AI-Enabled Entrepreneurship Study
Currently interviewing
Project
AI tools have lowered the cost and barrier of building software. This enabled many people without much technical background build many digital businesses. The latent expertise and energy of people is finding a new outlet.
Over the last decade, I have built multiple mission-oriented organizations which, in total, helped 5000+ people crack into high-paying tech careers.
I think AI-enabled businesses will be one of the main paths for upward economic mobility in the next decade.
I am researching the early examples of this wave to understand how we can get more people to benefit from AI and how we can all prosper in an AI-abundant world. I am planning to interview 50+ builders.
As part of this research, I want to understand who is building, how they are going about it, where they get stuck, how they feel about the whole process.
I am planning to publish my findings as a report in May.
Some of my questions
- How did you end up building something?
- How has AI changed what you're able to do?
- How did you find your first users? Where are your users coming from now?
- Where do you get stuck? Building? Distribution? Monetization?
- What's the gap between what you've built and turning it into a business?
- What has been the surprises of this process?
Who I'm looking for
Anyone who recently launched or is building something. Especially if AI tools played a role. Any stage, any background. I am primarily focused on the US market.
What you get
- A 30-min conversation. I will ask about your experience and I will listen.
- As a repeat founder, I can offer feedback on what you're building.
- Access to what I'm learning from all these conversations. What's working, what's not, across many builders.
Participate
Send me an email at emre.sarbak@gmail.com with a link to what you're building. I'll reply within a day.
About me
I'm Emre Sarbak. In 2013 I started helping people switch to coding careers. Over the next few years I helped build four organizations, two as nonprofits (LaunchCode, Kodluyoruz, Patika.dev, Rise In), that trained and placed more than 5,000 people into tech careers. I also received NSF SBIR funding to commercialize AI research through Mediate / Supersense, building AI tools for the blind and visually impaired. Before all that, I was advising big corporations as a McKinsey consultant.
Currently working on Emotion Machine in San Francisco.