public school, New York.

That's insane.

Okay, so what's funny is all these people that I could tell were like kind of like ears up down here as soon as soon as the kids stopped, they all came down and and then it became all like, this is absolutely crazy, how do we deal with this?

Now they all like opened up.

So my point in saying that is I feel like when individuals like you, like me, people who have platforms, people who have thought through these things at a deep level, it's almost become an obligation for us to share our ideas, to give others permission to

kind of at least engage in some way.

Does that make sense?

It does, and you're right.

So I think permission, and here's another way to think about it.

Again, it's not left versus right.

People who have

self-made, egocentric belief systems.

They're like, I think this is needs to be blah, blah, blah, whatever is.

They are actually the ones who are more likely to be vocal about their opinions than people who think through things, okay?

Pragmatic people.

And that creates actually a problem.

The problem is pragmatic people they're all like you know they're reasonable people and they're thinking doing you know cost-benefit analysis and they're like well do i really want to offend people blah blah blah and therefore they're quiet and these the minority with crazy egocentric ideas are louder so even though they're smaller they have a larger platform and it feels like to Even politicians are like, oh, I got to appeal to the base.

You know, that's what they do.

Their only job is is to be elected.

So they listen to the loud minority more than the silent majority who are practical, reasonable people.

So you're right.

If you want change, the vast majority of pragmatic, logical people who actually look at data and history and examples and like create like common sense arguments, we want them to be louder because there are more of us.

And

we should be the base, not the loud few people who have these crazy ideas and they want to shove it down our throats.

So, so I agree with you.

It's like, it's essentially,

and people with a platform is doubly as important, which is why

last year, pretty much, I went, started talking about politics for the first time

on my Instagram and Facebook.

I have a lot of followers, and I got a lot of hate for it.

It was painful, actually.

But

I 100% stand by what I said, and it was totally worth it.

And I encourage more people to do it.

The term used is actually the exact right term, permission structure.

So if people with a platform who have a lot more to lose risk talking about what is really common sense, more people who are pragmatic, they stand up and are like, you know what, I'm going to talk about it too.

So we want to amplify the voice of the pragmatic good people.

And yes, people with a platform are doubly responsible to talk about it that's why I started talking about it after years of being silent about it

and you know now we're coming in and and you wrote this book that the conqueror's code and we have AI coming into these conversations and we you know just seeing some of the early nonsense that Sora is creating and these different video platforms and I mean the sombrero is just amazing.

You know what I mean?

Like you have all this, you know, you have Chuck Schumer talking, but which is obviously AI with the, the, you know, Jean Jeffers with the sombrero.

And you're like, you're looking at this and you're seeing these kind of memes come out of the White House.

And

we live in this completely different age of

understanding where we get our information.

So being someone who has built so many companies,

NASA, you know, you've worked, you know, partnered with Tai Lopez, you know, one of the best marketers of all time.

You have this amazing platform.

And now you've written this book and seeing AI coming, like, like

Where where do people get

Let me frame that question better.

How do we how do people trust the sources or maybe what are the filters they need to use to find the sources that they can trust when they're starting to make their own decisions right just like you said we need to start being pragmatic thinking through these things and I say okay Alex I absolutely agree with you.

I want to start being more thoughtful in my opinions.

But now I'm seeing the White House post AI-generated memes.

I have, you know, my favorite marketing thought leader is now talking about, you know, transgender issues.

And

how the hell do I sort through all this to start to get to the actual truth?

Yeah, the answer is my answer.

Look in history, which is why I love history, because it's sort of, it's macro.

So you go back and you say this

No two scenarios are exactly the same, but the same themes repeat themselves over and over again.

I go back in history.

That's why I read a lot of biographies and history.

Because opinion books are great, but more importantly, I'm like, what actually happened in the past and what was the outcome?

Okay?

And that, to me, is the ultimate way to predict what's the best course of action to take.

Like I told you, like

read biographies from modern day people like Elon Musk.

I read his book line by line.

Every email he sent,

very few books I read like that.

So I read it line by line because I know the outcome.

The guy has made these massive companies that are every single one of them.

All these people who hate on him, I'm like, all of you combined cannot do one of his ventures.

All of you combined, okay?

Yet you have the audacity to question his method to the madness.

Instead, you got to go go read his method to the madness, and even if you want to use it for a different purpose, even if you want to use it for your own whatever agenda it is, you cannot argue with the success of his method to the madness, so it's ultimate arrogance to not even pay attention to it, okay, and completely dismiss it.

The same is true in history, that's why that book is about history.

Look at the great conquerors, look at Alexander the Great, look at things that went right and wrong.

Look at Julius Caesar,

look at you know, Mehmet II, who used like cannon for the first time to conquer Constantinople for the first time.

And you just read, it's mind-bending the similarities of those days, like the Roman Empire being a great example,

to the current day that we live in and how the Republic fell.

And it's just like, it's a, it's an amazing thing to read.

And I encourage people, you want to cut through noise?

Look at

it's like that's a that's an example and everything that people argue about

I say well believe it or not this has happened in the history before and you can ask ChatGPT what are the historical examples of of this particular scenario and then look at what happened there and it tells you we have not changed that much.

People think, oh no, this is new.

Yeah, the tools of the warfare has changed.

But it also changed throughout history, like, you know, gunpowder, cannon, you know, electronic warfare, navies, like you name it.

Atomic bomb, there's a good documentary about that on Netflix, how it panned out.

And you look at how these new technologies like changed everything, and it's like it's just another wave of that, a new technological advantage.

And go back in history, look what has happened before, probably happens again.

All these things that you say, like brainwashing kids in school, by the way, happened in the Roman Empire.

So it's like towards the end, when the Roman Empire, after the Roman Republic, there was Roman Empire, towards the end, you can see the echo of what is happening in our country today at the end of the Roman Empire.

Exactly, the Western Roman Empire.

Exactly.

It's like all these things that we feel are new.

hedonism, like people just completely, you know, doing whatever they want and like the destruction of the family unit all these has happened in the Roman Empire.

You just like see the echo of history happening again.

Yeah, I'll tell you what woke me up to this, and I'm looking for the quote.

There's a great quote.

Um

something like if you don't want your son to be a Roman,

don't don't let him be taught by Romans or something.

I'm butchering the quote, but the whole idea, it's exactly what you said to the point of like the indoctrination of our youth.

It's like if you don't want your kid to believe things like a man can be a woman or that, you know, Sally in sixth grade is actually a dog and should be taking dumps in a litter box in the back of the classroom, then don't send them to a school where that is excessive.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Right?

Like these kind of things.

Well, I'll tell you what woke me up to the history was,

and it seems to have died down a little recently, but the Winston Churchill was the bad guy in World War II argument that was going around for a while.

At first I was like, this just sounds like some stupid meme.

And then I saw like Constantine Kisson address it on Trigonometry.

It's a podcast that I really like.

I don't know if you're familiar with that one.

But he started addressing him like, oh my God, this is actually like a widespread idea that people are perpetuating.

Like,

you have not read a single word of history.

from that time if you are positioning Winston Churchill as the bad guy.

Now, if you want to make a full spectrum argument, was he a perfect human?

Certainly not.

He made plenty of bad decisions, but those were bad decisions as bombs are being dropped on his head

while his people are dying in the streets from the blitzkrieg.

He's trying to make the best decisions he can with the information he has.

And yeah, a couple of them didn't go the way that he wanted.

And now we're going to position him as the bad guy?

You've lost touch with history if that's an argument that you're willing to make.

And I know that the guy that ultimately that was started off of, that wasn't actually the argument he was made.

He was taken out of context.

I get all that part.

But

it just hit me how hard we have lost touch.

And then I was talking to a friend of mine who, you know, is a good dude, tends to skew a little more left, but in general, a good dude.

And he made this off-the-cuff comment that blew me away.

It was something like he was referencing the early 1900s as if they were archaic, like Neanderthals, you know, you know, drumming on wood and barely could understand fire.

And I was like, they're us, bro.

Like, like, you, you don't, those are us.

They're, they are no different than we, they're having the same exact thoughts we're having right now.

They were having back then.

So, like, you, you're, you're trying to, because maybe they didn't have cell phones, you're somehow thinking that they're less sophisticated of human beings or they didn't, not dealing with the same emotional pain that we are.

Like, are you fucking crazy?

Half of them would go days without eating.

You know what I mean?

Like,

when's the last time you went three days without eating because you couldn't get a a job down at the dock that day right or the breadline ran out of bread and you just didn't eat like when's the last time that happened for you so like

we we just have this this whole idea of the end of history that was perpetuated around postmodern liberalism

it is such a cancer to our methodology and to how we operate on a day-to-day basis that I don't know how to remedy that idea besides reading, but how do you spread that to the masses

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This is the way.

Is postmodernism, that's the main issue.

It's like they think us as humans are very different, and now somehow we are more advanced and like grew IQ points or something.

Not true.

We are the same biological systems, organisms we lived back then, that we are now, and that has been the case through the recorded history.

Okay, so the human that lived during ancient Egypt until now, we have changed very little as like actual human species.

So, all those arguments are come from a place of arrogance.

That's kind of what I'm what I'm saying.

It's like,

I am such an evolved human that I am not even comparable, and I have the right to judge that person, even though that person lived like hundreds, two hundreds, thousand years ago, and that person did this thing that according to my postmodern values, like they were not, they're not correct.

Therefore, I'm gonna judge that person.

I am like, okay, that literally comes from the place of ego and arrogance.

But, but, here's the good news: there aren't that many of them.

They just happen to be, have very high conviction because high-ego people, people with a large ego, are by definition louder.

So, so

it comes from the position of ego, and these are just loud people, and they're minority.

The problem that you pointed out, however, is correct.

People who are not like that are in general tend to be quieter.

And because of that, it feels like those other people.

And also the other thing that happens is that

our social behavior is contagious.

So

loud people, even though I say they're a minority, because the message is constantly repeated and repeated and repeated, it actually rubs on people.

Just like I say, broke energy is contagious,

depressed energy is contagious, happy energy is contagious.

It's the same thing.

So these people are kind of also rubbing and perpetuating these ideas by just pure repetition and being loud.

So, so, and people get influenced by that.

That has happened also throughout history.

So, a few people who were loud, they pushed really terrible ideas on people Bolshevik Revolution being the case in point.

So,

I,

most people were not on board with Bolshevik Revolution.

It was a very unpopular move at the beginning.

But then these people were loud and like repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat the message.

And over time, like people are like, oh, these people, you know, combination of them winning a little bit and then hearing the message multiple times, people get influenced just through the fact of repetitively hearing a message.

So I think the solution is exactly what you said earlier, which is people that are grounded, maybe that's the best term I can use, people that are grounded in reality and common sense and all that, they need to be louder because

the gut reaction when I see a bunch of crazy people saying crazy stuff is for me to say, okay, I'm going to go take my ball and go play somewhere else.

That's gut reaction, okay?

If we do that, and if all of us do that repeatedly and for long enough, there will be no place to go.

So it's so you said it's our duty, yes, it is our duty, if we care about the next generation, it is our duty to stand our ground, even though it is counterintuitive and a

pragmatic person who wants to make a living and build a business or what have you.

The pragmatic answer is take your ball and go play somewhere else.

Which is why I left San Francisco.

But if all of us do that all the time for long enough, there will be no other place for us to take our ball to go and play it.

That's essentially what happened throughout all these crazy revolutions that has happened over the years.

Yeah.

I want to transition a little bit to entrepreneurship.

And you're a serial entrepreneur, very successful, spend a lot of time with successful entrepreneurs.

So taking this concept of we need to be louder or at least more convicted in our convictions

to turn a terrible phrase.

How do we, like, it feels today like entrepreneurship was,

it feels very chaotic.

I get a lot of questions.

People ask me a lot of questions, and some of them I don't have the answers, which is why I love having individuals like yourself on.

There's so much hitting us.

Start your own AI through lovable.

Just type your idea and everything gets built.

And then, you know, or is it more like, you know, if AI is going to be everywhere should I be out Cody Sanchezing everything and buying plumbing businesses and you know like I feel I get a lot of questions from people who kind of see what's coming understand that that AI is absolutely coming down the pipe they're they're unsure of what that means but they see it and believe it's going to be a bigger part of life they see companies across the board, including in my own home industry, which is the insurance industry.

You know, one of our largest organizations in our industry just announced they're dropping 4,000 people.

And that kind of layoffs don't happen in insurance.

And they actually referenced automation and AI as one of the reasons why they're dropping 4,000 people.

So I think a lot of people see this trend and they're like, okay, I want to own my own destiny, whatever that looks like.

But where before it was, okay, I could go small business, I could go trade or tech, we're really the big entrepreneurial veins,

it feels so fragmented and distracting and there's so many different people trying to push their version of entrepreneurship on.

People don't know where to go.

So, I know that's a very broad idea, so you can take it wherever you want.

But, how do these individuals who have this spirit, who want to go down this path,

but just simply feel like they have so much hitting them in the face, they don't know what to do?

Where do they start?

What do they start thinking about?

Yeah.

So, again, I'm going to go back to history and I'm going to work my way to today.

So, if you look at the best entrepreneurs of all of all time,

they have put a huge large, just volume body of work out.

Go from Leonardo da Vinci

to Picasso, you know, the number of artwork he did, to Thomas Edison to Elon Musk.

They all had, they just put a huge body of work out.

So the

overall message that I want to tell people is that successful people are idea machines.

Successful people are idea machines.

They just constantly put out a huge amount of work.

Now,

there's a catch with that.

The catch is you can't have a lot of ideas,

but don't have execution abilities, so you can't execute on any of your ideas.

Which meant the world of like super successful entrepreneurs was limited with people that not only were idea machines, but they were also really good execution machines.

Now, the scale has tipped a little bit now with AI.

So, you know, we build our product, for example, famous.ai, is a builder.

It's like idea to business.

So that means more people can turn their ideas into businesses and products with AI,

which means the history has disproportionately rewarded high idea machines, essentially,

but they also had to have great execution skill.

The importance of execution skill has dropped a little bit.

It requires less capital, it requires less time, it requires less resources, people, and you can have more ideas and lack a little bit

in the sense of resources, but it's still win.

So, whatever

history has rewarded idea machines, it's going to be even more okay

and one of the things that I heard like you know common entrepreneurship advice is that do one thing and do it right that common the worst pieces of advice are the ones that sound good but are not true okay

so I tell people this I'm like look that is designed for people who don't have great execution skill and they could not execute many many ideas so they had to spend a lot of time executing on one idea.

In those scenarios, it made sense.

With AI, that advice is actually not that good.

The correct advice is to revert to become the Thomas Edison, Elon Musk, you know, Picasso.

You pick, you know, Vanderbilt, like all these great Henry Ford, like all these great industrialists of our generation.

You read their biography, they're like idea machines.

Okay.

So I'm like, okay, go to that and use AI, lean on AI for execution.

So my answer is,

just like I do, and I don't say anything that I don't do myself.

So when we started the company Famous Labs, I didn't know exactly what it was going to build.

I essentially, and I did that, by the way, back when I became an entrepreneur for the first time in 2007, I didn't start, my first company was an online dating app, but it didn't start as an online dating app.

I started an app studio.

And we were launching apps, we launched quizzes, games, stuff like that until online dating hit.

And then we followed the traction and we doubled down, triple triple down on that so but I to do that I had to cash out my 401k at the beginning pay all the penalties put all my money in it I wasn't married I didn't have kids you know and and I and then I raised capital in Silicon Valley and I built I had to do that required a lot of resources and also like

now you can execute the same method with less way less resources with AI.

So the good news is, if you are an idea machine today

and you don't have the execution abilities of Thomas Edison, okay,

you're given a gift, which is AI, essentially helping you build and execute.

So you can mope about jobs being lost due to AI, but you can also

say, hey, maybe God has a different plan for me.

you say maybe it have even if you get laid off because of ai maybe that's part of the plan

Maybe that is

in your future.

It's forcing your hand to have all these ideas that you had over the years did not execute.

List them and knock them out one by one with AI.

And we can talk about how to do that, but it's like essentially knock them out one by one until you have a winning idea.

And I tell you one thing as an entrepreneur, I was actually going to post about on Instagram.

I've launched 100 plus products in my entrepreneurial life.

It's like like probably a couple hundred.

Nothing beats the dopamine hit of working on a product and launching it and getting traction from the market.

Nothing.

And it is, to me, is an opportunity for all those people, instead of thinking, okay, the grand scheme, macro level, what is happening and all that, I'm like, focus on you.

What are your ideas?

Are you the next Thomas Edison, Elon, you know, Picasso?

Are you a mini version of that?

Okay, do you have just like ideas?

If you have ideas, you're handed a gift.

Just list them out and this is the time.

Execute them super fast, one by one by one.

Go to market.

You will find a winner if you stay at it for long enough.

So instead of being confused and resentful, you know, dazzled, whatever,

instead, just be like, okay, what has worked in the past?

A lot of ideas, people people who had a lot of ideas.

Do I have the ability to execute them?

The answer is yes.

Nowadays, it's much, it's the easiest it has been throughout history to execute ideas.

So just sit, write your ideas, unconfuse yourself, okay?

It's like very important.

Like, ignore the noise, unconfuse yourself.

Write down your ideas one by one.

and knock them out one a week.

So, and you will find traction if you do it enough number of times.

So that's kind of my high-level advice.

I like that a lot.

You know, James Altiter pitches this 10 ideas a day.

Yeah.

Right.

So like instead of journaling in the morning or whatever, he writes down 10 ideas for something every day.

And just 10 ideas, 10 ideas, 10 ideas.

And his whole thing is if you come up with, you know, 70 ideas a week, and one of those ideas might actually be good.

And if you do that every day, now it's 300 ideas in a month.

And, you know, now all of a sudden you're you're just the pure coming up with this ideas and making that part of how your brain works you start to see ideas etc so it's just the practice of this idea practice it the idea machine yeah and i let me add something to that i think is useful so um

ryan i i bet a lot of your audience they're like oh i have some ideas but i don't have enough good ideas and stuff like that here's the truth nobody knows what a good idea is nobody knows So it's a game of numbers.

Now, I give you even better news.

Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, he has a great clip.

Maybe you can link to it at some point.

He says,

action produces information.

And the best thing you can do is to act.

to produce information and then use that information to come up with your next move.

Meaning, instead of sitting in vacuum and coming up with ideas and then expecting your brain, your unexercised, unfit brain.

Okay, hopefully, I'm not insulting your audience by that.

But people who have not done that in mass, it's kind of like going to the gym for the first time, okay?

So, your brain is not fine-tuned, which is perfectly fine.

But you got to start somewhere.

You know, you go to the gym for the first time, you push some weight, and it's like you're all sore and you're not doing things right.

You start, and then that action of starting with ideas and actually hitting the market, meaning acting on the idea, the act of implementing the idea itself gives you new ideas.

So that's the good news.

You don't have to come up with all those 300 ideas in one shot.

You just need to create with a few, one, actually,

and just go to the market.

And when you go to the market, you get feedback and that information

produces, that action produces information that you can use to formulate new ideas.

That is what I'm saying.

Like a lot of people are like, oh, I don't have a perfect idea.

Let me find for the perfect idea.

That's one category of problems people have.

But the answer to that is the antidote to that is very simple.

Whatever you have, act on it.

And the market will give you your next idea.

Yeah, I love that.

It's funny.

I had a conversation with my son the other day.

He did really poorly on a,

they call it ELA today.

I guess it's like reading in English.

We would have called it English, ELA,

a test.

And he was confused as to why.

he, you know, and he was frustrated and he was mad.

He does pretty well in school.

And just, you know, I said, bro, wins and lessons.

Like, yeah,

two days ago, you sucked at sentence fragments, right?

But now, you know them better.

Like, you didn't really fail because now if you were to take that test again, you know what a sentence fragment is versus, you know, that was what the test was on or whatever.

And I was like, wins and lessons, man.

And, like, it was almost like saying wins and lesses instead of like, I failed the test.

It like loosened his body up.

I could see his shoulders like loosen.

And then all of a sudden, I watched his, you know, because before when I was kind of helping him with the ones he got wrong, I could tell that he had the wall up.

You know what I mean?

The like, dad, you know, shut the fuck up, dad, wall.

And,

and then, like, when I said, I looked at him and I go, dude,

who gives you shit?

You're freaking in sixth grade.

I was like,

so what?

You did bad on one ELA test in sixth grade?

Like, now you're, what, you're, I go, it's wins and lesses.

And then he started listening.

And I think that what I, that's exactly what I hear you saying, right?

It's like, even if you have an idea and it's not the home run idea, the action that you take in executing it and maybe figuring out that it's not the great idea or big idea, you're going to learn a ton of stuff just in that action.

That then, the next idea, you'll be able to jump two or three steps.

And then maybe that one's not the best one.

And then you can jump four or five steps because you keep learning a little more until you get to the one that actually hits.

Is that that sounds like a little bit of a bad thing?

100% what I'm saying.

I mean,

look at even like, I mean, I use Picasso, look at early work of Picasso

versus towards the end of his career.

Picasso is not one Picasso.

It's like people don't, people think people come out of the box all trained and like, no,

all of us are work in progress.

All of us are a work in progress.

So

the key word there is progress.

So,

and progress comes from action.

Like, okay, I take a step.

But take the step today so you can take more steps.

That's what I think a lot of people are missing.

They're trying to calculate the exact right step that takes them to the exact destination.

And I'm like, bro, you don't even know where you're going.

It's like no one knows where you're going to end up.

In fact, I would argue there have been, there are very few companies that

the product that they have today is what was conceived at the point of conception of the company.

It's like, it's like, it's a company is like zigzag, zigzag, zigzag, let me random walk my way towards the destination.

And it's natural, and there's nothing to be ashamed about.

What I think people should be embarrassed about is lack of taking the steps, meaning lack of action.

That is unforgivable.

But if you're taking steps, we're all humans and we all don't know exactly what we are doing and we all learn.

I still to this day, I launch products and I don't know if they are going to take off or not.

And I'm like 200 reps under me.

Okay.

I still, my hit rate, I tell you, under Famous Labs, I've launched 20 plus products in the past two years.

Seven of them are even alive, okay?

So my hit rate is low.

And I've done it like 200 times.

It's fine, your hit rate is gonna be low, so what?

So we just take the swings, man.

Take the swings.

It's just like, just do it.

I would like to, for break dance,

you framed Famous AI as a product builder, right?

Talk me through that, because I think, like,

I've gotten a lot of questions, particularly about, like, lovable and these app builders and stuff.

And

I think for people who haven't done the full dive into AI yet and really spent that time,

it's hard to conceive what that actually looks like.

Like,

if I'm coming to famous AI, right?

What do I have to have prepared in my mind to bring to the the tool to start

to actually get a product or to get an app or to get something out into the market?

Like, do I have to have a fully baked idea and the ability to code?

Is it like, what do I have to bring to the product to actually make it happen?

No ability to code.

So, that is definitely, I am not building for coders.

I'm building for a normal person who's not a coder.

There are a ton of coder tools.

We are building for the general everybody entrepreneur, essentially.

I'm building for myself when I started.

So

the way I think about it is that everyone in the market is going after

code builders, like product builders.

I don't think that's what people need.

People need a business builder.

So they want to,

they have the

overall idea.

I want to start a dating company for people over 40.

Okay, or I want to start a dating company for people who have kids.

Okay, or I want to start whatever, a diet and nutrition company that does my own diet formula.

So you have to have that overall idea.

And the idea here is that AI implements and massages your idea and gets it as close to market ready.

Not writes code.

Yes, it does write code.

But it's trained to create products that are market ready.

For example, you know.

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I teach like, you know, how to build landing pages for your product that actually articulate the value proposition and then you put a hook on top like an emotional hook and then an explainer video call to action what's called benefit stack objection overcoming

like I have like anatomy of what actually makes a product actually sell because end of the day nobody's writing code bro they want to build a business that have customers so so We trained it so that AI knows not just write code and create product.

You come with the idea, it builds the first iteration of it.

It takes about 12 minutes and it's free to start.

And you essentially, it kind of like brings your idea to life.

Then you look at that.

And that's very important.

That first,

you know, the first version of the product that comes out of just plain English saying, hey, I want to build a keto diet thing that does this and that and tracks my carb intake.

And

so takes,

it won't generate the whole thing in one shot because it's not even, it might deviate significantly from what you had in mind.

But it creates an impressive mock with data put in, so you see what it's going to look like.

And the reason for that is, I want to punch you in the face.

And I want to say, here,

this is how close you are to seeing your idea come to reality.

And trust me,

it's once people see their idea somewhat materialized they are 100 times more motivated to go through the follow-up motions to actually make it work ready and in the process AI is constantly thinking about the marketability of your idea so it's using the language that actually sells your product emotionally.

It builds a landing page of your product right.

It builds the app with like low friction.

So it's like the things that we do that I learned from years of building consumer products I'm like I know these things need to be in it so I codified so the idea the main purpose of my company we have multiple products but the main purpose of my company is to give

in that I think of established companies as the Goliath and I think of the little guy as David I'm like I want to give them the slingshot that allows a little guy to take out the big guy okay So that's my entire purpose.

And that's not code generation.

It's part of it, but it's not code generation.

It is the asymmetric warfare tool that allows you to actually look like a billion-dollar company.

So if you're competing with FitnessPal, I want your product to look,

feel,

be as production ready, marketing ready as FitnessPal.

So it looks like a billion dollar company.

And then David has a chance against a Goliath.

So that's the main idea.

And I think this is when I go back to idea machines.

The idea here is you come with idea, like you wrote bullet points.

And people do it differently, by the way.

Some people go, ChatGPT is trained on Famous.

It knows what Famous AI is.

So you can actually ask Famous AI,

ChatGPT, I'm building this on Famous AI.

It gives you a detailed prompt, and you can come with a fully fleshed-out vision.

And some people do that.

They put a really long prompt with all the details.

But it's also designed for people who just want to put the idea in because I want people to get started.

I'm like, put a one sentence about your idea.

See what it creates, and then iterate on that.

So we handle both scenarios essentially.

And like I said, the differentiation, the way I think about it is that all these software companies are getting the intent of the entrepreneur wrong.

They think of it as, oh, we generate code for them.

I'm like, nobody cares.

You want to build a product that actually user can go to market with.

That's the main difference I'm focused on.

Yeah, I love it.

And I will say that

my question is slightly selfish because I have been

idea machining

a lot lately on some things.

And I was digging into when OpenAI launched Agent Builder, right?

And I was mostly just peppering ChatGPT about Agent Builder.

I just wanted to learn about it because I missed the Dev Day or whatever thing.

And I didn't feel like going back and watching it.

So I was just getting the...

And what was funny was ChatGPT started asking me

what would I want to build with Agent Builder.

And this idea, you couldn't do it all the way with that.

But

when I started...

When I started giving it the idea that came to my mind,

one, I was shocked at what idea like came immediately to the forefront of my brain, which felt very,

I don't mean to be quite so

big here, grandiose, but like a little divine and just so much, like this idea was the first idea that came to my mind.

And it's something that I've always wanted and I was like, so I started talking to it and it's, man, it's like

this and you know, you gotta connect all this shit.

And I was like, I'm a sales and marketing leadership guy.

Like, I get, I understand how technology works, but I can't make the technology do the things.

And then I knew we were going to be talking and I knew what this did.

And I was like, at some point, I'm spinning this conversation over to like, how do I get my, an idea out into the world?

Because

I'm never going to learn how to code.

I'm never, I'm probably not even going to be able to do like all the crazy connectivity and the databases.

And like, I don't know how to do that stuff.

But, but even just the first step of how do you how do you start to

validate this idea see what it looks like and actually see some functionality happening so you can you can take it to that next level like I wouldn't even know without that type of tool and like this seems exactly like famous AI seems exactly like what I was looking for and that's not just because you're on the show I mean I've been waiting to talk about this I knew you were coming on yeah

but

I think there are a lot of people like me who have ideas for an app or a tool or something that they could share or that they're really passionate about.

And even if it was just a side hustle or a side quest,

but they just get so stuck in how do I actually make it happen?

I don't know a developer.

I don't want to go on Fiverr because who do I trust?

Or, you know, upwork or whatever.

And these tools can get you so far.

So maybe.

Where does it stop though?

Like, could I take this all the way to I'm selling an application that people could download or put on their phone or log into on a website or whatever like can I take it all the way there or like how far can I get

because it seems like all the tools kind of stop at different places yeah

so the idea here is all the way and we have a lot of people who are non-technical who have apps in the app store from our platform.

In fact, one of the things that we went through great length pain, I should say.

So for example, in some of the tools you mentioned, Lovable, Lovable does not build a mobile app.

It's like iPhone Android app.

We do.

Okay, there are other tools that build iPhone Android apps, but what you need to do, the user needs to do, is to, once they build it, they need to download it, compile it on your computer, which right there, I lost 95% of the population, and then connect it.

So, we went through insanity to have direct connections to App Store and Play Store so that the users do not have to download code and have a local version compiled and then upload.

It literally does it from the platform directly to iPhone and Android, as an example.

So I am going through, this is literally when I say

you would be like literal great avatar for us.

I'm putting myself in the shoes of the user who doesn't have an engineering team, doesn't know how code works.

And also marketing.

So it's like the whole spectrum.

I want to go all the way from IDEA to walk you through all the way to have product market ready and CRM, everything built in.

Okay.

And I'm literally going step by step and I'm trying to remove all complexity, all complexity.

And obviously, no AI tool is perfect.

So it's like as we go through it, I'm like every week we roll out new things and I remove friction here.

I remove friction there.

I make this a little bit.

Now our platform tests its own

build.

And it actually, if you build something, you see it like says detected an error.

dot or I tries to fix it and and it's like it's like because I don't want the user to even see

a code error snippet and then say fix it I'm like I remove that AI should do that automatically should build its own test harness and we are like literally going step by step by step by step and I'm gonna build the whole thing into it so a normal person my idea is that a normal person who doesn't have access to developers and engineers but they have ideas and they have great business acumen, they have vision and great business acumen, they should be able to execute the whole thing on our platform end-to-end.

And that's where we are going.

I'm really excited about it for that reason.

Exactly to enable people like you.

It's like, I'm like, that idea, here's, I'm going to take two seconds to explain this.

I think all of us are born with gifts in our brain.

Your gift and mine are different.

It is some of it we are born with.

Some of it is through the just reality of the life we live.

You and I live very different lives because of that.

We have these little gems in our brain.

We are good at something, okay?

Everyone's good at something.

I'd like to believe that

that little gem is hidden, tucked away inside a lot of people's brains because they do not have the ability to take it out, productize it, and sell it.

So I'm like, My entire job,

I work every day, is that to enable everybody to take that gem, which is different for everyone.

It could be like mindfulness workshops, it could be whatever.

People have like insane skills.

And you just take that

and allow the user, remove all the abstraction.

You don't need a Dev Shop, you don't need a marketing agency.

Abstract all of that, abstract the idea, show it to the user, iterate with the user as a combined CTO, CMO,

CRO, like all of those combined, and just work with the user to take that gift and polish it and put it out as a product out there in the market.

That's my job.

I love that.

And guys, if you're listening and you have these ideas,

this is why I was so excited to have Alex on the show because you guys have been pinging me, hitting me on the side about what AI tools I'm using and how do I do this and how do I, like,

all that stuff is great, but these are the types of tools that are going to help you make money from your ideas and make an impact, right?

I mean, that's ultimately, you know, we all like to make money.

I certainly love to make money as much as anybody, but man, that money spends a little nicer when it comes with a serious impact on the back end.

I'll spend all the money, but the stuff that comes with impact, man, it really feels good.

And being able to get these ideas, like we shouldn't be handcuffed because you didn't take, you know, C ⁇

class in freaking college.

that shouldn't handcuff you from getting your ideas to the market famous ai is a great way i'm definitely going down this rabbit hole because this idea has been burning a hole in my brain and um man

divine by the way it is divine so i i i sometimes

think hit me in such a weird way i have no explanation for it i mean where did this idea come from Divine is the good way to think about it.

And honestly, it is a gift.

Believe in God or not.

If you believe in God, it's a gift from God.

If you don't, mother nature.

So it's like, gave you this gift.

You have the option of ignoring it.

But I really, I think everybody experiences.

You experience it.

I experienced it.

I bet everybody experiences it to a different degree that you're walking and an idea hits you like, you know, like a semi-truck.

And you're like, that is an interesting idea.

And

do not waste it.

Yeah.

So

on that, and then we'll wrap up here, but on that, this one's not opened yet, but I started playing around with this tool.

It's called XNote.

It's like one of these digital digitizing pens.

And I carry the small book.

This one's not open.

The other one is.

But I started carrying this with me everywhere I go, like my wallet, for the exact reason of you get these ideas.

And sometimes it's like everyday shit.

Like I need to go pick up something from the store, right?

And I just blasted a notebook and then it shows up in the phone, becomes a task and I get it done and it's like capturing these divine moments because I'm absolutely a believer 100%

capturing these moments is

just as important and that's why I loved that we spent so much time on the idea machine on the idea generation because when these sparks hit you I think a lot of people aren't listening We're not listening.

And if you open your heart, man, you have to open your heart.

You have to make a habit out of listening to these moments, to these things that happen, and the stuff that, and some of it's fucking crazy, and that's okay, right?

But write it down anyways.

And then, you know, and maybe that thing seems crazy today, but six months or a year from now, that idea is not so crazy.

You never know, right?

Yes.

Timing is just as important.

So, Alex, I appreciate the hell out of you, man.

This has been tremendous.

I could talk to you now for four hours.

And I love it.

I love Famous AI.

So much that you've done has been so impactful.

If people, besides Famous AI, if people want to get deeper into your world, follow what you're talking about, where's the best place for them to do that?

Instagram at Dr.

Alex.

Doctors is spelled out.

So Dr.

Alex.

Awesome.

And guys, I'll have links to everything we discussed today in the show notes.

So just scroll down, check it out.

Appreciate the hell out of you, my man.

Open invitation anytime you want to come back.

Yeah, absolutely.

Thank you.

Thank you.

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