PRⓞTⓄTYPE LIVE

Paradox Universe Ep. 1: Soul vs Machine #CapCutSeedance2 @capcutapp #AIFilm #CapCutCPP️️️️️️️️️️️️️️ Debuting on @X 11:55PM PST 4/30/2026 All music composition, art direction, writing, editing, are my own. Video generated w/ Seedance 2. x.com/PrototypeLive/…

I apply repeatedly (two times, now, will apply a third), because I would truly benefit from the mentorship, the guidance, the network, the opportunities to get outside and practice pitching. Direct network of investors. I know little about distribution. I'm a developer, not a salesperson.

I love what I do, so I work 60 hours a week. I think employees shouldn't work more than 5 hours a day. 25 hours a week in someone else's dream is enough. People should be paid generously enough to live, have healthcare, & pursue their own dreams on 25 hours a week.

I wish I had one so bad, but all the ones I want work for other AI companies and would probably think my idea is too smol. I'll keep building alone til I meet her or him.

Come launch your next creative venture or big business idea w/ me on Live Stream to win 1 million OpenAI tokens through my app, @ProtoLiveXYZ! A few minor fixes tonight, then launch day tomorrow! Support your favorite #SoloFounder #WomanInTech! x.com/i/spaces/1oJMv…

@geoffreywoo The screenshots don't get uglier than this @geoffreywoo I built an app after 20 years of being a user and customer of other visual creation software, since childhood. Merging 3D (@threejs) with film and code editing in one MOBILE-FIRST app. I believe I am the first to do so!

announcement: confession: i am more interested in ugly startup screenshots than perfect seed decks right now. show me the weird internal tool customers keep begging for. beauty is usually theater. repeated usage is usually the crime scene.

In 2009, I flew 4 hours for a Series A pitch. The VC opens the door: “I’ve got 20 minutes.” He skims the deck I sent days ago, looks up, and says: “We don’t invest in media companies. Don’t want to waste your time.” I stayed calm, thanked him, and walked out. The company was bought by Twitch in 2016. Safe to say, it wasn't a waste of time, and VCs should always invest in founders first.

@garrytan Make me one! 2nd time applying! I built the most powerful agent orchestration for creatives and creative focused startup founders out right now! x.com/PrototypeLive/…

We have 16 partners funding 40 to 60 companies per year, usually amounting to more than 50 to 200 new SF residents per partner per year (depending on how many cofounders and how many already live here, but multiply by 16 and it’s a lot!)

Your brain is wired to quit. 'This is hard, the data is shit, everyone doubts me, fck it.....let's stop.' That instinct kept your ancestors alive and away from danger......but it'll kill your company. Keep moving while terrified and statistically wrong. Your delusion is your fortune.

Quote of the day. #qotd

@GJarrosson I agree. I've never considered what I owe the future a philosophy. If asked about my philosophy to make a 1 minute founder pitch, then I'll do that. Sometimes I yap on X, but most times if I'm yapping on X, I'm not working hard enough... speaking of – TTYL!

Founder philosophers are the biggest red flag in Silicon Valley. Twelve-part threads on "taste," "craft," and "what we owe the future." Meanwhile their product hasn't shipped in three months. The founders I back don't have time to monologue on X. They're on a call with a customer.

I'm 30. I built an AI startup called GojiberryAI to $2.5M ARR. Got accepted into YC. If I had to start from 0, here's exactly what I'd do: 1. Sell it before I build it. No code. Just a simple slide deck (mine was 6 ugly slides) explaining the problem, the solution, the outcome, and the price. I made my first $10k that way, before writing a single line. 2. Pick a painfully specific customer. Not "B2B SaaS." Something like "founders at 20-person SaaS companies about to hire their first SDR." So specific that the right person reads it and thinks "that's me." 3. Start outbound on day one, but only to people showing intent. Not scraped lists. People engaging with competitors, changing roles, raising money, or publicly posting about the exact problem I solve. That's the gap between a 1-2% reply rate and 25-40%. 4. Lead with value, never a calendar link. Send a blueprint, not "got 15 minutes?" Let the resource do the selling, and the trial becomes the obvious next step instead of a pitch. 5. Pick ONE channel and go deep. For us it was outbound first, then Reddit (10M+ organic views), then LinkedIn lead magnets. I wouldn't touch a second channel until the first one was clearly working. 6. Talk to customers every single day. The product doesn't matter until you understand the problem better than they do. Spend 90% of every early call listening, not demoing. 7. Only build once people are actually paying. Then keep it dead simple and price it to sell itself. We landed on $99/mo with a free trial, so the funnel runs without me dragging anyone onto a call. 8. Do this relentlessly for about 12 months. That’s roughly how long $0 to $2.5M took us. Bootstrapped. No outside funding. Most founders don’t lose because they can’t build. They lose because they build too early, sell too late, and quit the channel before it compounds.

Sam Altman on the advice he wishes he received earlier in his career “One of the other things I learned that I wish I had gotten advice on early in my career is ‘ask for what you want.’ You will get told no a lot, but sometimes it will work. And I think you see a lot of entrepreneurs shoot themselves in the foot because they don’t ask that person to quit their job and come join them. They don’t ask this big company to do a deal with them. And they’re just not aggressive enough.” Sam continues: “Being willing to ask for what you want and be somewhat aggressive are really important characteristics of being an entrepreneur. People don’t want to fail. They don’t want to be told no. They don’t want to end up in some crisis.” The other thing he learned in his career is that each crisis gets less. scary than the one before it: “There are a lot things that really go wrong, and they feel like company-killing events. And they feel like there’s no way you’re going to survive because the crises are really bad. And the thing you learn is that you generally do survive these and the world doesn’t usually end. And even if in the moment something happens and you have no idea how you’re going to get around it, you eventually figure out a way. On the 19th major crisis, you’re like: ‘well, I survived the first 18. I’ll probably get through this one.’ And you kind of just do.” Source: @ycombinator (Sep 2016)

Congrats to @wormwtf (ALL15) on their new launch. Worm now lets users borrow money to invest in prediction markets.

Your startup's growth rate is also its learning rate. Setting an ambitious growth goal and trying to hit it is the fastest way to find out what's broken and how to fix it. Not just the obvious stuff. Wrong customer, wrong problem, product nobody wants. It also stresses the founding team. You find out fast whether you can handle hard problems under pressure. Bottlenecks only show up when you push. If you're not having uncomfortable discoveries early, you're not pushing hard enough.

Whatever nationality my future husband is, I will infuse my famous Jamaican oxtail with it =P Italian? Oxtail Rasta Pasta w/ fresh made pasta Japanese? Oxtail Rasta Ramen w/ a soft boiled egg Mexican? Oxtail Birria Burrito Redneck? Oxtail & Baked Mac & Cheese 🤣

@_IGI_Media_ Well said! Thank you, IGI

hate to break it to ya but you wuz beuatified before the AI was around :-) That which makes us attractive are the slight imperfections, blemishes and so on, but also the perfections and symmetry of our proportions. However, there's a difference between pretty and beautiful. I have something I have said to women and others for many years. "Pretty is purchased. Pretty scarf, pretty dress, pretty hairdo . . . " "Beauty is built from within. Caring, confidence, competence, knowledge, attitude . . . " AI can't show the second one, so it tries to apply the first one. in so doing it does what it thinks we need/want "pretty" There's many "pretty people" in the world. We the people, want to be, and want to see the beautiful people.

I uploaded my face to Seedance and it straight has me clocked down to every freckle, scar, wrinkle, dimple, flaw & detail. So glad AI me isn't "beautified" any more. Time to make my big screen debut <3 =P PARADOX UNIVERSE EP. 2: THE GOLDEN ROBOT 🎶: Dayyylight by me 5.31.26

The reason most people never start building is the quiet assumption that someone smarter is already working on it, not a lack of skills or capital. Let me tell you, those 'smarter' people are usually not.