The Dock with Omar Waseem
The Dock with Omar Waseem
Omar Waseem
a founder podcast that isn't boring, maybe. 🎬 by Founders, Inc.
He Turned A College Project Into a Million Dollar Company
Zuhayeer is the founder of Levels.fyi, a platform that lets you compare salaries across big tech companies. This is the story of how he turned Levels.fyi from a side project into a million dollar startup. Help us start companies from scratch in the Studio: https://f.inc/devs Links: · Zuhayeer: https://twitter.com/zuhayeer · Omar: https://twitter.com/omarwasm · Levels.fyi: https://www.levels.fyi Timestamps: 0:00 - Intro 1:19 - Meeting his cofounder 8:41 - How they monetized 20:03 - Shifting from growth to company building 21:58 - Why they built a mobile app 27:29 - What's next marketing-wise 30:06 - Will Devin kill engineers? 37:44 - How to land a job in tech 40:56 - What's Levels.fyi built on 43:34 - Are you hiring?
Mar 17, 2024
46 min
He Built The Fastest Growing AI Company In The World
Evan is the founder of The SF Compute Company, a cloud computing company that sells GPU clusters for AI models. This is the story of how he became one of the fastest growing AI companies in less than a year by betting the entire company every month. Help us start companies from scratch in the Studio: https://f.inc/devs Links: · Evan: https://twitter.com/evanjconrad · Omar: https://twitter.com/omarwasm · The SF Compute Company: https://twitter.com/sfcompute Timestamps: 0:00 - Intro 1:12 - Betting the company every month 7:59 - $1M in profit in 6 months 9:36 - Getting their first customers 14:33 - SF founders and politics 19:08 - Is SaaS dying? 29:20 - Managing time as a founder 31:44 - Joining YC because of exposure therapy (crazy) 35:32 - What to prioritize in a startup 41:20 - Mitigating risk
Mar 2, 2024
45 min
The Deepfake Expert: How to Protect Yourself From AI Scams
Aman is the founder of Deeptrust, an AI deepfake detection startup that's helping you trust what you see and hear on the Internet. We talked about OpenAI's new text to video model SORA , the terrifying success rate of AI fraud, and how to (theoretically) scam someone for $1M using AI. Help us start companies from scratch in the Studio: https://f.inc/devs Links: · Aman: https://twitter.com/amanmibra · Omar: https://twitter.com/omarwasm · Deeptrust: https://twitter.com/deeptrustAI Timestamps: 0:00 - Intro 4:26 - OpenAI SORA 12:09 - Fighting deepfakes 17:10 - Election fraud 18:34 - How Deeptrust helps 23:15 - AI scams to look out for 30:33 - How to scam $1M 35:56 - Managing priorities as a founder 37:34 - How to trust what you see
Feb 24, 2024
42 min
This AI Startup Will Destroy the Language Barrier
Prady is the founder of Sync Labs, an AI research company that’s building real time lip-syncing. This is the story of how he used viral Twitter marketing to build a deep tech research startup. Help us start companies from scratch in the Studio: https://f.inc/devs Links: · Prady: https://twitter.com/therealprady · Omar: https://twitter.com/omarwasm · Sync Labs: https://synclabs.so/ Timestamps: 0:00 - Intro 3:04 - Going viral on Twitter 12:00 - YC, F.inc, and Buildspace 15:29 - How will AI impact communication? 19:20 - Will AGI replace us? 22:09 - AI lifehack as a founder 27:04 - Making content for your personal brand 30:02 - Synthetic humans are coming 33:11 - What’s the longterm plan?
Feb 17, 2024
38 min
How He Made $1M in 3 Months Out of His Garage
Dylan is the founder of Evergreen, a crypto mining hardware company that he started out of his dad's garage. This is the story of exactly how he growth hacked his way to over $3.5 million in revenue. Help us start companies from scratch in the Studio: https://f.inc/devs Links: · Dylan: https://twitter.com/dylanmrose · Omar: https://twitter.com/omarwasm · Evergreen: https://evergreenminer.com/ Timestamps: 0:00 - Intro 11:31 - How they went to market 17:33 - The hard thing about hardware 25:04 - Building the team 28:15 - Learnings from big tech 33:01 - Will we run out of energy? 38:27 - The future of consumer electronics 40:07 - How to get into crypto mining
Feb 10, 2024
48 min
How Lexica Grew to 1 Million Users with 0 Employees
Sharif is the founder of Lexica, a Midjourney killer that he grew to 1 million users with basically 0 zero employes. This is the story of how he went from couch surfing to building one of the most popular AI image generators. We're on Skool: https://skool.com/thedock Help us start companies from scratch in the Studio: https://f.inc/devs Links: · Sharif: https://twitter.com/sharifshameem · Omar: https://twitter.com/omarwasm · Lexica: https://lexica.art/ · Founders, Inc.: https://f.inc Timestamps: 0:00 - Intro 7:38 - Pivoting from his last startup 19:53 - The future of AI content creation 25:08 - Why the team has 0 marketers 28:16 - Moving to SF (Furqan’s couch) 35:36 - How far is AGI? 46:07 - Will the Vision Pro replace our phones?
Feb 3, 2024
53 min
He Built a ChatGPT Killer (and pranked Elon Musk)
Rahul is the founder of Julius, an AI app that he scaled to 300k users in just 6 months. This is the story of how he pranked global news, met Elon Musk, and built a ChatGPT killer. Help us start companies from scratch in the Studio: https://f.inc/studio Links: · Rahul: https://twitter.com/0interestrates · Omar: https://twitter.com/omarwasm · Founders, Inc.: https://f.inc · JuliusAI: https://julius.ai/ Timestamps: 0:00 - Intro 7:24 - Reviving dead users 10:47 - How to ask your friends for help 17:43 - Pranking the world 21:55 - Meeting Elon Musk 26:45 - Managing a small team 30:11 - Do you need a mobile app? 36:08 - Live brainstorm
Jan 28, 2024
45 min
Make Anything Go Viral With TikTok Influencer Marketing
Julian cofounded and scaled Wisdolia to over $300,000 in less than a year. This is the story of how he used TikTok marketing to go from an almost failing startup to a viral AI education tool. Help us start companies from scratch in the Studio: f.inc/studio Links: · Julian: https://twitter.com/InfiniteJulian0 · Omar: https://twitter.com/omarwasm · Founders, Inc.: https://f.inc · Wisdolia: https://www.wisdolia.com/Cred Timestamps: 0:00 - Intro 0:39 - The experiment that saved Wisdolia 5:27 - The TikTok growth playbook 11:27 - How to reach your target customer 19:56 - Why paid ads didn't work 25:06 - Structuring a small team 27:21 - Current product experiments 29:08 - How to use referrals as a growth hack 33:21 - Suspended from college 40:00 - How AI will change education forever
Jan 21, 2024
51 min
How This 23-Year-Old Started a $10 Million AI Company in 10 Months
Alex Schachne cofounded and grew Leap from 0 to $500k+ in his first 10 months. This is the story of how he went from booking a one-way ticket across the country to building an AI company with a $10M valuation. Help us start companies from scratch in the Studio: f.inc/studio Links: · Alex: https://twitter.com/thealexshaq · Omar: https://twitter.com/omarwasm · Founders, Inc.: https://f.inc · Leap: https://tryleap.ai Timestamps: 0:00 - Intro 1:22 - Background 6:32 - Choosing a marketing channel 17:02 - Turning viral moments into brand partnerships 24:33 - Do you need a personal brand? 34:57 - How AI will disrupt traditional media 40:32 - The plan for $5M ARR 58:01 - The next big AI opportunity 1:02:58 - Live brainstorm (Resend)
Jan 20, 2024
1 hr 9 min
Vercel Employee Shares the Secret to Building Viral Projects | Steven Tey | EP35
Omar ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠(⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@omarwasm)⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and Vishal ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠(@vishalkolr)⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ sit down with Steven Tey ⁠(@steventey)⁠ from Vercel to talk about why he joined the company, his secret for making projects go viral on Twitter, how Vercel got its name, the problem with conferences for devs, the importance of company branding, and more.... The Dock is a Founders, Inc. show. Learn more about Founders, Inc. at: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://f.inc⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Links: · ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Steven's Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ · ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Dock⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Timestamps: 0:00 - Intro 2:02 - His Background 5:23 - Why Vercel is winning 6:13 - How Vercel got its name 9:37 - His secret to virality 18:33 - Austin vs SF 20:12 - His Day in the life 22:44 - Vercel's branding 23:49 - Are conferences a waste of time? 32:25 - Omar's SF movie night 36:56 - Will he become a founder? 52:11 - Rapid fire (lol)
Oct 13, 2023
57 min
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