The Startup Ideas Podcast

Greg Isenberg
  • 4.7 (210)
  • ENTREPRENEURSHIP
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

Get your creative juices flowing with The Startup Ideas Podcast. Published twice a week, we bring you free startup ideas to inspire your next venture. Hosted by Greg Isenberg, CEO of Late Checkout and former advisor to Reddit and TikTok. Subscribe so you don't miss out. For more startup ideas, we created a database of 30+ startup ideas you can take at https://gregisenberg.com/30startupideas

  1. 1D AGO

    Hire a team of AI Agents

    I'm joined again by Imran Muthuvappa to walk through how to build your own AI Chief of Staff using a tool called Nebula. Imran shows me how to spin up specialized agents that handle the work a real chief of staff would do — surfacing team blockers, tracking project status, holding people accountable to offsite vision goals, running daily agenda briefings, and prospecting ICP leads. We also get into mini apps, model selection for cost efficiency, and why personal software is becoming a real category. By the end, the takeaway is clear: every role now has a "work on the job" component where you supervise yourself and offload tasks to agents. Links Mentioned: Try Nebula: https://startup-ideas-pod.link/nebula Precall Agent: https://startup-ideas-pod.link/precall-agent Project Status Agent: https://startup-ideas-pod.link/project-status-agent Lead Gen Agent: https://startup-ideas-pod.link/lead-gen-agent Timestamps: 00:00 – Intro 02:13 – What is Nebula 02:54 – What an AI Chief of Staff Actually Does 4:26 – Nebula vs OpenClaw vs Hermes 06:09 – Building the Blockage Radar Agent 09:47 – Agent Features 12:04 – Choosing Cheaper Models for Simple Tasks 13:15 – Building Project Status Agent 13:53 – Connecting Tools to Agents 17:38 – Building Vision Tracker Agent 22:07 – Mini Apps and Personal Software as a New Paradigm 25:13 – Building a Daily Agenda Agent and Second Brain Integration 30:25 – Hours Saved vs. Anxiety Reduced for Founders 33:02 – Building the Lead Gen Prospector Agent 39:19 – Final Thoughts: Automate Three to Five Things Key Points An AI Chief of Staff handles the boring executive support work — calendar, email, LinkedIn, project status — so a human can focus on decisions. Nebula lets you build, deploy, and share custom agents through a Slack-like interface, where each agent has its own goals, tools, and system prompt. Voice input via SuperWhisper or WhisperFlow gets you to roughly 150 words per minute, which Imran calls the biggest productivity lift available right now. Cheaper models like the Nebula model handle most chief-of-staff tasks well — reserve frontier models like Opus or Sonnet for deep coding or reasoning work. Mini apps inside Nebula are spinnable web dashboards that connect back to your agents — a glimpse of personal software replacing off-the-shelf tools. The new skill is judgment: picking which three to five things to automate out of your week. The #1 tool to find startup ideas/trends - https://www.ideabrowser.com LCA helps Fortune 500s and fast-growing startups build their future - from Warner Music to Fortnite to Dropbox. We turn 'what if' into reality with AI, apps, and next-gen products https://latecheckout.agency/ The Vibe Marketer - Resources for people into vibe marketing/marketing with AI: https://www.thevibemarketer.com/ FIND ME ON SOCIAL X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenberg Instagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisenberg/ FIND IMRAN ON SOCIAL X/Twitter: https://x.com/imranye Alif: https://alif.build/

    41 min

  2. 3D AGO

    My AI Design Workflow That Doesn't Ship Slop

    I sit down with Meng To for his second appearance on the pod to dig into design md, Google's newly open-sourced format for capturing the soul of a design and porting it across every medium and tool. Meng walks me through a live demo of how he uses design md alongside skills, HTML references, and tools like Aura, New Form, Codex, and OpenClaw to ship landing pages, motion design, slides, and mobile mocks that actually feel custom. We get into the design drift problem with one-shot prompts, why taste is the real moat for builders right now, and how he runs four products as effectively a team of one while iterating a thousand-plus prompts deep. If you build with agents and you want your work to stand out from the sea of purple-gradient lookalikes, this one is for you. Timestamps 00:00 – Intro 04:00 – What design md actually is 07:17 – Examples: one design DNA across slides, promo videos, motion 09:31 – How to create design system 14:05 – The importance of taste and design 18:28 – Variant, remixing, and skills as ingredients 21:36 – Live demo: creating a landing page with design md and HTML 24:36 – Thoughts on Google Stitch 25:41 – Being fast and at edges is an unfair advantage 29:29 – Midjourney parallels and the queuing flow state 31:44 – Walking through skills (skeuomorphic, 3D, lasers) 34:07 – Now everyone is a designer 36:47 – The full design workflow 38:50 – Iteration versus remix 39:24 – Judgment per minute as the new craft 41:06 – Solo building vs building a team 44:34 – Taste is the moat 48:25 – Building a second brain for design inspiration 50:41 – Closing thoughts Key Points Design md is a portable blueprint for typography, color, spacing, and effects that you attach to any prompt to keep design consistent across web, mobile, slides, and motion. One-shot prompts collapse on page two; a design system carries the soul across every medium and tool you switch into. Skills work like ingredients (lasers, skeuomorphic, 3D, copywriting), and stacking them on top of design md  is what separates custom work from generic vibe-coded output. Taste is the real moat right now, and you build it by surrounding yourself with great design and using every product in your niche. Iteration (90% of the time) keeps a product evolving; remix (10%) takes the same DNA into a new medium or category. The shift in craft is from moving pixels to making judgment calls per minute, with agents handling the mechanical work. The #1 tool to find startup ideas/trends - https://www.ideabrowser.com LCA helps Fortune 500s and fast-growing startups build their future - from Warner Music to Fortnite to Dropbox. We turn 'what if' into reality with AI, apps, and next-gen products https://latecheckout.agency/ The Vibe Marketer - Resources for people into vibe marketing/marketing with AI: https://www.thevibemarketer.com/ FIND ME ON SOCIAL X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenberg Instagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisenberg/ FIND MENG ON SOCIAL Aura: https://aura.build X/Twitter: https://x.com/MengTo

    51 min

  3. 4D AGO

    Andrew Wilkinson: AI Agents Do My Job

    If you want more workflows and tactics to build a business with AI, check out this free workshop: https://www.ideabrowser.com/workshop I sit down with Andrew Wilkinson and we go deep on how he's restructured his work, his health, and his family office around AI agents. Andrew walks me through Deep Personality (an app he vibe-coded after running psychological screens on himself and his girlfriend), the autonomous SaaS business he runs through agent harnesses like Harbor, and the vector-database setup that lets him query Tiny and his personal holding company like an oracle. We cover where software is headed, why he's pouring capital into TSMC and data center stocks, and the daily AI workflows he's built around health, email triage, and a personalized morning podcast. Listeners walk away with concrete prompting tactics, agent architectures, and a frank read on where the moats are moving. Timestamps: 00:00 – Intro 01:50 – The OpenClaw Unlock 04:53 – Demo: Deep Personality App 10:38 – Harbor: An Agent Harness For Real Companies 12:30 – Autonomous Companies: Hype Vs. Reality 17:30 – Credibility As The Missing Layer For Vibe-Coded Products 20:14 – Centralizing Data Pipelines 21:35 – Vector Databases 23:22 – Transitioning Companies to Agentic Companies 25:22 – Where Andrew Would Build Today 27:10 – The New Interface 28:21 – Why build now 30:59 – Replacing Adapar: A Networth Wealth Platform 33:29 – Services As The New Software 35:46 – G-Brain Explained and Andrew’s OpenClaws 45:31 – Closing Thoughts Key Points Andrew runs a SaaS business called Deep Personality almost entirely through agents, generating roughly $20K of revenue while debugging eats half his time. Harbor (github.com/geekforbrains/Harbor) gives agents a GUI-style harness — dev, marketing, and support agents that can autonomously merge PRs and adjust ad budgets across PostHog, Meta, and Reddit. Andrew's family office swapped headcount for a $40K/month Claude bill; his CFO, who had zero coding background, vibe-coded a replacement for Adapar (priced at $50K–$100K/year) in about two weeks. Vector databases trained on Tiny and Andrew's holding company let him query 132 minority investments, P&Ls, and headcount data conversationally. For builders today, Andrew suggests aiming for a $1M–$2M product, then parking gains in TSMC and data center exposure given how fast software moats are eroding. His best prompting tip: ask the model to interview you with multiple-choice questions before generating any output. The #1 tool to find startup ideas/trends - https://www.ideabrowser.com LCA helps Fortune 500s and fast-growing startups build their future - from Warner Music to Fortnite to Dropbox. We turn 'what if' into reality with AI, apps, and next-gen products https://latecheckout.agency/ The Vibe Marketer - Resources for people into vibe marketing/marketing with AI: https://www.thevibemarketer.com/ FIND ME ON SOCIAL X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenberg Instagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisenberg/ FIND ANDREW ON SOCIAL X/Twitter: https://x.com/awilkinson Deep Personality: https://deeppersonality.app Tiny: https://www.tiny.com

    47 min

  4. APR 29

    How to win with AI Agents in 2026

    Limited BONUS: First 1,000 builders get $1,000. Claim yours while supplies lasts.: https://startup-ideas-pod.link/hyperagent I sit down with Howie Liu, co-founder and CEO of Airtable, to talk about the agent economy and the launch of HyperAgent. We walk through Sequoia's charts on AI agent deployment, the economics of token-based work versus human labor, and why frontier agents have crossed a threshold that changes how companies get built. Howie then does a live show-and-tell of HyperAgent, including a custom "Greg Isenberg contrarian AI" skill he spins up in real time. This one is for anyone building a solopreneur business, operating a fleet of agents, or trying to figure out where to place their bet in the agent ecosystem Timestamps 00:00 – Intro 02:22 – Sequoia's AI agent deployment chart reaction 04:41 – Copilot vs Autopilot territory and the $1T+ opportunity 08:13 – Agent economics vs human labor costs 11:12 – Fastest enterprise adoption curve in history 14:48 – The agent command center and fleet of 20 agents 18:03 – What is HyperAgent? 19:43 – Live demo: hyperlocal real estate market reports 22:38 – HyperAgent as the founder, not just the developer 23:21 – Street View, Zillow redesigns, and visual tool power 24:15 – Command center view across a fleet of agents 25:48 – Skills as the key primitive for frontier agents 26:30 – Building the Greg Isenberg contrarian AI skill live 32:31 – HyperAgent vs Perplexity Computer, Manus, OpenClaw, Codex 34:52 – Reviewing writing skill 36:55 – The arbitrage of persistence 41:31 – Confidence milestones: first dollar, $10K/month 35:27 – Reviewing contrarian tweet drafts live 45:05 – Giving the agent feedback and building rubrics 50:15 – Connectors, OAuth, and building custom API skills 53:03 – How to get started with HyperAgent 01:01:54 – Credit giveaway for listeners 01:03:31 – Closing Thoughts Key Points Frontier agents have crossed a threshold in the last 4–5 months where they function as true autonomous coworkers, not just chat assistants. Reframe agent cost by value delivered: a $150 token spend for a board memo beats hours of human time, so anchor on opportunity cost. The real arbitrage is persistence: 99% of people quit after one shot, while daily practice for 30/60/90 days produces top 1% operators. Skills are the most important primitive in frontier agents, turning generally intelligent models into domain experts through playbooks. HyperAgent's differentiation is a low floor plus a high ceiling, with rubrics, LLM-as-judge evals, and fleet-wide observability for scaling. Aim for $100B companies with under 5 employees, built on fleets of always-on agents mapped to human job roles. The #1 tool to find startup ideas/trends - https://www.ideabrowser.com LCA helps Fortune 500s and fast-growing startups build their future - from Warner Music to Fortnite to Dropbox. We turn 'what if' into reality with AI, apps, and next-gen products https://latecheckout.agency/ The Vibe Marketer - Resources for people into vibe marketing/marketing with AI: https://www.thevibemarketer.com/ FIND ME ON SOCIAL X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenberg Instagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisenberg/ FIND HOWIE ON SOCIAL X/Twitter: https://x.com/howietl Hyperagent: https://www.hyperagent.com Airtable: https://www.airtable.com-

    1h 27m

  5. APR 27

    Codex clearly explained (and how to use it)

    I sit down with Riley Brown to get a hands-on tour of OpenAI's Codex, which he argues is the most powerful single interface for using AI agents today. Riley walks me through how Codex unifies vibe coding, knowledge work, browser use, computer use, and automations into one app, all running on GPT 5.5. I come in as a complete Codex skeptic who has spent most of my time in Claude Code, and Riley shows me skills, plugins, projects, Remotion, Chronicle, and the in-app browser to make his case. By the end, the question becomes whether the era of separate tools for documents, decks, code, and research is collapsing into a single super app. 00:00 – Intro 03:23 – What is Codex 06:46 – Why a GUI beats the terminal for most users 10:13 – Codex: the all in one platform 12:48 – Atlas browser inside Codex 14:21 – Remotion explained and motion graphics workflows 19:28 – Computer use and Chronicle 22:26 – Plugins, skills, MCPs, and integrations 31:57 – Evals, examples, and good outpu 38:43 – Hard questions: who Codex is built for 40:44 – Browser use plays itself in chess 43:20 – Running Claude Code inside Codex 45:58 – GPT 5.5 cost and effort settings 48:50 – GPT Images 2.0 54:09 – Why most people feel overwhelmed by AI tools 57:09 – Three projects to start with on day one and Closing thoughts Key Points Codex is positioned as a super app where coding, documents, decks, research, and automations live in one interface, with GPT 5.5 as the underlying model. The trend across Codex, Cursor, and the Claude Code desktop app is the same GUI pattern: chats on the left, agent in the middle, output on the right. Plugins offer official integrations like Slack, Notion, Sheets, Remotion, and Canva, while skills are user-created instructions stored as a SKILL.md file. Computer use and browser use have crossed a speed threshold; the chess demo runs at near-human pace, a leap from earlier "dial-up" feeling agents. Running Claude Code inside the Codex terminal lets you stack both subscriptions and use each model where it shines. The biggest unlock for companies is collecting good examples of finished work so agents can match the bar. The #1 tool to find startup ideas/trends - https://www.ideabrowser.com LCA helps Fortune 500s and fast-growing startups build their future - from Warner Music to Fortnite to Dropbox. We turn 'what if' into reality with AI, apps, and next-gen products https://latecheckout.agency/ The Vibe Marketer - Resources for people into vibe marketing/marketing with AI: https://www.thevibemarketer.com/ FIND ME ON SOCIAL X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenberg Instagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisenberg/ FIND RILEY ON SOCIAL X/Twitter: https://x.com/rileybrown Vibe Code App: https://www.vibecodeapp.com Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@rileybrownai/videos

    1h 26m

  6. APR 22

    ChatGPT Images 2.0 Is Here. I Tested Everything.

    In this solo episode, I walk through ChatGPT Images 2.0 and show exactly how to use it to build creative assets that move a business forward, from brand visual directions to UI mockups to apparel mockups and editorial illustrations. I share the AI tool that surprised me this week (Noscroll), hand over a startup idea I want someone to steal (a learn-to-draw app with AI feedback on every sketch), and give you a five-step framework for finding and building a vertical AI business. I end with a Ralph Waldo Emerson quote that fired me up and a reminder to go conquer the day. Timestamps 00:00 – Intro 01:21 – What's New in ChatGPT Images 2.0 03:14 – Best Use Cases for Images 2.0 15:15 – Top Tips for Asset Generation 17:10 – Tool of the Week: Noscroll 20:17 – Startup Idea: Learn-to-Draw App with AI Feedback 24:58 – Framework: How to Find a Vertical AI Business to Build 29:45 – Closing Thoughts and Emerson Quote Key Points ChatGPT Images 2.0 delivers 2K resolution, eight images per prompt, thinking mode with web search, and dramatically better text rendering across languages. Specificity is the whole game with 2.0: dialed-in aesthetic, camera, lighting, palette, subjects, and output dimensions separate cinematic results from stock-looking ones. Every business has four creative bottlenecks: marketing content, internal decks and training, visual explanation, and testing before building. No Scroll is a glimpse into the future of AI agents: small, focused products that read the internet for you and text only what matters. Vertical AI beats horizontal AI for reaching seven and eight figures in ARR because niche workflows plus proprietary data equal defensibility. The Emerson mindset: own the day, finish it, forget the blunders, and begin tomorrow serenely. The #1 tool to find startup ideas/trends - https://www.ideabrowser.com LCA helps Fortune 500s and fast-growing startups build their future - from Warner Music to Fortnite to Dropbox. We turn 'what if' into reality with AI, apps, and next-gen products https://latecheckout.agency/ The Vibe Marketer - Resources for people into vibe marketing/marketing with AI: https://www.thevibemarketer.com/ FIND ME ON SOCIAL X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenberg Instagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisenberg/

    32 min

  7. APR 20

    Hermes Agent clearly explained (and how to use it)

    I sit down with Imran Muthuvappa to get a hands-on walkthrough of Hermes Agent, a personal AI agent that ships with built-in memory, 40+ tools, and pre-installed skills out of the box. Imran walks me through why he migrated from OpenClaw, how to install Hermes on a Mac or even an Android phone via Termux, and how he cut his token spend by roughly 90% using OpenRouter. We get into agent design (one agent vs. multiple), connecting Hermes to Telegram and Obsidian, and the kinds of prompts that turn a personal agent into a daily operating system. By the end, I have a practical roadmap to install Hermes, pick a model, and start automating real parts of my life and business Timestamps 00:00 – Intro 01:38 – Why Imran Left OpenClaw (Memory, Gateway, Tokens) 04:26 – Hermes Setup Tour and 40+ Built-In Tools 07:06 – Installing Hermes on Mac, Linux, and WSL 12:21 – Telegram and Android Agents 17:09 – Auditing Your Life With Your Agent 20:04 – Must-Know Hermes Tips: Updates, Tailscale, Telegram 21:07 – Should You Migrate From OpenClaw? 25:58 – Hermes + Obsidian as a Daily Dashboard 27:16 – Must-Use Prompts for a Personal Agent 31:29 – Must-Install Skills: Obsidian, Honcho Memory, G-Stack 33:04 – What G-Stack Is and Why It Matters 34:18 – Customization Is a Trap; Output Is the Skill 35:19 – Closing Thoughts Key Points Hermes Agent solves OpenClaw's three biggest pain points: built-in memory (writes to SQLite on successful tasks), gateway stability, and token visibility. Installation is a single command on Mac, Linux, or WSL, and Hermes ships with 40+ tools and popular skills (Apple Notes, Reminders, iMessage, Find My) pre-installed. Switching to Hermes with OpenRouter can cut token spend by roughly 90%, from about $130 per five days to around $10 per five days in Imran's case. You can run Hermes on a cheap Android phone via Termux + Termux API, unlocking SMS, sensors, and on-device social posting as a cheap alternative to a Mac Mini. The real skill is defaulting to your agent for work, then meta-prompting it nightly: "What am I procrastinating? What should I automate? What tool can you build me tonight?" Imran recommends pairing Hermes with Obsidian for a clean daily dashboard and installing G-Stack (a Y Combinator-style startup skill from Gary Tan) if you are building a product. The #1 tool to find startup ideas/trends - https://www.ideabrowser.com LCA helps Fortune 500s and fast-growing startups build their future - from Warner Music to Fortnite to Dropbox. We turn 'what if' into reality with AI, apps, and next-gen products https://latecheckout.agency/ The Vibe Marketer - Resources for people into vibe marketing/marketing with AI: https://www.thevibemarketer.com/ FIND ME ON SOCIAL X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenberg Instagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisenberg/ FIND IMRAN ON SOCIAL X/Twitter: https://x.com/imranye Alif: https://alif.build

    37 min

  8. APR 18

    Claude Design blew my mind

    I go live and get my hands dirty with Claude Design, Anthropic's new design tool in research preview. Across roughly an hour, I run a real workflow end-to-end: pulling a product idea from Idea Browser, generating wireframes, iterating into visual designs, building a pitch deck, and attempting a 30-second video ad. I share my first reactions in real time and take feedback from the chat. By the end, I land on a clear verdict — best-in-class for wireframes and visuals, weaker for video — and give you a practical sense of where this tool fits in your workflow. Timestamps 00:00 – Intro 00:50 – Claude Design walkthrough 03:48 – Picking a product idea from Idea Browser: Senior Brains 05:54 – Wire-framing Senior Brains 13:54 – Reacting to the generated wireframe 20:44 – Building a pitch deck for Senior Brains 30:39 – Reacting to a pitch deck 34:58 – Reacting to Hi-Fi wireframe 40:40 – Creating a 30-second animated video ad 48:58 – Reacting to animated video ad 58:10 – Final verdict and recommendations Key Points Claude Design's wireframing is the strongest capability I've seen in a design tool to date, especially the questionnaire that extrapolates like a product manager. The pitch deck generation nails roughly 90% of the output with minimal input, which saves hours. Visual design mockups come through clean and usable, ready to iterate with 30 minutes of back-and-forth. Video generation lands at about a 5/10 — workable as a social post, weaker as a real commercial. Start with wireframes first to conserve tokens and sharpen feature decisions before committing to high fidelity. The #1 tool to find startup ideas/trends - https://www.ideabrowser.com LCA helps Fortune 500s and fast-growing startups build their future - from Warner Music to Fortnite to Dropbox. We turn 'what if' into reality with AI, apps, and next-gen products https://latecheckout.agency/ The Vibe Marketer - Resources for people into vibe marketing/marketing with AI: https://www.thevibemarketer.com/ FIND ME ON SOCIAL X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenberg Instagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisenberg/

    1 hr
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Hosts & Guests

4.7
out of 5
210 Ratings

About

Get your creative juices flowing with The Startup Ideas Podcast. Published twice a week, we bring you free startup ideas to inspire your next venture. Hosted by Greg Isenberg, CEO of Late Checkout and former advisor to Reddit and TikTok. Subscribe so you don't miss out. For more startup ideas, we created a database of 30+ startup ideas you can take at https://gregisenberg.com/30startupideas

Information

  • Creator
    Greg Isenberg
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2026
  • Episodes
    339
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © The Startup Ideas Podcast
  • Show Website
    The Startup Ideas Podcast

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