From a $6.90 newsletter to $3M API: How a non-coder built Memelord | Jason Levin

“You are an example of a company and a product that's going to get an inflection point because agents are going to become your users. Because agents don't get in their mind about being funny or not funny. They don't overthink. They just go straight to the tokens and YOLO something out. I think working with an agent as a user, especially in marketing, just reduces the friction across so many things. It helps you climb Cringe Mountain in a way that's very hard to do as a human.”

“I started Memelord and we could get into this. I started just as a newsletter for $6.90 per month, sending you the newest memes and then I sent you to a Google Slides deck because I didn't know how to code. That's really the evolution of Memelord was from that. It's the same thesis of you just want to be on the current trends and remix them for your brand. The future, know UX is the best UX. Good news for Sam over here is he could use it from any agent now.”

“Let your marketers cook. You have no idea what they're capable of. Either let them cook and let them market their stuff or watch them leave your company. Obviously, I'm biased here, but the last company I was at, they didn't let me cook, and that's why I quit. And then I raised money and built my own company. And you're going to see a lot of that. And I think a lot of marketers and non-technical people are in a revenge mode right now, and they want to cook. So either let them cook and let them market their stuff, or watch them leave your company.”

“So I built that using Chat GPT and a Raspberry Pi. The keyboard is in the other room, otherwise I'd get it, but we got the Raspberry Pi here, the whole hookup. I've never built hardware before in my life. I've always wanted to, but besides the robotics kit when I was a kid, it just is a mini keyboard for $10. When I press Enter, it's essentially a keylogger. So I can lie in bed, write down an idea, press Enter. It sends an API request to Zapier, because again, I don't know how to code.”

“I would recommend any startup, like there's no excuse anymore. Why do you have a PDF download? Build a tool. It takes actually less time to build a tool nowadays and nothing wrong with PDF downloads. Obviously, we do that occasionally, but it's very easy to just build a tool now and think about what weird tools they are, and then put them at the bottom of your site where people can try out different tools and weird galleries and even games. We've started screwing around making minigames. These are now just as easy to do as write an e-book, which is, if you're trying to collect more leads or e-mails for your newsletter, your business, etc., there's nothing better than building a mini tool that solves the first problem that gets people into the bigger problem that your actual company solves.”

“I'm mean, not going to lie. I'm like, AI is my slave. Like, not fronting here is like being mean to your AI. I don't know why people say thank you, it's a robot. And it performs better under pressure unlike men. But this is what I mean of the random. But like, yeah, I would say like, kind of like push your AI to like be more unhinged. Like, it's okay to curse. Like give it like, like AI is kind of like, you know, somebody on their first day of the job where they're like, they don't really know you.”