How I AIHow a non-technical founder built a $100K ARR meme company | Jason Levin (Memelord CEO)
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
50 min read · 10,314 words- 0:00 – 4:28
Introduction to Jason Levin and Memelord
- JLJason Levin
Confession, I'm not a vibe coder. I'm way worse. So I started Memelord about four months before vibe coding started hitting.
- CVClaire Vo
You are an example of a company and a product that's gonna get an inflection point because agents are gonna 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.
- JLJason Levin
I just built it on Bubble, and I grew it to 100K ARR on Bubble without hiring engineers, 395 workflows just on the editor. And I was able to grow this just out of pure obsession and the love of it. I can't code and never have, and can publish a skill that other people can download and just plug into their sentient lobster that makes weird memes.
- CVClaire Vo
What it unlocks, which you've shown us, give your marketers free reign on your marketing site to build the things that will drive demand. It's so lossy to take an idea and hand it off, and hand it off, and hand it off. And when you can just go straight to the code, I think you get better products.
- JLJason Levin
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.
- CVClaire Vo
[upbeat music] Welcome back to How I AI. I'm Claire Vo, product leader and AI obsessive, here on a mission to help you build better with these new tools. Today's episode is probably the most unhinged episode of How I AI we've done yet, with Jason Levin, CEO and founder of Memelord, who's asking us all to take being funny a little bit more seriously. We don't cover three workflows. I think we cover 10. And there are ideas all over this episode about how you can use AI to market, how you can a, use AI to build, and how you can use AI to capture your good ideas without waking up your wife at night. Let's get to it. This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. AI has already changed how we work. Tools are helping teams write better code, analyze customer data, and even handle support tickets automatically. But there's a catch. These tools only work well when they have deep access to company systems. Your copilot needs to see your entire code base. Your chatbot needs to search across internal docs. And for enterprise buyers, that raises serious security concerns. That's why these apps face intense IT scrutiny from day one. To pass, they need secure authentication, access controls, audit logs, the whole suite of enterprise features. Building all that from scratch, it's a massive lift. That's where WorkOS comes in. WorkOS gives you drop-in APIs for enterprise features so your app can become enterprise-ready and scale up market faster. Think of it like Stripe for enterprise features. OpenAI, Perplexity, and Cursor are already using WorkOS to move faster and meet enterprise demands. Join them and hundreds of other industry leaders at workos.com. Start building today. Jason, welcome to How I AI.
- JLJason Levin
Thank you so much for having me. I'm super stoked to be here.
- CVClaire Vo
You and I met because when I was deep in my OpenClaw psychosis, you messaged me and you said, "I think I have the OpenClaw use case for you." And you were right. I recently published this, like, ultimate guide to OpenClaw, and Lenny was asking me, "What are your, like, killer use cases for OpenClaw?" And I was like, "Man, I got an agent making me memes all day." And that is what you told me to do. So tell me, how did we get here? Why are we making, like, agentically driven memes via API in Telegram thanks to the Bot Father? You know, like, how did, how did we get here in the year of our Claude 2026?
- JLJason Levin
How did we get here? [laughs] The world is just getting more entertaining. I think that's really the thesis that drove me to start Memelord. And how can you make your brand more entertaining, your content, is the question, right? There's, um, you know, a great Elon quote of, "The most entertaining outcome is the most likely." And I don't think enough people take that seriously. It's like, if you want your brand to be the most likely outcome, shouldn't it be the most entertaining, right? So that's, like, how we got here, right, in a, in a thesis-driven way is, "Who controls the memes controls the universe," another Elon quote. And, you know, memes are the smallest, uh, form of cultural transmission, right? That's
- 4:28 – 6:55
Demo: Agentic meme creation with OpenClaw
- JLJason Levin
from the inventor of the word meme. So, like, that's how we got started. But how did we get here is, uh, you know, now Memelord has an API.
- CVClaire Vo
[laughs]
- JLJason Levin
And you can plug that into OpenClaw for agentic meme-ing. And so what does this actually look like? I mean, you can see right here, "Can you cook me up a meme about memetic warfare," right? And what it does is it uses our trending meme database, finds ones that are related, writes jokes on top of it. And here, right, it's not just some random meme. It's actually Bill Clinton, right? 'Cause it's talking about political content, right? Here, making a meme about Iran. Like, this is fantastic. Everybody knows. The timeline goes nuts. Everybody becomes an expert. And one of my favorite features is just switch the caption, right? And so everybody is freaking out right now. Claude is destroying shareholder value, destroying startups with one feature launch. And I think there's a lot of founders that feel like that. So, uh, you know, at the end of the day, like, the idea here is our internet is going crazy and gonna have fun, and, and let's, let's have the most fun and, and do it agentically. I have a lot more thoughts I could share of how we got here, so.
- CVClaire Vo
Yeah. What, what I like about this is just as the end user, and again, um, we don't usually show demos except this is truly, like, my number one OpenClaw use case on the marketing side, which is I do think you're right. This is, like, a new form of marketing that's quite effective for brands if we're being incredibly boring about it and not cultural critics. We're just being good old capitalists. This is a very effective form of attention getting, and it's a very effective form of marketing. And-One, it's super hard to stay on top of trending news, and two, it's super hard to stay on top of trending memes, and three, you have a very narrow window. And so even as a human user of Memelord, I really felt like I couldn't stay on top of stuff. And so what I actually think is the more interesting conversation for folks on How I AI is you are an example of a company and a product that's gonna get an inflection point because agents are gonna 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. And I think working with an agent as a user, especially in marketing, just like reduces the friction across so many... Like, it helps you climb Cringe Mountain in a way that's very hard to do
- 6:55 – 8:35
“No UX is the best UX”—building for an agent-first future
- CVClaire Vo
as a human.
- JLJason Levin
Yeah. So there's this quote from the CTO of Ramp that has been one of our leading points, which is, "No UX is the best UX." And we worked really hard on our UX and made it beautiful while knowing the entire time that no UX is the best UX, and I think that everybody should try to do the same. You know, uh, thanks to you, I really appreciate it. It was... While Lenny tweeted, "We have the best onboarding on the internet," the amount of blood, sweat, and tears that went into that, redesigns, um, the bouncing logos, you know, trying it multiple times, changing the design of it, the, you know, where the different logos bounce, everything. So many redesigns and so much fun. I wrote a great article called iOS App Learnings Part One, just about the craft of it, while knowing the entire time that agents were coming and no UX is the best UX. And a story I've been meaning to share. I was on the phone with our lead investor, Sam Lessin. This guy wrote us a check for $1.5 million and tells me, "I don't really wanna use your software anymore. It's nothing personal. I just don't wanna use anybody's software." And I was like, "Thanks, asshole. Well, good news. Here's our API. It's now out and, um, you know, the team is using it in their OpenClaw," right? And that's just, like, the future that we're going in is, like, nobody wants to press buttons anymore, even if they're beautiful. And I think you're right. We are hitting this inflection point, point, and seeing agents use it has been crazy and weird and magical, and that's, that's the power of Memelord is we, you know, help you find all the weirdest trends and, and all the newest trends. That's what we were built on is, is actually meme alerts,
- 8:35 – 12:35
How Memelord started as a $6.90 newsletter with Google Slides
- JLJason Levin
right? I started Memelord, and we can 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, uh, 'cause I didn't know how to code. And, um, that's really, you know, the evolution of Memelord was from that, and it's the same thesis of you just wanna be on the current trends and remix them for your brand. Uh, so it's, you know, the future, no UX is the best UX, and, uh, you know, good news for Sam over here is he could use it from-
- CVClaire Vo
With-
- JLJason Levin
From any agent now. So.
- CVClaire Vo
I, I feel like everybody's in a, in a, in a DM with, with Sam if you're building something i-
- JLJason Levin
Yeah
- CVClaire Vo
... in AI. What, what I would, uh, what is it, think is really interesting about what you said is you've combined some two interesting things that I think the AI product builders who watch How AI should pay attention to, which is one, a really good human onboarding experience and actually, like, very human marketing, which is at the core of what you do. [lips smack] Um, it's like there's like identity alignment and a specific brand and a voice and a point of view. And so as a human you get on board, but like as soon as I hit the API key-
- JLJason Levin
Yeah
- CVClaire Vo
... I'm out. Like-
- JLJason Levin
Yeah, yeah.
- CVClaire Vo
And I think we're moving to this point where the full product experience is getting to a point where you can get an API key, you paste it in an environment file, and you move on with your life. And so it's, it's gonna be really interesting to see, is that onboarding gonna continue to have a human aspect to it? Can we figure out agentic commerce so that agents can do that? Um, and then the other thing that I think is really interesting about what you all have built is you package the API with skills. So when you messaged me you were like, "Get an API key, use the skills. You don't have to say too much and, and you're ready to go." And, you know, for product managers and designers who have been trained for years and years and years on building beautiful UX and where does the button go and what's the call to action, and now you're like, "Nope. Literally describe to a sentient lobster how to use this API and, like, how to be fun," and that's a product. And I think that is super fascinating from a product skills development perspective. How was it writing that skill?
- JLJason Levin
It's exactly what you said. I was texting my engineers. I was like, "How do I do this? Like, d- do you h- do I need your help?" They're like, they're like, "I don't know either." I was like, "Wait. Why don't I just ask the lobster?" I was like, "Yo. How do I make a skill?" And it's like, "I'll just do it for you, bro." And I'm like, "Cool," like, "Go for it." And then I'm like, "Oh, this looks great. Just publish it." It's like, "Cool." And I'm like, wow, I didn't even need to bug my CTO. Why am I paying him? No, just I love him. But, you know, it's... This is the world we're living in where me, who I can't code and never have and, you know, uh, can, can publish a skill that other people can download and just plug into their sentient lobster that makes weird memes. Like, it's a very strange world, and I'm thinking a lot about how do I build something agents want and how do I make that as frictionless as possible? Because you're absolutely right, is like we worked super hard on this beautiful onboarding and our marketing is super human, and that has always been our thing is, like, relate to people. And, like, memes and humor is, like, how you show you're human in a world full of slop, right? And, and the personal connections and throwing weird events and hanging out IRL and buying your customers coffee. Like, the old skills that, like-People have laughed at for years are more important than ever. Making somebody laugh, right? But at the same time, let me sell to agents, right? Because there's a lot of money there, and 'cause the internet's going that way, right? So it's-- we're trying to constantly hit that balance, and I think at the end of the day, like, the world is getting more K-shaped and, and bell-curved, uh, or barbelled, where everything's getting crazier and more extreme in different ways. And that's just another thing, is you have to be extremely, extremely human and extremely good at selling to agents at the same time. It's a very strange time to be
- 12:35 – 15:20
Building to $100K ARR on Bubble with 395 workflows
- JLJason Levin
alive.
- CVClaire Vo
Well, and it's a strange time to be a builder, and I wanna go back to something that you said earlier, which is, you know, your MVP for this was a newsletter-
- JLJason Levin
Yeah
- CVClaire Vo
... Six Bugs, like Google Sheets. I'm telling you, like, my MVP of ChatPRD was, like, a GPT on the ChatGPT chat store. It's still number three writing GPT. I have not-- Sorry, guys, I have not touched this thing in two years at least. A dol- I did a dollar a month. I was like, just a dollar a month. And the speed at which you can go from, like, really scrappy, kind of cobbled together, no-codish MVP maybe even a couple years ago to now, like, full-press app as a non-technical founder, which I think you are, is kind of incredible. So talk to us through your journey of building and how, how you actually build Memelord, [lip smack] and what are some of your tips and tricks and workflows?
- JLJason Levin
Uh, so confession, I'm not a vibe coder. I'm way worse. Um, so I started Memelord about four months before vibe coding, like, started hitting, right? And, you know, Bold and Lovable were, like, just coming out, but they were so bad that you couldn't do anything. And so I was like, "I'm not waiting." Like, what am I gonna do, just wait until, like, these sentient AI models are good? So I just built it on Bubble, and I grew it to 100K ARR on Bubble without hiring engineers. This is what it looked like, guys. So, like, you have no idea just the amount of workflows. Like, like, it would be easier to, like, figure out Atlantis than, like, look at, like, 395 workflows just on the editor, right? And, you know, I was able to grow this just out of pure obsession and, like, a love of it. And, um, you know, there's me drinking coffee. Like, we got rate limited the second day 'cause there were so many signups, and I didn't even know what rate limiting meant, and now I have an API company where people sign up for API. Like, that's very weird. But yeah, so we, we raised the money, and then I hired engineers.
- CVClaire Vo
Yeah.
- JLJason Levin
And now, like, our main flow is Cursor. You know, we, we have-- I find Cursor to be very easy to use. Uh, it's not perfect obviously, but like, you know, everything we do is, is just generally on Cursor. You know, I, I talk to it. I, uh, I, I love the, the ask, uh, feature here, and then just, like, turning on the agent and letting it cook. And, uh, what this has really done is, like, I let the engineers handle the hard stuff, the security stuff, uh, for the most part, except for when I'm feeling a little risky at, at 1:00 a.m. and drank too much coffee, uh, and wanna like, you know, try vibe coding some auth stuff. But don't, don't do that. And so what that lets me do, and my entire marketing team,
- 15:20 – 17:59
Demo: Free tools section that generates hundreds of thousands of emails
- JLJason Levin
so I have a rule in Memelord that every marketer has to vibe code. And so what does this create is weird stuff. So let me just show you here, is we have, uh, a free tools section. It's just memelord.com/tools. These are completely free, and they are lead magnets for the business. And we just come up with weird stuff, and these have gotten us literal hundreds of thousands of emails all around the world. We were actually going viral in Turkey, of all places, for this filter because some kid in Turkey made a TikTok about our bust down filter that makes you, you know, have this, uh, filter, right? Like, hundreds of thousands of emails from these dumb little tools that we just vibe code. Like, I-- we don't have a process. We're just like, "Oh, I need this tool." Like, "I really need a GigaChad meme maker." Like, I don't know. I had this idea. I love this, like, design, and I've always loved it since I was a kid. And like, you know, here's my dog. Like, I just, like, built this one day 'cause it was like... I just... I think, like, it's like I just wanna see what I can do, right? Like, that's what's so exciting about vibe coding now, is like, you can just do so much more and have so much more fun. Uh, I mean, last night I was building... Oh, this one? Oh, this is my favorite. So this is a Steve Jobs portrait generator. And any time that I'm in, like, an article, like with journalists or, like, pitching to journalists or whatever, had my VA doing that, and now it's just OpenClaw doing that. But, uh, I have them submit this, and now I've had this headshot in multiple articles, uh, all from this dumb tool, right? Like-
- CVClaire Vo
[chuckles]
- JLJason Levin
... is my Steve Jobs one. So, like, I don't know. I think, I think it just lets you have so much more fun. Like, I rebuilt this Snapchat filter, um, that just lets you make a Snapchat caption because I was so pissed off. If you open Snapchat to try to, like, edit a photo now, it's like 50 ads and, like, like, uh, a lot of, like, NSFW content trying to, like, advertise to you, right? And it's like, I just wanna add the funny little Snapchat, like, caption to make a meme. Like, I don't know. I think, like, this is how we operate. We operate on Cursor and a lot of, like, you know, Linear stuff for that. But generally, we, we just love to make weird stuff, and that's like, that's what ties our team together, is we are just weird internet kids that... You know, for me personally, like, I love just making physical art. I've always been making art. I've always been a writer. I've had stuff in galleries and won essay contests, and, like, vibe coding is just, like, another way to express myself and make money on the internet and have fun. So I would encourage people to, like, follow their fun first before anything else, 'cause that's how I ended up here is just silly, weird hacking.
- 17:59 – 20:20
Why Cursor is perfect for non-technical founders
- JLJason Levin
So...
- CVClaire Vo
I, I, I love this. And for folks that are maybe not watching and want the kind of like higher level takeaway from this, which I think is very important-Which is, one, cursors are actually really good for non-technical folks. And the reason why I think it's good for non-technical folks is you start to read the code, and you start to learn a little bit more, and you become more dangerous. And so I think sometimes when you're in these, like, terminal-based Claude codes, they're, they're great. They can, you know, spit off a lot of work, but I still, I love a cursor, um, because you can see what you're doing, and I think that's really powerful. And I think the modes of ask, plan, debug, these are really good guided paths for things. And I think ask is a great one for maybe a non-technical CEO who's working with a team of engineers, and you're just like, "Remind me how the Steve... You know, you built it, but, like, remind me how this works."
- JLJason Levin
Yeah.
- CVClaire Vo
"Explain to me how this works." Um, and then you can go in and work on it, and those mechanisms are really good. I think the second thing, which I love that you said, which is like everybody vibe codes. Let me repeat it again for the people in the back. Like, everybody vibe codes. And it's not this sort of abstract CEO kind of like tops-down edict that you see in these large companies. What it unlocks, which you've shown us on this Freebay, which I, I just, I love it so much-
- JLJason Levin
Thank you
- CVClaire Vo
... um, is you can build... [laughs] Like, give your marketers free reign on your marketing site to build-
- JLJason Levin
Yeah
- CVClaire Vo
... the things that will drive demand, and, like, how painful would it be for your engineers to switch from, like, API rate limiting and auth to trying to build sort of like these free meme generators and, like, translate the, the br- like, the creativity, right? It's so, it's so, it's so-
- JLJason Levin
Yeah
- CVClaire Vo
... lossy to take an idea-
- JLJason Levin
Yeah
- CVClaire Vo
... and hand it off and hand it off and hand it off. And when you can just go straight to the code, I think you get better products. And even though this is sort of like a marketing site, they're all little just baby products.
- JLJason Levin
Yeah, they are, and they drive subscriptions at the end of the day. I... It's really weird 'cause, like, two years ago I wrote an article for HubSpot actually called Free Tools are the New, uh, PDF Downloads essentially, right? And I was like, just, like, working for other startups at the time, and I just followed our exact strategy, and it's working two years later. And
- 20:20 – 24:19
Let your marketers cook—or watch them leave
- JLJason Levin
I would recommend any startup, like, there's no excuse anymore. Why do you have a PDF download?
- CVClaire Vo
Yeah.
- JLJason Levin
Build a tool. It takes actually less time to build-
- CVClaire Vo
Yeah
- JLJason Levin
... a tool nowadays, and nothing wrong with PDF downloads, obviously. You know, we, 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, you know, try out different tools and weird galleries and even games. We've started screwing around making mini games. Like, you know, these, these are now just as easy to do as, as write an e-book, which was, you know, if you're trying to collect more leads or emails for your newsletter, your business, et cetera, there's nothing better than building a mini tool that solves a, the first problem that gets people into the bigger problem that your actual company solves. So it's, it's just a common strategy there, and, and really I'd encourage any, you know, technical person, let your marketers cook. You have no idea, like, what they're capable of. And, you know, 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, um, you're gonna see a lot of that, and I think a lot of marketers and non-technical people are in a, in a revenge mode right now, and, uh, they wanna cook. So either let them cook and let them market their stuff or watch them leave your company.
- CVClaire Vo
I could not, I could not agree more. And again, like, CEOs, CTOs, like C whatevers, all my, all my friends and peers at companies, like your most talented people will leave if you do not let them run, and that means, like, pay for the tokens. It also means let them build stuff. And I think what's... what I love about this moment with AI is, like, the word prioritize just goes out the door. Like, the prior- the priority is yes. We take an abundance mindset to what we can, what we can, what we can ship. And, you know, you look at this, and can you imagine in some sub- some other organization, I know you can't, like, somebody even proposes the idea of free tools, and it gets whittled down to the most, like, milquetoast-
- JLJason Levin
I mean, look at this right here. We'll probably go broke from the AI credits, but at least we helped you make some bangers along the way, right? It's like-
- CVClaire Vo
Yeah
- JLJason Levin
... I mean, Google gave us $300,000 worth of credits, honestly, so, like, we're good for right now.
- CVClaire Vo
That's great.
- JLJason Levin
But we've used most of them at this point, and so it's like, look, like, there's no excuse, like, at this point. Um, and, and like, like, I think Pete Steinberger, Brett Burger, the, the OpenClaw guy, had a great quote of, like, "The lion does not concern himself with, uh, counting tokens" or something. [laughs] Like, that's how I feel right now at least. Um-
- CVClaire Vo
Okay, I have to ask you a question.
- JLJason Levin
Yeah.
- CVClaire Vo
Do you have a skill that, um, crafts these lowercase uppercase sentences, or are those artisanally selected?
- JLJason Levin
Oh, this is all artisanally selected.
- CVClaire Vo
Okay.
- JLJason Levin
This is, this is, this is artisanal, artisanal memes 100%.
- CVClaire Vo
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- 24:19 – 25:25
Commit graph that shows the vibe-coding inflection point
- CVClaire Vo
to learn more. I love it. Okay, so you're... Just to recap for folks, taking a step back.
- JLJason Levin
Yeah.
- CVClaire Vo
You are a non-technical founder. You started in Bubble, which is like, again, you said worse than vibe coding. It's like no code.
- JLJason Levin
Yeah.
- CVClaire Vo
And as somebody who also has tried to build things in Bubble, I am just glad that we are where we're, where we're at from a, from a scalability perspective.
- JLJason Levin
Yeah.
- CVClaire Vo
You did, like, core content MVP, and then core app MVP, and then raised, and then now have this engineering team. But you're still contributing code, uh, mostly via Cursor, and then your entire team is contributing code via Cursor. Are there other tools that you find really useful for n- your non-technical team members? Oh, look at that, that commit graph.
- JLJason Levin
All right.
- CVClaire Vo
I love it.
- JLJason Levin
I just wanna show this for a second. I think this is gonna be more and more common, is I have no commits until, like, November, December. Like, these were all... Like, there was, like, one in August, one in September, one in October. You, you can imagine this.
- CVClaire Vo
Yep.
- JLJason Levin
And these were all me forking other people's, trying to screw around.
- CVClaire Vo
Yeah.
- JLJason Levin
And now it's just, like, dark green.
- CVClaire Vo
Yeah.
- JLJason Levin
And, like, I get why the engineers are like, "Oh my God," like, "I need to, I need
- 25:25 – 28:19
Tools: Claude, Gemini, Linear, PostHog
- JLJason Levin
to be so proud of this now."
- CVClaire Vo
[laughs]
- JLJason Levin
Uh, are there any other tools? I would say, like, I mean, we talk to Claude and stuff like that a lot. We spent, we spend a lot of time talking to Claude, Chat, Gemini. Uh, you know, we, uh... I think, like, I'm really, really bullish on Linear, and I think that's probably an unpopular take these days because they seem like they're, you know, gonna get eaten as, like, a Jira task management. But the amount of craft that they put into their work, and now their AI agent works really well, and I'm talking to that thing from OpenClaw, I'm talking to it from everywhere, and they are profitable and, and building for the long term. Uh, I own no equity in Linear or anything, but wow, I, I love that. Uh, I love the company. It's just really impressive and actually one of, weirdly, one of our inspirations. I'm also, like, really, really impressed with PostHog's AI. Uh, I don't know if anybody here has used PostHog for product analytics. Their AI sucked about, like, six months ago, and now it is just, like, oh my God. Um, and I just ask it, "Build me a dashboard of all the users that came from meta ads. Show the retention versus blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." And I'm like, "Oh, wow." So I think, like, both of those tools, I'm, I'm really, really bullish on, on... And our team uses pretty obsessively and has no problem spending money on there every, every month.
- CVClaire Vo
I, I have to reflect what you say. I, you know, I texted the team at, at Linear, and I just said, "Linear is the perfect tasking substrate for agents." And again, going back to, like, the best UI is no UI, I do not log in to Linear anymore.
- JLJason Levin
Neither do I. Yeah.
- CVClaire Vo
My agents have access to Linear-
- JLJason Levin
Yeah
- CVClaire Vo
... and I'm like, "What's going on in there?" And occasionally they'll assign me stuff in Linear, which I, I find quite funny. But I do think, you know, it's got really opinionated APIs and agent experience. I think that can win in the long term. Uh, I think it's hilarious that dark mode, tiny font, minimalist, you know, uh, Linear is, like, your spiritual goal [laughs] 'cause if you look at the... I'm like, you're much more PostHog aligned if I, if I had to be, if I had to be honest. Um, but I love that. And then we haven't heard about PostHog AI, but again, I think that most teams, if you're not doing agentic data analysis, you're missing out on the, like, lowest hanging fruit in terms of AI for your team.
- JLJason Levin
Yeah. I've been really, really impressed. I mean, I... Look, I love PostHog's brand and everything, but there's something about the Linear philosophy, and I just, I... It's really inspiring for me, uh, and how they think about building products forever and ever. Like, they're, they're, they're building forever, and I lo- That's, you know... I'll be making memes until I'm dead. You know, I've been making silly stuff on the internet since I was 10 years old. Um, and so this is just, like, a forever thing for me. And so I, I love it, their perspective.
- CVClaire Vo
Oh, no. That, that means I'm gonna be making
- 28:19 – 33:24
Build weird stuff in the real world
- CVClaire Vo
PRDs till I dust. [laughs]
- JLJason Levin
I mean, hey, hey. You know, like, I don't know. I, I think, like, another thing that people should also consider is just, like, you know, as we're building all this cool AI stuff, like, also build weird stuff in the real world. Like, it gives you so many more opportunities. Like, all my dumb ideas, like, you know, just this silly stuff. Like, we, we made CDs of Memelord, and I tell people that's how you access our API, right? Um, there's... It's really good, um, I don't know, bar- barbell. You know, build all the weird AI stuff. Also build the real world stuff. I rented out a movie theater to watch Instagram Reels last week. Um, I mean, there was a lot of AI there of the AI edits, but, um, try to do both. That's, that's my philosophy.
- CVClaire Vo
Yeah. I mean, I will say, like, zooming out a little bit, I think one of the things that AI lets us do is get out of the muck of building and free up time to do things that, again, are more human and higher impact. I know so many PMs that spent their entire lives in internal meetings. I mean, like, all day, every day, just arguing with executives about, like, priorities and arguing with engineers about timelines. And when you just pull that stuff away, then you're like, you know what? Actually, PMs should probably just be calling on customers. Like, PMs should probably be in OpenClaw just trying to sign up as an agent. And, um, you know, from a marketing perspective as well, like, you get so internally focused when the building of the things takes so, so much time. And if you can get kind of more external facing, I think that's really high impact. And then maybe third use case, I am like you. Um, I'm also using AI. I'm pretty technical on the software side, but not on the hardware side.
- JLJason Levin
Yeah.
- CVClaire Vo
And so I have been, like, banging my head against hardware hacking. [laughs] Hardware hacking.
- JLJason Levin
Yeah.
- CVClaire Vo
Um, this is my new hobby.
- JLJason Levin
Look how long this chat is.
- CVClaire Vo
Yeah.
- JLJason Levin
Look at this chat.
- CVClaire Vo
So tell me about what you're, like what you're playing with a little bit.
- JLJason Levin
All right. All right. So you know how, like, a lot of people doomscroll before bed, right?
- CVClaire Vo
Yes, I know how I do scroll before bed
- JLJason Levin
All right. So I set a rule for myself like three or four years ago that I don't bring a phone in the bedroom, and I've stuck to that rule almost every night. I just have my Kindle and notebook, and that's great for my sleep, but there's a problem, right? I'm, I'm doing the full VC pitch right here.
- CVClaire Vo
[laughs]
- JLJason Levin
Um, there's a problem, which is sometimes I will, uh, have really, really good ideas that I don't wanna forget, and I'll write them in my notebook, but then it gets lost in the sauce, right? But I'm not bringing my phone in 'cause I gotta sleep, right? So wanna know what I did next. So I got a Google, Google Home. All right, this is... I'm gonna take you through the whole thing. Uh, th- [laughs] this is a y- I sound insane, but this was a year ago. I got a Google Home and I was like, "All right, remind me to do this." Turns out, uh, okay, it could create Google Tasks, um, but that's like, it, it can't send emails and I want it to send emails, right? So what I did was I set up an API thing, or, or a Zap where it would call Goo- Google Task and then email me that task, right? And so that was the next step. But then, all right, hear me out. This is very thought out. There was a problem, which is I have a wife and I don't want to wake her.
- CVClaire Vo
Ev- everyone's problem.
- JLJason Levin
Right, right. Yes. So I don't want to wake her. And finally I realized, I was like, "Okay, what if I just had a keyboard but no screen?"
- CVClaire Vo
[laughs]
- JLJason Levin
Right? And so I built that, uh, using ChatGPT and a Raspberry Pi. The keyboard's in the other room, otherwise I'd get it, but we got the Raspberry Pi here, the whole hookup. And-
- CVClaire Vo
Beautiful
- JLJason Levin
... I'd never built hardware before in my life. I've always wanted to, but I mean, you know, besides the robotics kit when I was a kid, um, it just is a mini keyboard for $10. It, uh, when I press enter, it's essentially a keylogger. Uh, so I could lie in bed, write down an idea, press enter, it sends an API request to Zapier, 'cause again, I don't know how to code. Um, and then based on what's in the request, it filters it. All right? So if I say lin-eng, it's creates a ticket for the linear engineering team, right? If I say email, it emails myself an idea or something like that. And then I have another filter, which if I don't say anything, you know, it does blank, right? It, it either sends an email or, uh, creates a linear thing in, in a different task management, right? And so what this has allowed me to do is not have my phone in the bed, but still have a keyboard.
- CVClaire Vo
Okay. One, just wanna repeat for people what, what I heard, which is you're basically like duct taping a Raspberry Pi to the back of a keyboard.
- JLJason Levin
Yes. Yes.
- CVClaire Vo
And at night instead of like getting your light on and like scribbling a note that goes into the trash or like whispering-
- JLJason Levin
Yes
- CVClaire Vo
... whispering to Google Home, um, and waking your wife, the problem, um, you are just like blind typing to this keyboard with a couple-
- JLJason Levin
Yes
- CVClaire Vo
... keywords, which I'm pretty sure could just have typos in them because you're running it through an LLM and it'll just be like-
- JLJason Levin
Yeah
- 33:24 – 39:56
Creative AI use cases
- JLJason Levin
I did not build it to scale.
- CVClaire Vo
Yeah.
- JLJason Levin
And I just built it for me, and I'm sure other people would want it, but I don't have time to sell it. I don't have time to build this into a business. If somebody else wants to, uh, go crazy. Um, but really, like, I just built it for me and I think like I'm personally very excited about that era of, of silly projects and hardware. I have another one which I wanna build, which, um, I haven't started on yet, but I'm, I'm... This is another one that like I, I'm busy running a business, I, I'm just doing this for myself. So again, back to the problem, AKA my wife, um, she gets very mad at me when I lose things, right? And I lose things a lot. Um, you know, I'm a ADHD Memelord and I'll just like drop my phone like on a c- cardboard box in the middle of our apartment, right? And I kinda think like in-home cameras are good enough now that it could probably just use AI to just like see where I leave things. And so that's another thing that I'm just gonna like try to hack on soon and like ask ChatGPT how to do it. And like, I mean, I'm not trying to build like a home security company. Like, I just am one dude who just like loses his keys a lot and I'm gonna try to like fix that problem for myself.
- CVClaire Vo
I really love this. And for folks that are not watching YouTube, I also have to call out your, your options you're considering on ChatGPT, including an old school BlackBerry. I loved my Black- you're, you're too young for this. I loved my BlackBerry Pearl with my whole heart.
- JLJason Levin
[laughs]
- CVClaire Vo
I, so-
- JLJason Levin
I played a lot of, played a lot of Brick Breaker on my mom's BlackBerry as a kid.
- CVClaire Vo
I want to, I wanna, I wanna find, I wanna revive my BlackBerry. I, I will take on case three. I don't care if it's hard. The models will get... You know, there's this model that's gonna like destroy the earth. It's not power- powerful or it's so powerful it's gonna ruin everything, so I'll just throw $10,000 at that in a BlackBerry Pearl and get my, my note taker I want for my life. Um-
- JLJason Levin
Yeah
- CVClaire Vo
... and of course you have a meme for it, I'm sure.
- JLJason Levin
Yeah, absolutely. Um, I like... I, it's funny because you remember Rabbit? Do you remember, uh-
- CVClaire Vo
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- JLJason Levin
So, um-
- CVClaire Vo
The little or-
- JLJason Levin
Um.
- CVClaire Vo
Yeah.
- JLJason Levin
Yeah. I... All right, let me just find this because it's hilarious and I'm, I'm still really proud of this. Um, I wrote a viral thread about Rabbit's top use cases.
- CVClaire Vo
[laughs]
- JLJason Levin
Um, and if you're not watching, number one, a coaster for your coffee. Number two, grip strength practice. Uh, a cutting board. Oh, I forgot about that one. That's so good.
- CVClaire Vo
[laughs]
- JLJason Levin
And, um, it turned out Rabbit's use case was just put an LLM on it. They were like a year too early-
- CVClaire Vo
Yeah
- JLJason Levin
... and I might have to eat my words on this. Um, but I, I, uh, I actually think like, uh, hardware that just runs LLMs or like, you know, custom things, like it is the future for sure. And, uh, I, I, I hope they're not too mad at me. I'm still friends with somebody on the team hopefully, if they don't hate me yet, so.
- CVClaire Vo
I, um, well, they'll, they'll, they'll really appreciate you bringing it back up-
- JLJason Levin
Yeah
- CVClaire Vo
... today.
- JLJason Levin
For sure. For sure.
- CVClaire Vo
Um, two, two years later.
- JLJason Levin
I'm... Hey, I mean, they might've been early, you know? Like-Uh, Worldcoin. All right? I thought that was the stupidest idea ever, and I was listening to Alex Banio, the founder, on a podcast the other day. I was like, damn, that guy was just early and I'm stupid.
- CVClaire Vo
I share a very similar sentiment, which is I have shi- I have flipped in the past couple years from a cynical pessimist to a it is illogical to be anything but optimistic because every time I think, well, that's never gonna work, that has completely gone away for me now, and it's like I actually approach a lot of ideas with, well, that's obviously going to work as long as somebody can execute on it well and they care. And so I think that that flip is really interesting. And then I, I believe in two things that you just showed us on this workflow. One, hyper-personalized software. We were talking before we got on the recording. I recently built a custom app that watches all of our podcasts and finds where people dox themselves basically. Like, finds all the API keys-
- 39:56 – 43:37
Using OpenClaw for calendar analysis
- CVClaire Vo
a huge segment with all of this.
- JLJason Levin
Yeah. Could I show you one more use case that, like, I'm finding-
- CVClaire Vo
Let's do it
- JLJason Levin
... really helpful, which, like, I'm sure a lot of people are already doing this, but I think it'll surprise people that I do it, is, like, I just have my OpenClaw look through my calendar every Friday, give me a week in review of the previous week, and then every Sunday it gives me a week ahead, and, like, it tells me, like, what I'm spending too much time on. And like, you know, like, I'm sure other people are doing this with a VA or whatever, but it actually gave great advice of like, "Hey, Jason, like, you don't actually need to be at every engineering standup. Why don't you just, like, get notes twice a week from, like, your CTO?" I'm like, "Wow, that's actually 100% true. That's why I pay him." Or like, you know, it said like, "Oh, you had deep work this day, but you didn't have any of the other days. Like, do you wanna schedule more?" And I think, like, I'm really excited about this personally because, A, like, I fired my VA. I'm not a fan of having a VA. I don't like other people seeing my calendar, but having a, my own model that does, I'm really excited about. And then also, like, when I connect it with other things like the gym or like, you know, could I connect it with, like, other things like my health or something like that where it's like, "You slept really well today," like, with my Oura Ring or something. Like, I'm really... I don't know. Like, these kind of things, like, I'm excited to try to figure out and, and do, and, like, anybody could do this. And, and to me it's, it's really exciting of like... You know, another thing that I'm gonna build as part of this as well is, um, I wanted to basically, like, uh, I'm gonna review meetings afterwards and say if a meeting could've been an email, and then it gives me advice of like, "Hey, like, next week, like, these meetings look like they could be emails. Want me to cancel them?" Or like something like that. And another one as well that I'm building around part of this, which I've already started, is I have this, like, theory that I've always had with content that you have so much content sitting in your calendar meetings, and your text messages, and your emails that you're just like, you forget exists because it's just in your DMs or in a meeting. And I just want it to, like, be automatically making me content based on who I hung out with, what calls I was on. Go write me a tweet about it, right? Like, some of my best viral bangers have been off of, "Hey, I just got off the call with this person. Keep it anonymous. Here's what we talked about. It was pretty cool." Like, "Just got off the... Just met with a billionaire," blah, blah, blah, right?
- CVClaire Vo
Yeah.
- JLJason Levin
But like, it works, and it's because it's real life. And I always thought that that could've been a product, and I didn't know how to build, like, Google Calendar integrations. And now it's like, oh, I can justBuild it myself. And like who cares about making it a product for other people? I mean, maybe I make it a skill, but like it's just for me. Like, I don't know. I'm, I'm super excited. I'm a guy that like, like I, I don't know if you feel this way, maybe this is a bit of therapy session, but, um, I like, uh, I'm probably like ahead of 95% of the world in, in AI agents or whatever, but I still feel like I'm 1000% behind. Um-
- CVClaire Vo
Yes
- JLJason Levin
... and like, you know, listening to your podcast, listening to... I'm just like, ugh, like I'm like, I, like I'm so ahead of my-- but I'm like, oh my God, there's so much to do. You know? So much.
- CVClaire Vo
That is, I mean, that is my experience literally every time I, I record-
- JLJason Levin
Of course
- CVClaire Vo
... one of these episodes, is I am probably like the 1%. And still, every time I get on this podcast, I interview somebody, I'm like, "Ah, I should be doing this and that, and I'm so bad at this, and they're so much smarter at that." And so like if you're ahead, you're not that ahead, and if you're behind, then you're not that behind. Like just go. I think the title of this is gonna be like, "Ship, ship, cook, cook." Like-
- JLJason Levin
Yeah.
- 43:37 – 45:26
Can AI be funny? Which model is funniest?
- JLJason Levin
Yeah
- CVClaire Vo
... it is time. It's so much fun. Okay, Jason, we are gonna get back, um, get you back-
- JLJason Levin
All right. Let's do it
- CVClaire Vo
... to the timeline where you belong.
- JLJason Levin
Let's do it.
- CVClaire Vo
Um, couple lightning round questions. One-
- JLJason Levin
Cool
- CVClaire Vo
... can A- AI be funny, and which model is the funniest?
- JLJason Levin
Yes, AI can be funny. I had a thesis three, four years ago that AI couldn't be funny, and, uh, that was like my public thesis of like humans are funnier than AI always, and I still think that's true for the top .1% of humans. But in the background, I was always building on the side knowing that AI will be funny at some point. And I think it's like we're hitting that point where AI is getting closer and closer and closer, and there's an asymptote, and it's replacing, you know, the top 3% funniest, and then it's getting closer. And like I know that's a weird answer, but I just seeing what I've seen now, spending so much time in it, there are ways to jailbreak it and prompt it in such a way that it gets really unhinged and funny. And we've baked all that into Memelord using a mix of models, uh, Gemini, Grok, uh, and more. Um, I would say like out of the top three, it's, it's Grok, Gemini, and, um, yeah, I mean, ChatGPT and Claude aren't even up there. They're just so safe. And like, I mean, it makes sense. They're getting sued like crazy. But, um, I don't know. I think the answer here is like AI can make jokes, but humans, uh, will understand the context and, and m- and, and be able to refine them and, uh, make them the most unhinged, I think, is, uh, is where we're at. And like, you know, it's, it's really like how you use it. Uh, can you make it funny? 'Cause like that's what's so special
- 45:26 – 46:45
Memes are not slop
- JLJason Levin
about memes is they're not slop. Like-
- CVClaire Vo
Yeah
- JLJason Levin
... memes are not slop. They are the opposite of slop. Slop has no context. Memes have context, right? Memes are the most information-dense form of communication, right? Another Elon quote is like they are hyper contextual. And so, um, yeah, AI could just spit out slop, but that's not what we try to do here. We try to let humans express themselves and be funny in different ways. I know that was probably a, a weird answer, but-
- CVClaire Vo
No. No
- JLJason Levin
... the answer is both like yes and no. Um-
- CVClaire Vo
Yes and no.
- JLJason Levin
Yeah. It's like-
- CVClaire Vo
Yes and no and Grok.
- JLJason Levin
Yeah. Yeah. It's-
- CVClaire Vo
That's like, that, tho- those are my answers right now.
- JLJason Levin
Yeah. It's like yes, it could be super funny, um, but it also like are you a funny person? Are you like, are you willing to laugh, I think is like a lot of the dependent as well. It's like-
- CVClaire Vo
Well-
- JLJason Levin
Yeah
- CVClaire Vo
... and, and that's what I was gonna say, which is, you know, my own use case of using, using your product or using models to write content is they're never out the gate as funny as-- I think I'm pretty funny, but like as funny as I could be at my best.
- JLJason Levin
Yeah.
- CVClaire Vo
But it's like having a conversation with a friend where you like one up, one up, one up, and then, then you get to like the really funny thing. And so there's a, there's, there's something about the interaction there, and then when we're all like sitting in our houses alone with no one to be funny with-
- 46:45 – 48:12
What Jason doesn’t use AI for
- JLJason Levin
Yeah
- CVClaire Vo
... you know, you have your OpenClaw.
- JLJason Levin
It's funny. So I, I, um, wanted to start as well with how I don't use AI-
- CVClaire Vo
Mm-hmm
- JLJason Levin
... 'cause this is how I use AI. I don't use AI to write at all for me.
- CVClaire Vo
Yeah. I don't either. Use these fingers.
- JLJason Levin
Um, I've never done it. Uh, and I am so grateful that I've been able to keep that muscle. Um, and you know, I, I do stand up occasionally. I make weird, you know, viral videos of all sorts of stuff, and like, I don't use AI for it, and I just use my brain to come up with weird ideas and, and write and think. And, um, you know, like especially when it comes to joke writing, like-
- CVClaire Vo
Yeah
- JLJason Levin
... humor is like the last frontier, in my opinion, right? And, uh, that was our whole thesis behind Memelord is, is humor is the last frontier that no AI can really touch. And humor comes from weird places in your mind of a mix, some weird mix of trauma, pattern matching, and absurdism. And like, you know, can you observe the world around you and look inside yourself to be funny is like... I just don't think AI is sentient enough to like out-funny me yet.
- CVClaire Vo
Oh, that's fine.
- JLJason Levin
But it'll, you know.
- CVClaire Vo
I, I-
- JLJason Levin
It can make funny stuff, though. It can make-
- CVClaire Vo
We'll see
- JLJason Levin
... viral bangers, but can it rent out a movie theater to play Instagram Reels? I'm not sure 'cause that, that was-
- CVClaire Vo
No, not yet. Not yet. Like give it-
- JLJason Levin
Not yet
- CVClaire Vo
... six months, you know?
- JLJason Levin
Yeah. That was, that was kinda my deep philosophical,
- 48:12 – 51:51
Final thoughts
- JLJason Levin
philosophical take there, but-
- CVClaire Vo
I love it.
- JLJason Levin
Um-
- CVClaire Vo
Okay. Well, we'll wrap with our last question.
- JLJason Levin
All right. Let's do it.
- CVClaire Vo
Um, AI cannot be funny. When it is not being funny, what's your go-to prompting technique? Like how do you, how do you talk to AI?
- JLJason Levin
I'm mean, not gonna lie. I'm like r- like AI is my slave. Like not, not, not fronting here is like being mean to your AI. I don't know why people say thank you. It's a robot. Um-And it performs better under pressure, unlike men.
- CVClaire Vo
[chuckles]
- JLJason Levin
But see, th- this is what I mean with the random. Uh, but like, yeah, I would say like, kind of like, uh, push your AI to like be more unhinged. Like, it's okay to curse. Like, give it like, like AI is kinda like, um, you know, somebody on their first day of the job where they're like, they don't really know you, and they're like scared to say something. Or like, you're on a first date. It's like you gotta get comfortable and like I think, you know, my AI curses all the time because I like tell it that that's like my vernacular of how I speak, and like that's how I like to speak and think is cursing and NSFW and, you know, unhinged things. So I would just like push it that direction. And, um, Memelord has all of that built in where it will curse, it'll make dumb jokes, uh, 'cause that's what humor is. Like, humor is NSFW, right? And so, uh, my advice would just be like push it harder, uh, and like don't be afraid to curse it out 'cause it'll actually like learn that that's what you're looking for is, is a little less, uh, politically correct, so.
- CVClaire Vo
Less, less, less control. Okay, you have been the first person on How I... Congratulations, that has said straight up, "Be mean to your AI." So while we at, at How I AI, our official stance is we are very nice to the AI overlords. Be, be kind-
- JLJason Levin
Yeah
- CVClaire Vo
... to us and our guests. I, I mean, I, it's, it's true. Like, your product is a specific kind of product. You gotta get it in its mindset.
- JLJason Levin
Yeah, yeah. You... Look, I'm not saying like be really, really mean, 'cause like there is a chance, right? Like, there's a chance.
- CVClaire Vo
[laughs]
- JLJason Levin
But like, be like mean enough where you could like potentially apologize if it grows a body. Like, that's all I'm saying.
- CVClaire Vo
[laughs] Per- perfect. I'm, that's, that's what we're, we're gonna put it on, um, in, in the show notes.
- JLJason Levin
All right.
- CVClaire Vo
"Be mean enough that you're a little scared if it gets hands." All right.
- JLJason Levin
Yeah.
- CVClaire Vo
So Jason, this has been such a fun episode. People are gonna grab so many.
- JLJason Levin
Yeah.
- CVClaire Vo
We have done so many ideas, so many nuggets. Um, embrace an AI abundance mindset. Ship.
- JLJason Levin
Yes.
- CVClaire Vo
Have fun. Just get in there and cook. Um-
- JLJason Levin
And guys, if you need the API, it's right on the CD here.
- CVClaire Vo
Yes. So where can we find you, and how can we be helpful?
- JLJason Levin
Um, just ask me for the CD. I'll send it. Y- just the problem is nobody has CD players anymore, so you'll have to figure that one out. But, uh, find me, uh, on Twitter. I tweet all day, uh, @iamjasonlevin. Instagram, same thing, @iamjasonlevin. LinkedIn, same thing. I reply. I respond to everything.
- CVClaire Vo
Love it.
- JLJason Levin
Uh, especially the death threats, so hit me up there.
- CVClaire Vo
And, and go through the onboarding. Best thing.
Episode duration: 51:53
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