How to WIN with AI - Cien Solon, Founder & CEO of LaunchLemonade

Strategy & Tragedy: CEO Stories with Steph Melodia is the best business podcast for curious entrepreneurs featured in the UK's Top 20 charts for business shows.

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In this episode, Stephanie Melodia interviews Cien Solon, AI leader and Founder & CEO of LaunchLemonade - a tool dubbed as the "Canva of AI apps."

Want to start playing with AI? Check out: https://launchlemonade.app/

Watch on YouTube via the link below or keep reading for the transcript:

SM: Cien, welcome to Strategy and Tragedy.

CS: Thanks for having me, Steph. This is surreal. Like, I think it was last year where I was watching you and Andy.

SM: Oh my god! Of course! Yeah.

CS: Yeah. I was in the studio, and I was like, that's that's fun. And now I'm here.

SM: Of course, that was the first time that we met in person.

CS: I know, I know. I manifested this.

SM: Oh, don't get me started on manifesting. We'll be here all day. That is a very cool full circle moment, actually. So listeners, the Andy that CIen is referring to is Andy Ayim. Definitely go back and have a listen to that episode because, yeah, that was amazing. And, yeah, of course, we had Cien as the live audience member during that recording, and now you're here across the table from me! Honestly. Love that.

Alright. Let's get back to you. Launch Lemonade, give us an expanded elevator pitch. What is it exactly?

CS: So currently, the market, the consumers, even the builders are getting frustrated and confused and overwhelmed with the amount of selection and noise around AI, what could be done, how to maximize, how to increase efficiency, but no one's really providing a platform that would allow them to monetize, learn, and mature not just as builders but actually as great users as well.

So we built this platform where anyone without needing technical abilities, just the time to attend our master classes, to have conversations with us, to learn and actually build monetizable AI agents. Love that. And that really ties into your mission. I can already hear you speaking so passionately about making sure that people can actually, like, utilize AI, monetize it. So I wanna talk about the applications and implications of AI.

SM: So start with those applications. Can you give us some real world use cases beyond just all this kind of, like, buzz people talking about it? How can it actually be implemented? The most common use case?

CS: I've learned that these group of people are the best adapters. They weren't the earliest adapters, but you'd relate to this. But marketing agencies, marketing professionals are the best adapters of AI. They're able to create and make it work for them. So we've got agencies who are building tools for their team. So now they don't only have five clients, but they have they can have hundreds because they were able to increase their productivity. But we've also got marketeers who've built tools that they are selling to clients.

So that is one application that I find very interesting and, you know, I hear a lot about the creator economy that's just boosting. And I I think that's a really good application where everyone can build their own brands, everyone can create a presence by utilizing AI and expanding their reach, by doing more. Yeah. But we also have subject matter expertise in business coaching and consultancy, even in nutrition that are building AI versions of their services and their expertise and selling it to, their clients as a $24.07 pocket coach, consultant, business partner, advisor.

SM: Interesting. Alright. So let's dive into some of the specifics with that because I just know how I mean, you've got you've got such a variety of different users. There's different use cases, and I'm just keen to kinda go from that, like, the broader, the generalized, and let's kinda pick out a few, like, specific use cases. So let's kind of work backwards. So you're saying, like, a a coach or a life consultant or something. Tell us a bit more about, kind of, the AI version of themselves and how it can be, like, monetized.

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SM: Tell us a bit more about kind of the AI version of themselves and how it can be, like, monetized.

CS: Yeah. So let's say you're a business coach. Currently, in the old world, you would have three clients or five clients that you see every month because that's the only time that, you have capacity. Like, that's the only capacity that you have. But with an AI version of yourself where you upload your frameworks, your knowledge, your ebooks, and this AI tool is now able to answer the same questions that you would have one to one anytime, anywhere. So now you're able to have more and people can subscribe to that instead of booking appointments. That is definitely one way we're seeing people are utilizing AI.

SM: And is that, like, the do they then kind of retell that as, like, the light version and the more accessible price point just to kinda get some of that expertise?

CS: Yeah.

SM: There's a few kind of devil's advocate voices that's coming up for me on this. Like, one is, we're in the information age so there's no shortage of information, and we have access to that information. So if any entrepreneurs are listening to this, I'm like, okay, I could create this AI version of myself - how much, like, value is it adding? How much of a market is there act because it sounds great in theory. Right? It sounds great. I get to scale up my practice. I'm going from this individual sole consultant. But I've seen how even just, like, being on the other side of a call and holding somebody accountable and them knowing that the person is on the other side of the Zoom and not wanting to let them down, there's, like, value in just that itself, which you don't have from the machines. So I wanna get your take on that.

CS: Absolutely. First of all, just going back to your point, people are using it as a low ticket value or top of the funnel tool right now. But I think, you know, as these things progress, I have no doubt that it would become a higher ticket, value offering. But to answer your point, people don't buy from the machine.

They still buy from you. So I think more than ever, brands are gonna personal brands are gonna be as important as the tools that these brands build. Because in this economy where there's so much saturation, people will buy from the people. Yeah. And the machine is just a tool that you can utilize to add a revenue stream to your offering.

So So for example sorry to just cut you off here, but for so my cogs are just turning while I'm listening to you. So for example, with my last agency, and we'll definitely talk about the marketing use cases as well because obviously that's my my background. With my marketing agency, I One of my my own marketing strategies for my own marketing business was to demonstrate expertise, and it was by posting, like, these are the frameworks we use, these are our tried and tested processes. I'd write thought leadership articles, and blogs, and things, and I put out this content where this expertise is available. So I guess where my mind has gone here is, like, drawing that line between this content that I'm already putting out there for my own marketing that's available, booking to have a session with me or my team and paying for that.

And then I think what you're describing here, unless I'm completely mistaken, it's it's kind of like in between those two. And so if you're gonna pay for it, is the does the value then become the the conversational element, the always on element? Because if all that content is there, is it simply that the repackaging of all that content that's already available? Do you see what I mean? Yeah.

But it's your content. It's your tried and tested data. Yeah. So you've got all of these, let's say, ten years of putting all these strategies together, putting all these content, together, thought leadership stuff, social media, calendars. That's your data.

They're buying your data, not the AIs. So you've imagine, like, you've you've got all of these rich data, ebooks, frameworks, and you feed that into the AI, and the AI then performs based on your tried and tested data. Sure. That's what your clients are gonna be buying from you. And so so that's what I mean.

So if that data is already out there and being published even with, like, our own marketing and I'm putting out that material, it's really the repackaging of that that's that's the value. No. Because they're yes and no. Yeah. The yes element is the obvious.

Like, obviously, you've, you know, like, you've you you are repackaging it. The no are the objectives and how the market is right now and how consumers are behaving. So there's still going to be elements of you as a subject matter expertise to add elements of, little restrategy based on consumer behavior Yeah. Trends Yeah. Whatever it is, the competitive competitors.

Yeah. There's still nuances that you as a subject matter expertise needs to add into yeah. Exactly. Which you can't just get an AI to because they don't have the data for what is currently happening. Yeah.

No. I'm with you. It's like even with this, with the podcast, it's like someone was describing, like, this is just the modern day version of radio. Like Right? It's like, we're just sat here having a conversation recording it and broadcasting it out to audiences.

But because it's in digital format and perhaps you're listening to this on Spotify or on YouTube, as opposed to, like, adjusting the knob to a different FM tuning to the radio station. So I get I think that's kind of as I'm learning about this, I'm kind of wrapping my head around for me, just understanding that I think for me, I'm just sort of I'm obviously not not putting you on the spot with this, but I'm kind of challenging the the market value and how people how consumers are gonna pay. And I'm just trying to understand kind of that that value. If that information is already out there, if it's already accessible, then, you know, it's like I always say, like, an encyclopedia is not a New York Times bestseller. There's we're in the information age.

All of this stuff is out there. It's all published. But it's then, I guess, as I keep using the term wrongly or rightly, it's the repackaging. It's the reformatting. It's putting it into that different digestible format adapting to the consumer behavior.

No. Absolutely. Like, I'll give you a a hypothetical Yeah. Concrete example of what can be done. So you've got all of these content in strategy, tragedy, and you have certain you have a certain way and style of asking questions and formatting how you the the conversation progresses.

Now let's say you have a following and they wanna do the same thing. Like they like your style, they like the way you ask questions. They like everything that you're doing. And so you're able to repackage that into some sort of machine that would allow them to build scripts based on the sub the subjects that they wanna talk about. And that could be a low ticket value for you, like, ask Stephanie, who is an expert at podcasting.

And they would and people would would buy. But, yeah, I wanna start a podcasting. I just need some sort of machine that will allow me to build the scripts, the questions, you know, step by step guide. I can ask questions what what the lighting should be, what where to go. But then I'm still a little bit insecure about my capabilities.

Maybe I need that higher ticket, you know, coaching where Stephanie will talk to me and give me some, you know, one to one tips on how to become a great podcaster. And that could be and that could be a an entire business by itself. And are you saying is that last part, like, with me for real or the AI? Yeah. With you.

For real. So that's the highest ticket. Up. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. So that could be a a an example of a a business anyone Yeah. Yeah. Could do.

Okay. What I'm also wondering in my mind is, like, how much we're touching on, like, consumer behavior and adapting to serving the market needs. From my stance where I'm sat, it looks like AI is the one driving that as opposed to the consumer behavior. You think the opposite. Cost is driving that.

The market is driving that. Mhmm. There is both the technology, you know, like, it's well marketed and, it's it's very attractive. But I think, just thinking out loud, the the root of of this is finance you know, the cost of being able to maintain our livelihoods and our earnings. Like, if there is threat of us losing our livelihoods, losing our jobs, and not be able to future proof our careers because AI might take over.

I think the driver is, you know, that. Like, we need we need money. What I'm hearing is the cause and the solution. So marketing is one of the worst culprits at this, making consumers think they have a problem and then serving up the solution for it. One of the worst ones of that was, this terrible ad campaign from Dove, which was oh my god, Shen.

It was so infuriating. I don't know if you saw this, but it was around your underarms and, like, the skin the appearance and, like, the skin quality of your underarm for, like, the Dove exodrant. And it's, like, literally not a single person has worried about the beauty of their arm. Like, fuck off. Like so it got, like, taken down very quickly.

So just I wanna unpack what you just said there around it started off kind of sounding like financially, it's enabling these more cost effective solutions. So like we're saying there was, like, low ticket items, high ticket items. But then you sort of ended it with if AI is coming for our jobs. So is it the problem or the solution? I think it's both.

So and we've talked about this before. There is there are real world examples of millions of people losing their jobs whether that's in customer service, in marketing, in even, like, accounting, like, a lot of admin stuff. Yeah. We have seen how AI has replaced a lot of these jobs in reality. So we know that it's true that it will that it will, displace a lot of jobs.

I also think that there's, a especially in the first world countries. I don't know what the Yeah. Right term is for that. Yeah. But especially in first world countries, there is a big existential crisis.

Yeah. Because of, you know, what we spoke about before, we've measured ourselves against how much we were producing Yes. And how smart we are. Yeah. So we were all like, oh my god, Einstein is the best because of his IQ or, you know, like, these people are and and and we've got powerful people being able to mass produce whatever, and they were great.

And whoever, you know, takes income because they were able to produce or because of their smarts perform well. But now with AI, now we're seeing that it is possible for it to be, you know, almost as smart as us or smarter than us in the future and robots being able to produce more than us. What does it mean to be human? Like, literal game changer. Yeah.

I love I just wanted to just say on that, I heard you say that on a panel, which was just like I absolutely I loved how you phrased it. Human output or or just just human success, I guess, has always been measured by those two things, just to underscore. I just love what you said there, is our IQ and our productive output. And very much, I've also banged on about I'm so annoyed by things that we have in our daily life that's purely a hangover of the agricultural and the industrial revolution. And, obviously, we're now in this AI tech innovation evolution.

So given that we were measured by our IQ and our productive output, what are we now being measured by in an era of AI? No one's figured that out yet. I think that's why You have? Yes. We have.

Have you got an answer to this? I do. No one has but you. Yeah. I I do have, a view on this.

But before I give my answer, I think just connecting to the question that you had earlier, that's why I think humans now are in a mad rush to mass produce and maximize the potential because we're on a race. Like, we're on a race. Like, oh, I'm gonna, you know, like, whatever it means for me to be human, I need to then, future proof. So I'm gonna build. I'm gonna maximize.

I don't know if I'm doing it right, but I'm just gonna do it. It's also just really quick on that. Sorry to interrupt, but it's also hangover from the .com boom. Yeah. Because people because they were latecomers and they missed out.

Exactly. So now it's like, fuck. We don't wanna miss out again. Yeah. And this and my answer to that question is what would it mean to be human.

I think it goes back to the brand and connecting to the person is, you know, in an ecosystem where machines will be smarter than us and produce more than us. What it means to be human is how creative we are and then the the strength of the connections that we have and the relationships that we have. And I think that will never that, you know, that brings us back to actually what human being human means. Oh, cool. I love that.

This is what's so, so, so exciting. So let's define those two metrics, creativity and connection. And that kinda that does lead into the feminist and the case for women as well, which I'll try and keep a pin in that to come back to in a sec because there's just so much here to start, John. Can you expand on the definitions of both of those and specifically how we can still win and be AI at both of those games? And I think specific so again, creativity, connection, and what I'll just sorry.

I'll add to that, is the connection. I I I see that much more clearly because I think that's showing up for people, being a woman of your word, building that trust. Like, the creativity is, I think, where it's a bit more contentious. Mhmm. So I'd love to get your thoughts on those two.

Can we start on connectivity because it's more obvious? Sure. Like, we we're gonna start buying from people, and the the products that they sell. So it's not gonna be a brand that we're like, for example, a, McDonald's or a, what other brands are there, a Nike that we'll be buying from. But it's gonna be from, you know, like, an influencer that we trust.

Yeah. If they say that I buy this local produce, I'm gonna buy that local produce. That's how I see connectivity is gonna pan out. From a creativity perspective, I think people are gonna might some people might think I'm crazy, but this is definitely how I thought about this. So when we think about the art that we like or, you know, luxury, it's usually the rare.

Like, we think that an amazing piece of art is something that's rare or, like, something that is unique. Whether that was, created by, a person or like, right now, for example, one of some of the most expensive art is created by an AI. And that's because it's, nascent and new. And in the time when everything is gonna be created by AI, what's gonna be rare? It's gonna be human creativity.

And I think we'll add more value, to that. Again, that is my prediction. Okay. Where when everyone's gonna be mass producing AI generated music, AI generated art, AI generated food, what's gonna be, of higher value? What's gonna be luxurious?

It's gonna be eating eating food by a hue that was made by a human. Mhmm. Yeah. Because it's gonna be commoditized. It's gonna be cheap.

It's gonna be cheaper for things to be produced by machines because they can make loads. What about quality? Because if AI robot is capable of producing something that's of a high quality, although it's less rare, where do we then place the value? Do we place the value on something that isn't as good, but it's rare and it was done with human hands versus this perfect highly, like, high quality produced item. Yeah.

I'm asking you hard questions. Yeah. And I love it. Like, I think we're going, like, philosophical a little bit too. Whatever is commoditized, like, whatever there's a lot, even if it's high quality, it's gonna be cheap.

But that doesn't mean it's not high quality. Say, for example, rice or, you know, like, all of these, like, good food, fruits. If it can be mass produced, then it's gonna be potentially cheaper than Yeah. That that can't be mass produced. And us humans as well, we're quite sophisticated in what we think is high quality.

Mhmm. You know, so friend of mine, she likes odd ceramics. Like, if if there's some sort of oddness to how it's, how it was formed. I'm just thinking that. Exactly.

Yeah. Yeah. Like an imperfection. She would love that. And and, actually, if you, look if you go to, some, exhibits, they are more expensive than your perfect Yeah.

Perfectly made cup or bowl. Yeah. I think it's the same, like, yeah. Manufactured. Yeah.

Must produce. Yeah. Mhmm. Got it. But again, this is just my No.

I love it. Crazy thinking. No. No. No.

That is what we hear. That's why that's why you're on the show. I wanna hear about it. Where my mind is, like, I'm coming at it also from the lens of, again, when I'm talking about creativity, I'm coming at it from marketing, advertising, and my current understanding of what AI is greater is the large input of data and then synthesizing it and then spitting out something else at the other end. And that's kind of that it replicates a bit like, there's a processing, like Transformation.

Transformation in there. And I'm just, I don't know. I I think I'm still trying to, like, understand, like, how how human creativity, like, can still have a place in the world of AI. And as much as, you know, great example with your friend who loves these, like, oddly shaped handmade, like, ceramics, but it's, like, how many people appreciate that? And I think, again, going back to, like, Adland as well, for example, it's I don't know, I just see how much better AI is getting.

And I'm just still kinda curious as to where creative talent can can succeed. Yeah. The beauty is still in the eye of the beholder. I like, us humans, we've evolved to like different things. And we there's always that early adopter who would be like oh but I want to be I want this different thing.

And then we got then followers that would want this different thing. We've always wanted different things. We we evolved that way. Right now, AI generated videos is huge because it's actually hard. It's not easy to prompt, AI generated videos that can be, sold or utilized for advertising.

You still need the skills, and the money to be able to produce, good, high quality AI generated video. You still need an editing team. Yeah. You still need someone who understands, like, you know, like camera angling Yeah. Because you'll have to prompt these things.

Mhmm. So it's not so right now, we we like it because it's new and it's like, wow. I so I'm it's as it becomes aspirational. Yeah. I can do that.

And then let's say ten years from now and everyone can generate high quality videos, there's gonna be that person who's gonna be like, I made this with my entire hands, just me, analog. Someone's gonna be like, wow. That is cool. Yeah. Because no one else is doing it.

Yeah. And I think and I think it's just not natural natural for us Yeah. Humans to like what's What's new. What's new. Yeah.

Yeah. That does make sense. And I think also it's like we talk as well we've we've seen all this online about using AI as the tool. And, again, in the in the creativity conversation, it's, like, the copilot. And what you've just described there is the you still you need the the human origina well, originality doesn't exist, but you've got, like, the idea.

What I talk about as well is creative professionals' place in an AI world is transferring over to becoming more taste makers. And I think there's a switch in job titles. So I'm sure you already know this, and listeners, you probably do too, but the word computer used to be a job title. And guess what? It used to be mainly women, and it was kind of more of the secretarial and it was basically kind of like a human calculator, like, inputting the data.

That was what a computer was. Mhmm. It's modern history, more recent times, where the computer is the object, not the thing. So my prediction is a similar evolution there where now with I know it's mainly, like, obviously, entrepreneurial people listening to this, and I'm really kinda sticking with the creative thing, so hope that this still relates. But we've got, like, art workers.

We've got graphic designers, maybe even, like, editors. We've got these certain job titles that I think the same thing will happen with the computer. I think that will now describe the tool, the object, and then the back to your argument for the human creativity, it becomes the idea generation setting that direction. And as I say, tastemaker, I think that's gonna be the new job title, is you still need to like, with any tool, you still need to direct it, course correct, and you see it at at the end. So, yeah, those are my takes.

No. From a creativity perspective, I think so. Like, in the last three days, I built three apps. Wow. Working applications, web apps, complete with Using Launch Lemonade?

Launched Lemonade and a couple other tools. Like, a full blown full blown, applications. Wow. And I was just, like, really, I was I was I was telling everyone. I was like, oh my god.

Like, I check this out. But then I was talking to another developer friend of mine, and I was saying, like, I just can't everyone's gonna be building solutions or whatever they want. One of the ideas that I have, and you're free to steal this if you want. But one of the idea that I had was, like, a comic book generator. But then I was looking quickly, like, five minute look at look at the competition.

There was loads. Yeah. I was like, oh, what if I added, like, a bit of romantic twist? Like a k k pop or manga meets, you know, graphic novel, like, dark, generator. And I called it Synth City.

And I love it. And the app would and then you would just have to choose, like, a character, and then you choose, like, a plot. And then the the the app would generate, like, a a storyline and and graphics. Yeah. And then you would then choose, like, if you wanna proceed this way or that way.

It was so easy to build. But as my friend pointed out, I was he he was like, well, if you found it easy to build, but if you don't know how kind of, like, the back end works or, like, how journey should be because of your years of experience building journeys and understanding how customers behave with technology, you were able to do it like that. And I was like, oh, yeah. Fair point. I love that you touched on this because this is the perfect segue away from, like, the pure, like, creative industry into entrepreneurship.

Just before I move on with that, you remind me of, like, the car analogy as well. And this is something else I talk about, which is, yeah, if there's a live audience, I ask people to raise their hand if they've got a driving license, and they know how to drive, and it's like most of the room. And then ask them the inner workings of a combustion engine, and it's like no hands are raised. So I guess that's actually more of like I don't know if it's like a counterpoint to what you just said, but you just made me think of it anyway, which is like we don't need to know the inner workings. We're not mechanics.

Like, being able to drive the car doesn't mean that we are these, like, automotive experts. But I guess what you're saying there is, like, there is there is still at least that understanding that, like, this pedal triggers, like Yeah. The, like, the accelerator to then go faster. Like, you still need I guess that's the question. Like, how much do we actually need to understand Yeah.

Of how much these inner workings work in order to be able to use it properly. So yeah. So my background is product delivery. Like, I can read code, but I've haven't coded in forever. You know?

I but because I worked with a lot of development teams and design journeys, studied user behavior, talked to a lot of customers, understand what they, you know, what the placements or landing pages, value proposition, or, problem solving, validation of all of these, things that I am an expert of because I've done it so many times that I am then quickly able to translate in a in a technology that I could just prompt. But I won't be able to prompt it or design it to perform in such a way if I didn't understand. Similarly to, like, let's say, a nutritionist. I've never you know, like, I've explored building my own, like, it would basically produce, like, an exercise plan for me, but I really don't have a deep understanding of nutrition. So it's, you know, a tool that I'll be building Yeah.

Around nutrition is not gonna be effective. Like, I wouldn't know how to market it. I wouldn't know how to talk to people about nutrition or what elements in this nutrition application would I be building because I I'm not an expert in nutrition. But I guess more as a user so I guess what you're saying there is, like, obviously to build out a product and a business around it, and there needs to be enough knowledge for you to be able to, like, promote it properly, which I get. But even just continuing with that great nutrition analogy is, like, I'm also not a nutritionist.

But the way I see businesses, they either fall into one of, let's say, one of four categories. One is you have the train tracks, and this is in the context of tech and AI is you literally own the LLMs. You have developed the models yourself. It's proprietary. So you've got the open AIs of the world.

Those train tracks on top of those, you've got the Launch Lemonades, which you can use to build and, like, have the the train on the tracks. Right? I mean, being as close as possible to the actual foundation is the best place to be. Like, we'd rather be Sam Altman, you know? But but it's still a good place to be.

Right? Like, building on top of those. You've then got the and he's come up with a better analogy for this because I'm taking it from different places. It's a bit of a, like, pastiche. But you've then got, like, the picks and shovels type businesses, which come from, like, the coal mines.

You've got the stuff, like, around that, and then you've got selling the sawdust, which is a different thing. So coming back to what you're I guess kind of the more coming back to that question of, like, how much do we need to know about the inner mechanics of a car in order to be able to drive? I guess, like, are you saying, like, the more you know, the better and the closer you are to those train tracks and the fundamentals? When we say no more, I think there's also a big, misunderstanding of the market because, you know, the market doesn't have the time to learn. Exactly.

We don't have the time, the mental capacity. And so what I mean by learning more, I don't mean learn how to code. I don't mean, you know, learn how, the data inside the LLM is transformed. Right. Or, you know, I I know or I don't mean you understand, like, deep learning.

Those work. Yeah. Yeah. I just mean, understand, like, deep learning. How deep learning does work.

Yeah. Yeah. I just mean use it every day. Mhmm. I just mean try to build things.

Read up a little bit, you know, maybe read a book. I, three years ago, that's when I started really deep diving into, AI, as in gen AI and LLMs. I didn't just read books every day. I would, every time I'm on the train or walking, I would just, like, be reading Yeah. Something that was around, generative AI.

Yeah. And and that's what I mean. It's just, like, make the time to just immerse yourself in it. But what is the benefit? Because as you say, there is so much that we can learn, and you're naturally interested in that, and you've now become this amazing AI entrepreneur.

But for anyone who's thinking of just utilizing it as a tool, how would that benefit them? Because, again, if we use the nutrition example, I don't need to be a nutritionist. I can just kind of the synthesized Yeah. Output Yeah. Of protein is good.

I need to get more protein in my diet. Some carbs is good for energy. And Yeah. I don't need to understand the science behind it. I like that I like that question, actually.

You just build better products. So if you don't know about hallucination and how to solve for it, if you don't know how to test it for bias and detect potentially alienating some customers because of how an AI responds, then you won't be able to fix it. That simp that simple example is very important. Or if you don't understand the different types of data, whether, you know, personal so a lot of people are shying away from AI because they're like, what about my customer data? But you don't even understand what the differences in the data are.

Like, you can actually redact personal identifiable, information and still utilize it responsibly. Yeah. That's a great answer. Knowledge is power. That's actually something that my dad really instilled in me when I was younger.

Just like knowledge is power. The more you know, the better. And you've just made me think as well about the ridiculous trial with Mark Zuckerberg in The States Years ago, and where you've got these male, pale, and stale, like dusty, old Yeah. Peop who don't even know what they're asking. We're not even talking about AI here.

We're just talking about the they don't know how the internet works. So it's kind of like, educate yourself. You're gonna operate in this space. And I think part of that is overcoming the fear and the initial, like Ah. Yeah.

Like, hesitation, and, oh my god, like, this language terminology. You know, we'll we'll touch on the finance connection as well, but you talk about this too with, like, financial language, financial terminology. There's all of these unfamiliar Yeah. Terms that just make people scared, which is exactly what the powers that be want you Yeah. To react like.

But when you just, we were saying this earlier, right, with just, like, unfamiliar names and terms. It's like, when you get over that and you actually learn, like, none of it's rocket science. Like, compound interest, inflation rates, like, it's not it sounds it sounds intelligent as I say it out loud, but it's it's really not. Yeah. So So would you say the same applies to the world of learning about AI?

Absolutely. Like so I was in fintech, and I knew so little about the world of investments. This I realized it just before COVID. I was like because I was earning, you know, in a lot for, for for compared to how much I was earning before. And and so I started, you know, discovering about well, I started considering savings.

But then it just didn't make sense like, interest rates which is like it just I'm not gonna create generational wealth, not that I am planning to have generations after me. Or I'm not gonna be able to, like, ever buy a mansion like Beyonce, with savings. Like and then I started opening myself up to, investing, trading. I started to understand what that world means. Read books.

Literally annoyed all of my friends and people that I knew who were already in there. Because, like, my parents, who are both in The Philippines or Filipinos, they also come from humble beginnings, very poor families, and then they were able to make it up. But how I I was taught, especially by my mom, is to save and my dad is to invest in property. Yeah. And so the first thing that I did, the minute I got money, I was like, oh, property.

I'm gonna buy property in The Philippines. Then I was like, what am I gonna do with this property? Like, what happens with with property? And then I just realized, I was like, I know nothing about wealth generation or like wealth building. And so that's when I started understanding that there's a massive gap.

And I did loads of interviews with couples, for a startup, that was part of before where I realized that a lot of women were saving and then if they get divorced they end up with nothing and then usually the men invest and they're more they're wealthier when they get divorced. And and then we also have a problem now where the younger generations still ask from their parents and their grandparents who are left with nothing when they retire. And it's no. Because there's that gap of understanding that you can, build wealth. You can make investments.

There's so many opportunities for you to just invest £200 a month and, you know, get returns in twenty, thirty years, be able to retire profitably. Yeah. But yeah. So let's connect that to your mission with AI and making sure no one gets left behind, especially women. So let's have a big juicy feminist rant and go for it.

So there's gonna be a big economy gap between those who are able to maximize the potential of AI now versus those who aren't. Similarly to what happened with the doctor. Happened. Yes. And and I don't want that to happen especially for women.

We have worked so hard to get what to have what we are having now. It's not even enough. Mhmm. And we're just starting to learn about investments. Mhmm.

Like, there's only a handful of people that I know that talk about finances that are women. Yes. They're great. But, like, it's not enough. Yeah.

Are we just gonna wait ten years from now and say, well, we want AI literacy as well. No. I think, you know, we put we shouldn't have the responsibility or the onus on us, but we're just gonna have to take it. Just gonna have to take it and make it our own as well. Do you think that given human success is gonna be redefined sorry.

Let me start that again. Given humans will be measured according to their connectivity and creativity, going back to that before as opposed to their IQ and their productive output, Do you where do you think women stand? Do we stand to gain more as generally being better at those things? For sure. So going back to, like, one of my earliest points, people will be buying from people Yeah.

And the the brands that we build. Yeah. Some of the biggest AI personalities that I love, Ally Kaye Miller, Sabrina Romanov, Brandnat, and, you know, there there are a couple of guys but most of these, brands that I trust that can teach me about AI are women. And I trust them. They're like, oh, they make it really understandable.

They make it very accessible. They're inspirational as well, aspirational too. And so I'm buying from them. I'm like, yes. I wanna learn from these people too.

And I think and I think women are doing great at at that or building our brands as a trustworthy brand as teachers. And and I think that's where, yeah, that's where we we can, be really powerful. What advice, practical steps, would you give to any female listeners in the AI space now? What can they you're saying about okay. So with both learning and implementing, so are there any particular books you'd recommend or any anything similar in terms of, like, knowledge?

And then what are some other, like, practical steps they could do to get their to get their feet wet in the AI game? Yeah. So it depends on kind of, like, the level or the depth that you wanna, explore. Beginner to mid. So with beginners, definitely loads of social media accounts to follow.

Okay. I also post, weekly, videos on my YouTube channel. What's the handle so people can go and find you? It is launch lemonade. So youtube.com at launch lemonade.

And I post, videos on how to build AI tools, but there's also like I said on Instagram, is BrandNat. She talks about different types of AI tools. Ally k Miller has, you know, worked in the AI space forever, and she is a lead leading voice. Literally, LinkedIn's top AI LinkedIn voice or something like that. Wow.

Annie Kaye Miller is great, and there's Sabrina Romov as well. She sold her company was it last year, a couple years ago? 30 under Forbes thirty under 30. Which is not a great game to think. I know.

True. It's true. That is true. But, no. That's great for her.

Yeah. She saw she exited her AI company. That's incredible. Yeah. So impressive.

At $10,000,000 when yeah. Amazing. Yeah. And, so yeah. Kyle Ballmer as well, who's a friend of mine, is also talks about how to become an AI consultant.

So there's so many channels that you can explore, including mine, which are all free. But there's also Google has a course that's It's free. NVIDIA, if you wanna go medium to, like, a more deeper understanding of AI, NVIDIA Hugging Face has courses. And, actually, when I started learning Python, like, if you wanna go if you wanna fine tune models, Codecademy has a good Python course, and it's, like, $99 a year. Wow.

Yeah. There's Okay. Amazing. Load there's loads. Wow.

Fantastic. Loads of fantastic reasons. No excuse really is there. There's all of this, like, these amazing teachers, educators, courses, and things. Sounds like quite an accessible price point as well.

I put a pin in before. I think I put a pin in a few things because the conversation's gone in so many great directions. One that I just wanna take the pin out of is the go coming closer to entrepreneurship. So before I was kinda coming up more from the creative angle. Let's get it back to, like, founders, entrepreneurship.

What I love so much that you said, if we rewind for a sec, is how like, you you spun up a few apps recently, which is awesome. And we're talking about AI as a tool and how it can be used and, like, practical, like, as app builders and stuff. I'm sure you'll agree with me on this. One of the biggest mistakes that I see entrepreneurs make, or especially, like, first time founders, wantrepreneurs, people who are thinking about it, is putting the idea or the solution first. There's also just way too much of an emphasis on, like, the idea and, like, coming up with, like, something no one's ever thought of before and, like, unique or whatever.

But it's kind of like we're in a vacuum, we're in an echo chamber, we're sat by ourselves, like, maybe during the ad break on Dragon's Den, and, like, oh, what could I come up with? Right? And I'd love to just hear your thoughts on your really unique stance as a user of AI, an early adopter of AI as a tool to build these things, an AI entrepreneur, and you mentioned your background as a product manager and, like, validation and everything. So I think I'd just love to get your thoughts more on but, basically, before listeners get all over excited and think about, oh, how I can use AI to build something, is actually going back to that fundamental of, like, what customer need are you serving and what's the value that you're adding in the marketplace. Absolutely, % agree with you, but I think it's evolving.

Yeah. Okay. So when we when it was expensive to build an experiment, definitely talk to customers first. If the route forward for you is needing an investment or needing a lot of money and runway to be able to build an MVP, definitely talk to your customers first and validate if that idea is gonna be something that people adopt will adopt. But now you can launch an idea with zero pounds.

You could, you know, like, put the landing page using card.co or build it, like a custom GPT. Like, you could have a monthly subscription on chat GPT or launch lemonade and build, like, a a tool and see tool and see if people would utilize it, collect the data. So now I think there's a bit of, I'm encouraging a reverse a little bit of a reverse on it. And that's exactly what we did at Launch Lemonade. So when we had the idea, we were like, it's so cheap to just launch this, like, simple thing, and let's see if people use it.

And instead of, like, spending hours and waiting to build, let's kill this idea right away by building this thing. And if people don't use it, next project. Shen, I was so excited to have you on here for many, many reasons, but, like, this has also just helped prove, like, why I was so excited to get my tea stuck into this conversation with you because you're actually speaking to my heart there as well. Not to contradict what I was just saying, but I'm such a big believer in, like, trusting people's actions more than their words, and that goes across everything in life. Right?

Friendships, relationships, customers, entrepreneurship. And and so that's actually kind of score for you on that sense because by putting something out there that's so low cost, that's so low risk, you're actually getting much more of a faithful representation of whether anyone bites on it. Right? Mhmm. Mhmm.

And you get to develop skills like marketing, repositioning, putting yourself out there. You just gain a lot by just doing. Really interesting. Yeah. I've I've always done that.

And I think we've I also mentor on this fantastic MBA program, and there's so so so much emphasis that's put on the customer interviews, the market validation, like, which is which is great. Makes sense. Makes sense. Like, %. Oh, just to, clarify as well, I did hundreds of interviews after we put the MVP.

So we were validating, but we were getting the feedback. Love that. So we still talk to our customers. Definitely. You're still getting validate, but you're doing it based on something that's actually out there.

It's not just the hypotheticals. Yeah. Exactly. I love that. I love that.

Yeah. Super interesting because what we've had to do is is just these other forms of MVP once you've collected some of that data. So a lot of it is just, like, landing pages Yeah. And, like, pretending, like, this thing actually exists and having the mock ups and Yeah. Oh, no.

We've sold out or join the wait list kind of thing. But as you said, if it's so low risk and there's no money involved in putting it out there, you may as well just put it out there Just do it. And see how they react. Get the data right away. You need traction?

Get the data right away. The the old way worked because we needed teams. We needed someone who understood the market, did the SEO, did understand the, you know, create the value proposition and build the product. We needed we needed the we needed to make the right decisions, because it was gonna cost us a lot. But now I could make easy mistakes because it's so cheap.

Yeah. Yeah. It reminds me also, like, I started my career actually in the print world. Mhmm. And it's funny because, like, when any whenever there was any, like, artwork to go to print, we'd get what's called wet proofs, so, like, physical printed.

And they'd get couriered to the client to physically I mean, I'm not a dinosaur. It's not even going back, like, that far. But they'd have to I mean, granted, it was in traditional industry, but they'd have to physically sign the wet proof. So it was like once you especially if it was a lithographic press, where it's like, once those plates are made up and it's going on the press, like, it's lit it's gonna cost you thousands, if not tens of thousands, to do a reprint. Mhmm.

Obviously, with digital, it's like, oh, we can just make an edit to the landing page. And so it's kind of like this on steroids, the next version of that Yeah. With entrepreneurship, product development, which is so, so interesting. Okay. I've got a load of other questions.

I will ask you. Let's just I also wanna hear more about AgenTic AI. Mhmm. So that's kind of the next buzzword, building on kind of AI in general. This is what Launch Lemonade is.

It's so AgenTic, for anyone who hasn't heard of it, apologies if you already have, but, like, it comes from the word agent. Right? Agent, which Launch Lemonade is. I wanna hear more about this because I think I've said to you before, I am much more interested in getting help with the doing. I don't need The thinking.

I'd yeah. I I don't need sometimes it's helpful. Sometimes I'm kinda like, okay. I'm sat I'm looking at the blank page, and especially for my public speaking and talks and stuff. I'm like, sure, I need to come up with, like, a really click baity title or something.

So I use Chat GbT as a bit of a sparring partner. But other than that, it's like, I'm capable of writing. I'm capable of coming up with this stuff. So for me, the doing is much more helpful, and there's, like, LLMs and LAMs. So So tell me a bit more about either what Launch Lemonade can do or other tools in the actual, like, doing of the process and not just ChatGPT spitting out more text.

Yeah. So first of all, the Launch Lemonade is a agent builder platform. So anyone can build their agents that will do or think. It depends on how you design it. But it still needs your frameworks, your knowledge, your skills that you embed or that you input in the instructions, and, we have, like, what we call a core memory.

So each of, our the agent that you build would have a core memory, and it would have it could have, the ability to remember long conversations as well. It would have the ability to reflect as well if you design it to, and it would have the ability to search the Internet as well if you wanted it to. So you still have to build it. It's gonna be so we envision it as a factory of AI agents where anyone can build. So imagine, 50% of the world's websites are on WordPress.

That's gonna be the same. Like, in in Launch Dominate, everyone can build their websites. Everyone can build their AI agents. And you decide what the doing is gonna be. Whether it's gonna be responding to your emails, whether it's gonna be, summarizing newsletters that you receive, whether it's gonna be putting together social media content and then pushing it out maybe in a Google Drive for a client to see, you design the agent.

You design the the agentic. And and we call it agentic versus agent. So just for the, your your audience. When we talk about an AI agent, we, scholars or, you know, like, the the kind of the experts in the field usually refer to like, they mean the autonomous agent. Like, you give it a goal or you give it, yeah, you give it a goal or a task and it would perform end to end.

It would decide which which, product to to take or which things to integrate depending on that goal. So it's gonna be completely autonomous on how, or should example of, like, a fully autonomous, like, task that it could carry out? Like, sell, driverless cars. So you give it, like, oh, I wanna go to this, and then it would just drive you. That could be a version of, autonomous AI.

Agentic AI, it's more designed. So you have to glue things up so that it would perform the task. Mhmm. And there's still a kind of, like, a human element to it. Like, you still have to, like let's say, when I design my agents, I like to proofread before I publish.

I like to edit it a bit. But it is able to perform a task based on my instructions and based on how I've designed it to perform. Do I either publish a blog or whatever. Sure. And I feel like in this part in the conversation, I need to address, like, some of the fear mongering, and there's a few words there that I feel like some listeners might easily like, brings up a bit of the Black Mirror.

You're saying about, like, factories of agents and Yeah. Just, like, being able to send off emails and, like, more and more control that we're giving AI. What's your can you share any reassurances to some of those potential fears? I think we are oh, I think we reassure we have to reassure ourselves because and and we have to give ourselves the responsibility in designing these. And that's why I encourage people to influence how these things are developing as well and understand how we're building things.

So for example, I designed a customer service agent. Just really simple instructions, and I fed it all the webs the web pages of Launch Lemonade. I give it, like, also links. Like, if a user asked a specific question, give my Calendly link. And so you could call it literally and ask, how do I build my first AI agent?

Or what language models are, available on your platform? And would answer and would answer questions if it has it in the knowledge or if it was able to remember previous conversations of other customers. Mhmm. That's a completely autonomous agent. But I designed it.

I tested it for hours and hours, days and weeks. And I still haven't rolled it out actually, just to a few, paths. But the responsibility is on me. So it's like all the more reason to get involved. Because the fear the fear the fear is keeping you further away from it.

The more fearful you are of something, the more you're pushed away. Yeah. Which means the worse it's gonna be. It's, like, often fear is worse than the thing itself, isn't it? Like, if we've ever been in fearful situations Yeah.

Or we've been anxious about something, and we've had to, like, put our big girl pants on and go and sort it out, it's never as bad as that anxiety beforehand. The unknown. Yeah. Yeah. And at least with what you're saying is, like, getting involved, not only you overcoming that fit.

You know what's really interesting, actually? I have been to a few, AI conferences. I spoke at some as well. And and even around the actual conferences, I put out some polls and things on social media, and I was really curious to gauge the levels of optimism with with these different crowds. And the more knowledgeable I mean, I guess it's super obvious now, like, saying in hindsight, but the more knowledgeable people were, there was a direct correlation with how optimistic they were feeling about it.

Right? Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Makes sense.

I I'm just reminded of this, quote or formula that got me through a lot of hardship actually. And it is fear plus reflection equals growth. And I think there's a version of that in terms of like how we deal with the uncertain. Because we're uncertain of something, we fear it. But actually how you, you know, like how you, overcome or at least kind of like live, in the fear is to, you know, sit on it, reflect on it, but also, you know, expose yourself to it.

Exactly. And and it will result to growth. Yeah. Yeah. I love that.

That's a great saying. Where does that come from? Do you know? It well, you know, this guy, like, he's a popular, podcaster as well, the monk who Oh, yeah. Got in trouble from for apparently, he he was never in India or something.

He was never traveling. Jay Shetty? Yeah. Oh, no. Is it Jay Shetty?

No. He's, like, the only famous monk that I know. I I forgot his name, but he was he's really popular. He's got, like, black curly hair. Yeah.

Like like, blue eyes. Yes. Yeah. Jay Shetty. Yeah.

Yeah. Or if it's the same he's English. Is he English? Yeah. Yeah.

I think he's American for some reason. Yeah. I think he lives in America. I think he's big over there. Yeah.

Yeah. So, yeah, that could be him. Okay. Okay. Cool.

How about your founder's story? We'll probably remove them. Yeah. Don't worry. I'm gonna have to clean up a bit of this, because, like, my quest I'm aware that I've been really waffly with, like, my questions and stuff, so this is the beauty.

Yeah. I know. Although, having said that, I feel like this is the sort of raw, honest transparency that people risk. Because otherwise then, it's it's like, oh, shiny perfect popcorn. Do you know what I mean?

And it's like there's actually No. I loved it. Yeah. But don't worry. I'm gonna try and sort it out.

Yeah. Don't worry. This is this is the beauty of Let me just while while we're doing this, let me just check time. Okay. Perfect.

It's literally an hour. Perfect. Before we wrap, I wanna make sure we've covered loads of ground, although I could definitely talk for much longer, but I don't wanna keep listeners, for too long. Let's just I'd love to hear a bit more about your founder story as well. So you mentioned a little bit about starting up with Launch Lemonade, your career history.

Tell me fully kind of the story and, yeah, kinda how it started. Yeah. So I when I was a little girl and, and actually, no. Probably my teens. Because when I was a little girl, people asked me what I wanted to be.

I was either gonna be a doctor, a writer, or a painter. But then as I learned about, like, philosophy and romanticism and Nietzsche and all the, morbid stuff, really. I love it. It's when when someone asked me, what what do you wanna be? Like, you know, like, it's you know, you need to decide.

My answer was, like, I I just wanna be great. Like, I want I can't imagine doing the same thing forever. And so in my twenties, I decided to travel. I lived in China. I lived in The States.

And then I moved here. And I decided not to pursue any career in my in my twenties. And then the minute I hit 28, I was like, alright. It's time for us to, think about what we really wanna do. And I really wanted to do digital marketing, and then I wanted to do product delivery.

And so I was very clear about, like, experiencing and learning different skills. And that's ultimately led me to kind of this whole world of AI is there's so many skills that if you understand, you know, culture, people, how, digital, transformation works, how marketing works, how data works, you on you know, you have you can build anything. And that's, yeah, that's, that's what got me there. That makes complete sense. And then more practically with setting up Launch Lemonade, have you got any funding yourself, or how did you practically get started?

Yeah. Going back to the cheap, build, we've completely self funded ourselves. We bootstrapped. We are going to be fundraising soon, to achieve our vision of being the marketplace for AI agents. And, yeah, it's gonna be an exciting year for us.

Exciting. When are you thinking of launching the the, fundraise? It's gonna be in the early spring, maybe late winter, and then closing in, early summer. Okay. Fantastic.

Well, if there's any, like, links to pre register or anything Yes. We'll pop those in the show notes because that's really exciting. And I'm sure loads of people would love to back not only you as an entrepreneur and a women in a woman in AI, but also the actual value proposition of Launch Lemonade. It's really exciting. It's obviously inevitable, but you're you're really kinda going about it in the right way.

So I can't wait to hear when when that opens up. Final traditional closing question. The show is called Strategy and Tragedy because often the best lessons come from the biggest mistakes. What is one tragedy that's taught you an unforgettable lesson, Shen? I had a manager before.

This must have been, oh, I don't know, maybe ten or I don't know, many years ago. And she pulled me aside and opened a notebook. And then in the notebook, she drew, like, a graph with an x and y axis. And then she said, on on the x axis, like, this is this is where a great manager is. And then and then, like, lower and lower and as the axis, progressed, like and this is where, you know, a good, marketeer is, and this is where a good writer is.

And then she literally drew a circle outside of the notebook. And her notebook was huge. It was a huge notebook. And then I was just like I was literally I couldn't I I honestly didn't know what to say. I mean, I'm still thinking about it.

You know? It was like the most horrendous moment of my career. And I just didn't understand how, you know, like, it was I I thought that I it was me. Like, I am awful. You know, this I was working in The UK and I was like, oh my god.

Like, all of the I I didn't it I felt like I was terrible. Of course. And I cried. Like, I was miserable. I was depressed.

Like, it really, you know, pushed me to depression. Yeah. And I I was, like, for I had to see, like, a therapist after that. I believed her and I think that was the biggest mistake that I I did. Oh my god.

Shay. I think I am so I'm so empathetic that when I hear the answers to these questions, I'm like, I'm there feeling the pain of the guests when I'm there in the story, and I'm feeling that there. This is where I'm, like, clutching my stomach and, like, reacting in this way because I'm feeling that. That's like, that felt like a punch in the stomach to me just listening to it. And what's interesting, Shen, is there have been a lot of common answers to that question.

And one of the most common ones is actually taking care of yourself, like, health wise. I've never had one like that before. That's an amazing I mean, I'm obviously so sorry that that's happened to you. But I'd love to hear more about what you've what you've taken from that and the lesson there. Yeah.

I I believed her, and I worked my ass off to kind of get everyone's confidence back, but it destroyed me. Like, I I ended up working so hard. And everyone else around me, I don't know what there were her kind of, like, in her level, people started believing her. But everyone who I was working with, like, they were cheering me on and, but I was like, you know, I'm gonna prove these people wrong. But I just never got anything right with her specifically.

And so I left the company. I was just like, I can't be in this space anymore. Like and they were yeah. And they and they, you know, like, they kept me like, they they put me under she she was actually, I was there first, and then she joined put me under probation. And I would work my ass off.

Like, I would just work so hard. And then, got a lot of really cool projects out, approved how effective, my my stuff were. But then I got to a point where I just couldn't. Shen, it's such a nasty thing for that person to have done. It's really it's genuinely such a nasty thing.

And I think the biggest whilst it's fantastic that you've taken such a great life lesson there, which is, like, believing in yourself and not kinda letting somebody else sort of make you believe that you're something that you're not. But I think the biggest lesson there actually needs to go to that person and other managers, And how, like, would you expect to get from people when you treat them like that? Obviously, anybody would feel like absolute shit. Like and are you gonna get the best out of people doing that? Definitely not.

Never. So and, oh, I feel like I feel like the wind's really taken out of me with that because I would be the same. I'd probably go and get therapy afterwards as well as well. I did. Yeah.

I did. That sounds horrible. Yeah. Like Oh my god. Proper therapy.

Yeah. All types of therapy. I had a life coach. I had a therapist. I went through CBT.

Yeah. It was just, like, it was just blame you. It was the first time that's ever happened to me, and I was like, I don't is it like, I'm awful. I shouldn't be here. I can't compete.

Of course. Yeah. But, you know, like, I I I've always been the type of person who was like, I'm gonna prove people wrong. Even though I was depressed, I was like Sure. Sure.

Keep pushing. Yeah. And yeah. And sometimes as much as you keep pushing, you're not gonna you're never gonna change certain people's minds on you. Shelton, I'm so sorry that you went through that.

I feel like, yeah, that manager was was definitely in the wrong there. Like, not only have you more than proved yourself at this point, but just just what a way to go about motivating and getting the best out of people. Right? Oh my god. This is terrible.

Alright. Shen, thank you so so much for coming on the show. It's been wonderful to sit down and chat with you. I hope listeners, I'm sure that you've learned something from this conversation. I certainly have, so this has been a bit selfish for me as well to, like, pick your brains. But, yeah, Cien, so grateful for your time here today. Thanks for having me. Thank you so much for listening. If you've enjoyed this episode, please hit that subscribe button. It really helps me out, and we'll see you next time.

Strategy & Tragedy: CEO Stories with Steph Melodia is the best podcast for curious entrepreneurs and ambitious founders. Learn from those a few steps ahead of you in these candid interviews of the highs and lows of scaling and failing business.

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