What's up, party people? My name is Sunny Ray. This is the Sunny Ray Show. Today's episode, I'm going to be interviewing Eric, Gold. We're going to talk about how we went from idea to launch, how one person can do it all. Eric, how you doing?
I'm good, Sunny. Nice to see you.
So, let's dive right into the deep end. Why don't you just kick us off by telling us a little bit about what you're building what problem it's solving and then most excitingly like h how you were able to just kind of pull it off without you know a team of 100 people.
Yeah. Sunny I've been in engineer my whole career but I've had many almost all the operating roles. and I you know with all of the technology changes I've seen the AI evolution or revolution depending on how you look at it is really you know from the perspective of building companies and building solutions yeah it's really been it's really a builder's paradise the way I see it and because you can go from some issue or problem or business opportunity that you want to pursue and you can really pursue it at a really the lowest cost it's ever been. And not just cost, it's speed. and since people are a big part of that equation, you know, all the startups I've been involved with and companies I've been involved with, I mean, human resources and people are definitely the biggest one of the biggest components. And you know, so I started with this, you know, this idea of like, well, I've always had this issue that it's, you know, I sit down to, and this is not a new problem. I sit down to watch television or, you know, with my spouse at the, you know, at the end of the day, and we spend 20 minutes trying to find something to that we could agree on to watch. And, you know, the all of the platforms were always putting different recommendations across all the different streaming services that we subscribed to. And you know it was just a colossal waste of time. I'm like there's still got to be a better solution. and I looked at you know some of the existing solutions in the marketplace. I'm like I think I could just build something that's better. and what a great time for doing that. so I went on a journey to start from you know and you know concept to all the way to you know executing and you know I'm across all the normal modalities. you know I'm on web I'm on you know I have an iOS app out I have a an Android app it's called media circle and it pro and it's also you know it's phone it's tablet and it's all you know it's been a you know incredible journey putting out you know all of not just the technology build which is of course across you know pulling out these you know native applications and also a fully scalable consumer infrastructure behind it you know and doing that all lean meaning really hard into both my experience as an engineer and architect over the years in building businesses and but also into what you know what is possible I've been on this journey with LLMs in particular because of my sort of my day job as CEO of mutual markets you know I've been using LLMs really at the when they really were nent And so started with models that were called BERT models because the business mutual markets is also doing recommendations as a piece of it and between brands and television. So this was a sort of a consumer you sort of twist if you will and yeah it's been it's just been an awesome experience to you know the to iterate on features in cycle times and seeing things that you know I've been involved in managing teams you know that are doing sprints and doing agile development and seeing like how things evolve in a world which is now you know AIdriven and I've used all of the different tools to get there. But it's been a it's really an super interesting and compelling time to build businesses.
Tell me about it. hey, just to kind of maybe rewind a little bit and slow it down. So you had a front row seat at, as you mentioned, mutual markets, watching AI change what small teams could build. like what was the specific thing you saw that would kind of like not leave you alone? Yeah. So the ability for I mean the leaprog really was when initially you know the LLMs and the models that existed weren't going after coding even so much that they saw that you know people saw that opportunity arising the but really that was sort of when the AI then the code the models from understanding code really used you know leap basically became a leaprog in terms of productivity. I personally still you know I've I don't live since I am an engineer at heart and have never really stepped too far away from the ability to develop even as I'm leading companies the you know I just when I saw that the code was able to produce and I was able to give it my own existing patterns for how I wanted development to be done. You know it be first it was an experience where I really had to lean in hard into what the models were able to generate which so therefore was product it was improving but it was not it wasn't as productive as it is now which is that using across all these mo the more modern LLMs really transformed your ability to like I review the code but it's like I can also use the AIS to review the code. so it's it really does it's really was the I say that I did the going on this sort of solo developer solo entrepreneur project really I think I'm doing it or did it at the right time. So the I was able to replicate there are a bunch of players in this space for what the solution is that I was building. but I did it as I was you know able to build what I believe is a more compelling solution with just my one person and one person with you know 30 plus years of experience building you know companies and technology solutions.
And you spent time as co-managing partner of an early stage fund as well. So what did that side of the table teach you about whose money you would take today? Yeah, you know, in the basically we were my the venture fund peak opportunity partners is was a non- thesisbased fund. It was basically the idea of like founders backing founders. I started it a few years after I you know sold one of my companies IG research and once we and I did a stint at Bessemer for a bit as well and then I launched the fund and the idea was to back founders and at that time there were probably less people around backing founders per se as a founders backing founders I think there are a little bit more of them today it was pre-angel list and other mechanisms and so you of basically the idea behind backing founders was basically you two you know you it was about ex you know basically ideas you realize pretty quickly like as an entrepreneur and as an as a I've never been big on like I don't care about NDAs and you know being secretive about what I'm doing because the reality is that and this is about the thesis about how we invested it's about the ability to execute it's not the ideas they're all the idea that you have a completely unique idea is pretty rare. and the reality is it's really can you or your team execute and execution doesn't just mean like technology building. I mean think and if anything that's becoming more certain. the only thing that was uncertain for many years about technology building was how long was it going to take you to get to MVP and get to the market and get the product you know sort of in market testing. and but it's really about executing the whole stack you know meaning GDM go to market cost you know CAC all of the normal metrics for understanding do you have a viable sort of you know business solution and will the market pay for it and now it's the big opportunity that with that I think AI presents is that you can really iterate on two things one you can get to market very quickly you can do it at a much greater much lower risk because the costs are much less with less people. and you can iterate and tack much e more easily as well because you can release an army you know to evolve your product or service.
Eric, I was going to ask you, so you're still Kosio of Mutual Markets, right, with your brother. So I guess what has to carry both of your names before it moves and like what do you decide alone? I'm on that side of the fence.
For us, yeah, so obviously we've been both in, you know, investors, we've been on boards, we've and we've also operated. you know for us to operate we have to you know for us to make that decision it's usually because you know there are few different checkboxes but one you know it's really we see something that we see as a big opportunity and you know potentially transformative opportunity that does in that for us like it has to be that there's not really true competitors which is rare finding you know true wide spaces But you know for us mutual markets was definitely you know for us had that opportunity. It was we were leaning in to some of our learnings from our prior lives and we you know we both we co-founded and co-ran IG research which measured the effectiveness of television advertising and then internet advertising as well. And we learned a few things about brand marketing during that in terms of how well it worked and we saw that there was just not a lot of there was not very there's an inability to run at that at scale and so because of that like that's the type of opportunity so we saw like okay is why space we originally thought you know in that scenario that we would incubate it but the reality was is that my brother and I probably the most in that space you know probably the most well suited to actually run at and building that company so that's in that case that's it's really just you know there's a few different elements there. you know my career span a lot of different domains but you know I've definitely spent a fair amount in data and also in marketing technologies as well.
So I guess how did the just to kind of switch gears a little bit like how did the first you know thousand people who installed media circle actually find it and like which route you know surprised you the most?
Yeah was that's a great question. I mean initially it's like how do you get awareness initially and we're just honestly we're just in that phase now and we is me. So you know getting awareness out is a is for a consumer app has is both challenging and also has a lot of opportunity. The good news in this case is that every pretty much everyone watches television or streaming services. I think the last Neils and numbers on like you know believe it or not the average American watches like four and a half hours of te television related content a day which is staggering but it means the problem is real. So it's just really about getting the message out there and it's no it's not really some secret it's across all the different platforms. So it's using you know it's using social media it's using you know all the different solutions because people are it's a problem that people are actively trying to solve. so we're just trying to get our message across all the different platforms. So that means you know every platform you can name creating a media circle presence and and getting you know just getting the message out.
And and I guess the next 90 days are you know you said consumer growth and you're running it alone. So which route are you giving the most time to and what have you already ruled out? Yeah. Well, in terms of ch like if your question is about channels to the objective was to is to build awareness at a core level. and then I think this is the this in this type of solution is right for influencer B you know type of marketing. and so that is, you know, the next avenue that in when you're talking about a 90-day window, it's 100% like that where we're going is, I think what the they're both influencers that are in the domain, you know, TV and movie enthusiasts. But the reality is that because the audience base is so broad for this app, it's really, you know, just picking the right voice in the influencer world. and that's what you know in the next 90 days which we'll continue to do all build our presence and put out content. We have we do the you know we put out there's media circles about television and media. There's a daily if you've played the New York Times mini. There's a media circle mini called media mini which is put out daily which is again you know trying to build awareness about media circle and what it offers. so yeah, that's I'd say the answer is influencers is definitely in the next 90 days and a continued you know, go to market across all the different platforms. Got it. Hey, you know, you mentioned Media Circle has more than a million lines of production code and I guess one person behind it. So, what was the moment you knew that would that it would actually ship, Eric?
I don't think I've had any doubt that it would ship to be honest. I don't think that was a risk of not shipping. I think that you know the question I really had at the beginning was how much time do I need to spend like.
You know sort of editing code reviewing the code and all that. and that's been honestly really surprising. And the reality is and I think a lot of people have experienced is that you start spending less and less time and also you know particularly if you have very specific coding patterns and that the all of the AIS can start mimicking your patterns and you know developing out all of the rules and prompts for how you want it to manage and I basically have a virtual team. I personally use still am using cursor because I like the that environment because it still gives me really feeling a direct control of code structure and code content. I still look at code but yeah I never thought it wasn't going to ship. I mean I think the surprising thing was and one of the things like you know it's very hard to be a master of all domains and I've built on AWS I built on Google cloud as well over in my career and recently and with this as well and it's what was really a joy was basically to be master architect and decide like here's how we get to scalable solutions what do you and then lever you know sort of the knowledge that the AIS have to then build out against that and you know it's like I went from you spending, you know, if you were doing typical development, you'd spend a lot of time on Stack Overflow solving problems, trending around solutions, seeing how other people have solved them. And now, basically, you can use the lever, you know, the all the, you know, the AI tools to basically if you run into a wall, you can get out of the wall. And that's usually what would prevent something from shipping on time. Not shipping, but shipping on time. So, I think I'm producing less bug co code with less bugs and less defects in, you know, much faster time.
Awesome. Eric, we're at the end of our time. Thank you so much for coming on. where do people learn more about you? Where do they learn more about what you're building?
Yeah, I mean you can visit if you're interested in Media Circle, go to mediaircle.app and you can learn all about it. and if you want to learn about mutual markets, go to mutualarkets.ai. and I'm reachable on this on LinkedIn. it's probably the best other way to reach me.
Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Eric. This is fun. And thank you all for tuning in live as well. Until next time, Eric, hang out for one minute. I'm going to bring this stream to an end.
