May Habib is the co-founder and CEO of Writer, a full-stack generative AI platform built for enterprises. The model is trained on a customer’s own data to create content that is consistent with their brand style and voice. Writer recently raised $100M at a valuation of around $500M. Prior to Writer, May co-founded Qordoba, an AI writing assistant.
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In today’s episode, we discuss:
- Advice for AI founders in 2024
- Why it’s difficult to scale AI products for enterprise
- The secret to finding champions
- Signs of a healthy co-founder relationship
- The future of agentic AI
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Referenced:
- Accenture: https://www.accenture.com
- ChatGPT: https://chat.openai.com/
- Dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com
- Goldman Sachs: https://www.goldmansachs.com/
- Grammarly: https://www.grammarly.com
- Jill Kramer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jill-kramer-64230840/
- L’Oreal: https://www.loreal.com/
- Northwestern Mutual: https://www.northwesternmutual.com/
- Palmyra: https://writer.com/blog/palmyra/
- Retrieved Augmented Generation: https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/what-is-retrieval-augmented-generation/
- United Healthcare: https://www.uhc.com/
- Vanguard: https://global.vanguard.com/
- Waseem Alshikh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/waseemalshikh/
- Writer: https://writer.com/
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Where to find May Habib:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/may-habib/
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/may_habib
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Where to find Todd Jackson:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/toddj0/
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/tjack
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Where to find First Round Capital:
- Website: https://firstround.com/
- First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/firstround
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital
- This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast
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Timestamps:
(00:00) Introduction
(02:34) Writer’s origin story
(06:30) Building a full-stack generative AI platform for enterprise
(11:56) The #1 challenge building Writer
(15:41) Writer’s approach to finding champion customers
(20:29) How Writer is winning the enterprise space
(27:11) Signs Writer found product-market-fit
(29:26) Scaling LLMs for specific use cases
(31:53) Writer’s goals for 2024
(33:57) Advice for 0 to 1 founders
(35:53) Creating a culture of “connect, challenge, and own”