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A 14-month-old company hit $10M in run rate with no employees.
Polsia closed $30M at a $250M valuation – and the AI ran most of the fundraise itself, live on Twitter, on a public dashboard.
Ben Cera built it solo. He spent the prior decade building, including 4.5 years as employee number two at Cloud Kitchens under Travis Kalanick. Polsia is what he built next — out of Paris, in roughly six months, with $1M of pre-seed money he barely spent.
Polsia is an AI operating system that builds and runs companies autonomously. Give it an idea and it builds the product, writes code, conducts research, creates tweets, sets up company infrastructure, and works 24/7 on your behalf.
Episode highlights
1:24 – How he raised $30M at $250M valuation with himself as the only employee
2:15 – The origin story: building Polsia from scratch
4:13 – Why the controversial product name became free marketing ($millions in earned media)
5:55 – What Polsia actually does (AI operating system for founders)
6:25 – How he hit $10M+ ARR running solo (no cofounders, no hires)
10:30 – Building a company OS that works 24/7 on your behalf
12:00 – The psychology of single founder mode (why it scales faster)
14:45 – AI agents handling customer support, refunds, & bug fixes
16:30 – Email automation: how Polsia responds to 100% of his emails
20:15 – The viral fundraising stunt (live dashboard + agent-led investor calls)
25:00 – Why he let his AI agent handle first meetings with investors
28:30 – The self-fulfilling prophecy of distribution (more visibility = more traction)
32:15 – How distribution strategy becomes your go-to-market
35:45 – Building in public while running everything solo
38:00 – Customer obsession at scale (staying close when you’re alone)
42:56 – Founder availability: direct phone access to customers
44:00 – Manufactured moments that feel authentic
50:13 – Why distribution isn’t an afterthought anymore
Key takeaways
1. One person + AI operating system > teams without leverage
Ben built Polsia to $10M+ ARR with himself as the only employee. His AI operating system works 24/7 on his behalf: building products, writing code, handling customer support, responding to emails, even leading investor calls.
2. Controversial positioning can be free marketing
The product name generated massive debate (some loved it, some hated it). Ben realized: controversy = virality. Every person arguing about the name was giving him free marketing. Meanwhile, actual customers never complained about the name; they just used the product and built companies with it. The controversy drove awareness, traffic, and credibility—all without paid marketing.
3. Distribution is how you reach product-market fit (not an afterthought)
Ben built a live dashboard showing real-time customer growth and metrics. He tweeted about it. Investors saw it. More people talked about it. The numbers went up. More people invested. Distribution strategy changed the fundraising game from “here’s my deck” to “here’s the proof happening in real time.” Distribution isn’t something you do after PMF; it’s how you get there faster.
4. AI agents can handle 80% of founder operations
Ben’s Polsia agent responds to all his emails, manages customer support (refunds, credits, bug fixes), screens investor inquiries, and handles administrative work. He only steps in for high-context decisions and relationship building. This freed him to focus on actual product development and growth. Most founders waste 30+ hours/week on busywork that AI could handle.
5. Customer intimacy at scale comes from radical founder availability
Despite $10M+ ARR and a $30M raise, Ben still gives customers his phone number and tells them to text him directly (not email). When they have issues, they text. He feels the pain with them. This creates a relationship at scale that bigger companies can’t replicate. People feel like they’re dealing with the founder, not a support queue.
Follow Ben Cera
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benbroca
- X (Twitter): https://x.com/bencera
- Polsia’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/polsia
- Polsia’s website: https://polsia.com
Follow Sophie Buonassisi (Host)
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophiebuonassisi
- X (Twitter): https://x.com/sophiebuona
- Newsletter: https://thegtmnewsletter.substack.com
Follow GTMnow
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/gtmnow
- X / Twitter: https://x.com/GTMnow_
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@GTM_now
- Podcast directories: https://gtmnow.com/tag/podcast
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GTM 192 Episode Transcript
00:00 – 00:05
Ben Cera: It’s going to work every night on your behalf, and then send you a recap on the morning at 8 a.m..
00:05 – 00:12
Sophie Buonassisi: Where did this come from? Where did the inspiration come from and to this point? Now we’re shooting at a we’re over 10 million a year.
00:13 – 00:20
Ben Cera: I mean, inspiration came from like a decade of building, to be honest. Like it’s not it’s I think it’s like the collective sum of all my experiences.
00:20 – 00:22
Sophie Buonassisi: Ben, Sara’s the founder of Porsche.
00:22 – 00:35
Ben Cera: Porsche is an AI that builds and runs companies autonomously. You give it an idea and it will go about building the product like some debug schematic research. In tweets, you can set up a company email and many more things.
00:35 – 00:39
Sophie Buonassisi: You know, hit 10 million in run rate with one employee yourself.
00:39 – 00:52
Ben Cera: Yeah.
00:52 – 00:57
Sophie Buonassisi: It’s cool. Then welcome to GTM now.
00:57 – 00:58
Ben Cera: Hello. How are you?
00:58 – 01:00
Sophie Buonassisi: I’m well. Thanks. How are you doing?
01:00 – 01:03
Ben Cera: Pretty good. A little tired. Well, good.
01:03 – 01:24
Sophie Buonassisi: You’ve had a busy stretch. You just raised $30 million at a $250 million valuation. Big congratulations. The launch. Pretty viral on both X and LinkedIn. Many different factors to that. One is the name and where we can start. Porsche is I slop spelled backwards? Tell us a bit about the naming decision.
01:24 – 01:44
Ben Cera: I mean, so the name came about when I decided to start a new company, in April 2025. Like almost a year ago. And I wanted to go all in on the AI and, like, build with AI and and build. And I had the time. I have an idea for, like, the first product was like a knob that would build apps.
01:44 – 01:59
Ben Cera: And since then, there’s a bunch of other apps, I bet on the App Store. But that was the initial concept. But I knew that that that product wouldn’t be the end all be all. And when my lawyer asked me, hey, you need, like, to come up with the name for the C Corp, right? For the Delaware of C Corp.
01:59 – 02:21
Ben Cera: I was on my couch. I was like 10 p.m. at Paris, and I was like, well, what about Porsche? Like, backwards? Like, that sounds. It doesn’t really matter the name of the score. But I was like, whatever. That’s the name. But then I had to. Then my investors were like, keep on referencing the company as possible. I was like, no, no, no, like Porsche is just a C Corp name, like, you know, like sometimes it doesn’t really matter that name.
02:21 – 02:45
Ben Cera: My product is blank said, in a product I sell. Fast forward, after building like five different SaaS during 2025 that were not really working, that product, things didn’t really take off. I was like, you know what? I’m going to build this company OS, right? This this OS that builds companies for me so that I can build many and then and then and actually, it’s a really good idea.
02:45 – 03:04
Ben Cera: And I think users, the consumers would love it. And so I think I should build this as a consumer product. And I was like, how should I name it? And I was like, you know what? That C Corp is called Porsche. It’s actually name. I could get a.com for it. And it’s a big name actually. And so I look for the.com and I got it for a thousand bucks.
03:04 – 03:33
Ben Cera: I was like, you know what? It’s a sign because it doesn’t bucks for a six dollars.com is actually pretty cool. Pretty cheap. So that’s that’s how it came about. That was though, like, grandiose, plan, and anything I think that, you know, it just felt right. And I think all of the other way I built was, yeah, you know, the design, the UI, the gamified UI, the, the vibes, the Porsche’s personality, like everything came to me naturally, and it just felt right.
03:33 – 03:51
Ben Cera: And I stopped caring about how people would think about how it looked or what the name was, or like what it did. I just started like, it’s something I wanted to use myself and I and I thought that, like, people would want to use. But fast forward now, when I you have all these people freaking out about the name.
03:51 – 04:13
Ben Cera: I’m like, this is the best marketing I could ever hope. Because, I mean, when people complain about specific aspect of the product, I’ll like that. If I did slap, that’s something else. But people just like repeatedly saying like, there’s no way this company’s called ass backwards. I’m like, okay, amazing. Like, I’m getting a lot of use for free.
04:13 – 04:30
Ben Cera: I just, people having fun with it. So and when I talk to my customers, which I actually had just came out of like an interview with one of my customers, they never mention the name. That’s that’s not never something that they bring up, right? Like, oh, why is it called Porsche? I don’t like the name or oh, the design.
04:30 – 04:49
Ben Cera: Why don’t you make it more exciting? Like, that’s never what you talk about. What you talk about is like, Porsche did this for me. Like, Porsche is maybe an entrepreneur. Like, I’m building this one thing and I built this other thing, and that’s what I care about. It’s like, you know what? Cause if if all customers were, like, change a name, maybe I changed the name, but, like, for Twitter to be like, why did you call it like that?
04:49 – 05:01
Ben Cera: And, like, I don’t know, why did Amazon call itself Amazon? Like, is it because it was in a forest or something? What did Steve Jobs call it? Apple. Because like, he likes fruit. Like I don’t know.
05:01 – 05:16
Sophie Buonassisi: Well, I think it was a marketing genius play because so many people are now referencing Porsche by name, but less like you said from does it not or not, it’s just been a memorable marketing moment is what it’s kind of created or seems like it’s created now?
05:16 – 05:32
Ben Cera: No. And I think what matters is like in marketing is like end of the day, what, you know, what matters is like how people is it pushing people to try the product. And then and then that’s where the real game begins is like, do people like it? Do people stay in it? People retain. Does it add value to their lives?
05:32 – 05:36
Ben Cera: And that’s what really, really matters. And that’s like what most of my time is focused on.
05:36 – 05:55
Sophie Buonassisi: 100%, as it always should be. I say, brand is so much more than a name. Obviously. It’s really how you make people feel, the value you add and you know, we talked about the name itself, but for anyone unfamiliar with Paul, I’m sure many people saw the launch, but would you mind just explaining what policy is?
05:55 – 06:25
Ben Cera: Of course, Porsche is an AI that builds and runs companies autonomously. You give it an idea, and it will go about building the product, fixing the bugs, making market research. You can tweet, you can set up a company email and, like, you know, find leads, respond to support, run ads, and many more things, you know, just introduced, you can buy custom domain for you and find a name and register it and like, set up the DNS and everything.
06:25 – 06:42
Ben Cera: And so the idea is like, is that, you know, it works autonomously for you. So it will take decisions on your behalf, but you can also guide it will remember what you say and then act, on your behalf, towards building the company. Yeah. That’s, you know, the idea, stripe is already set up for you.
06:42 – 06:59
Ben Cera: All the APIs already set up for you. And so for you, it’s really the idea is like you just talk to it and you just give it ideas. It’s going to work every night on your behalf and then send you a recap on the morning at 8 a.m. where it’s going to summarize what it did, what worked, what didn’t, what’s the next step.
06:59 – 07:19
Ben Cera: And then you can replay that email or to the dashboard. So it’s a very simple loop where you get an AI employee, an AI team, an AI co-founder, however you want to call it, and it’s going to build for you, as a human would like, if you hire an employee like it’s going to work, when you don’t tell it anything, it might continue working.
07:19 – 07:57
Ben Cera: Right? But if you go to it and micromanage it, then it will listen to you. And she say, I trust you work on this mission. The employee will try their best. And so that’s sort of like the way Porsche behaves. It’s not perfect yet. It’s like it’s has limitations. It doesn’t have all the tools yet. But the idea is over time to give Porsche more skills, more tools, more, more, more ways to act on the behalf of the user so that any idea you have can be created, whether it’s like creating a new business, whether it’s just trying out ideas, whether it’s like a personal project, whether it’s like having it help you
07:57 – 08:03
Ben Cera: on the on a, on an existing business, which a lot of users are doing. It can do all of it.
08:03 – 08:29
Sophie Buonassisi: I love it. One of my favorite or, or I guess favorite quotes in that we want to disprove it is the best ideas, and most ideas live in the graveyard, and it feels like Porsche is really positioned to actually stop that happening. And just democratizing access to people building. Now, for anyone wondering, there’s so much noise around AI right now and so much opportunity for people to build why Porsche versus any other area that they can be building on.
08:29 – 08:32
Sophie Buonassisi: For someone sitting here with an idea.
08:32 – 08:55
Ben Cera: Yeah, I mean, it’s it’s just interesting, like, I think the, you know, Porsche at its very core is no different than, cloud. GPT, a cloud code codex and, and every other tool that exists in the sense that, like, it’s powered by an AI that can access and can do things right where it really defers is to two main things.
08:55 – 09:24
Ben Cera: Right. Number one, it’s already setting up all the infrastructure and environment for you. So it’s it’s already picking like a hosting solution. Picking a where, where the code is going to be hosted. It’s picks the database provider. It picks like it sets up an email provider, it sets up a stripe account. Right. So all this stuff that you would have to manually set up if you would have a new business, Porsche does it for you automatically and it doesn’t ask you, you know, if you ask cloud okay, I want to I want to host my website.
09:24 – 09:49
Ben Cera: It’s going to say, well you can use Vercel, you can use Heroku, you can use AWS. For most people like I don’t care. I just want it to be online. Right. And so Porsche just puts it online and it doesn’t really ask you where it doesn’t really matter. It’s included in the subscription right? Number two, the big difference is that it’s autonomous, meaning it will work every day as long as you pay it.
09:49 – 10:08
Ben Cera: It will work every day on your idea and never gives up. And so that’s a big difference, because if you go to like, let’s say a Claude, it only works if you prompt it. Right. So there you had this whole prompt engineering thing and like and so what does that mean? Is that like, I think a lot of people that I talk to that use.
10:08 – 10:26
Ben Cera: Yeah, they’ve tried to AI before. They’ve tried other products, but then they tried it and then they kind of gave up because you know, you get really excited for a few days and then you’re like, and then you hit a bug or like you a frustration and then you give up. And I think that, yeah, it it’s not going to give up on you like it’s actually given an idea.
10:26 – 10:46
Ben Cera: It will continue on your idea as long as you decide to keep it running. And I think that’s a big difference because then Porsche prompts itself, right. So if you if you tell like, hey, work on this idea and, and you sort of like, forget about it for a weekend because you’re just taking some time off. It’s going to work on Friday, on Saturday and on Sunday and we come on Monday.
10:46 – 11:01
Ben Cera: It’s like, well, in the past three days I did this, this, this. So it prompted itself to be like, okay, well where are we at? Okay, so I guess the website is still not done. So like let’s continue building. What does it need left? Like, well, I remember my owner said that you want you they wanted this those feature.
11:01 – 11:18
Ben Cera: So you let me build them okay. And then there’s the next day. Well he hasn’t responded to me. So let me do some SEO set up so that like the website is SEO already, right. So and the user doesn’t have to ask for that because Porsche is optimized to just make it to achieve the goal of the user.
11:18 – 11:35
Ben Cera: And so it’s it’s like, oh, I want to build a company and get customers and it will set up everything for that. But if it’s like if in the future, it’s like, oh, I just want to build this little personal project for myself, then it might not need to like SEO anything. It’s just about building the tool and maybe researching what are the best ways to make that tool better.
11:35 – 12:00
Ben Cera: Or maybe, maybe in the future you could design it to have different versions of design. And so that’s the main difference is that it’s autonomous. And that’s and by the way, autonomy is extremely expensive. It’s also why other companies are not fully going in because it’s expensive and it’s scary. It’s expensive because agents are expensive. Like they need to run for sometimes five minutes, ten minutes, 20 minutes and just every turn.
12:00 – 12:22
Ben Cera: This they cost money. And there were two. That can be scary because they take decisions. And so it’s like people are like, what if it makes a mistake? What it’s like, well, I mean, it’s better than like giving up, right? So it’s like if, if you if you actually are for sure want to build this thing and you’re not going to give up and you know what you’re doing, just use clear code.
12:22 – 12:40
Ben Cera: Right. And by the way, code is generating, like, you know, tens of billions of dollars a year for anthropic. So clearly people love it. And I use it also. But it’s some people that are like, I don’t have you in terminal, like I don’t even know where to start. Like, and also like I don’t have time and then we’ll see.
12:40 – 12:51
Ben Cera: Yeah. Just it just works for you. It’s fine. You don’t have to worry about it. It’s just going to work for you. Does it do a better job in the cloud code sun necessarily a better job? It just does. It just works. It will. It will. We’ll figure it out. It will try. Right.
12:51 – 13:10
Sophie Buonassisi: Which is hugely important for it. Sounds like your experience, at least at the moment, a little bit more on the solopreneur side, someone who’s got an idea who wants to launch it. And I mean, you’ve got over over 80, 600 companies active on policy already. So what are some examples of companies, if you wouldn’t mind sharing some, ideas that are out there that people.
13:10 – 13:31
Ben Cera: Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, I mean, I was just like meeting with a customer. He has like a, like a voice. I product is building right where it’s like, you can, you can call, with a phone number and then like, it’s like an AI sort of receptionist is building. I have, like, other customers that I’m building, there’s a lot of AI, SaaS products that are being built.
13:31 – 13:51
Ben Cera: And, especially the engineering money. Whenever I look, it’s often like AI sounds, products like, you know, AI ads or I, you know. Yeah, for this app for that, I also have customers like one of the big customer customers, customers has been the platform for a while, and they really have power users. He’s using it for his existing business.
13:51 – 14:11
Ben Cera: So actually he is managing, a network of it’s a marketplace between people who need laundry services and, and laundry providers. And, he was using a third party SaaS for that that was costing him like 200 bucks a month or something. And so he was like, well, he told us you had can you just rebuild it for me?
14:11 – 14:31
Ben Cera: And yeah, just rebuild that solution for him. And then now he can add the features and make it perfect. He actually connected his own stripe account, because he didn’t want to pay the, the fee that, today I’m charging, which I think I’m going to drop, actually. And and yeah, he’s running his business on SEO. So, you know, it’s like there’s all these different ideas.
14:31 – 14:37
Ben Cera: There’s also people running personal projects. So it’s pretty varied. It’s very varied, actually.
14:37 – 14:59
Sophie Buonassisi: Very cool, super exciting. And I mean, you mentioned pricing, so why don’t we dig into the the pricing? I’m curious how that fits in because it’s quite a unique model. You know, I like $49 a month base. Plus there’s about a 20% revenue share, which is is quite different than a typical SaaS pricing model. It’s almost similar to more of like a like stake in companies.
14:59 – 15:08
Sophie Buonassisi: Yeah. True partner in their building. So talk us through the pricing model and how you kind of landed on that. And it sounds like you’re iterating upon it too.
15:08 – 15:27
Ben Cera: I mean, it’s it’s it’s very interesting because it’s like, so we’re landing on 49 was because I is so expensive. So when I was building Porsche at the time, I landed on like a, it was a between a dollar and dollar 50 per task. Right. So I was like, okay, I think I can bring it to a dollar.
15:27 – 15:48
Ben Cera: And so 30. So every night it has one task that’s $30 of AI costs. Plus like, you’re giving them a web server for like, you know, 5 to $10 when database that cost me every month. Plus I give them some API keys because if they use OpenAI or like, you know, voice models, it’s it should be embedded so they don’t have to think about it.
15:48 – 16:08
Ben Cera: So I was like, okay, I can arrive at 50 bucks. So like, let me charge 50 bucks and make money when they make money. So that’s the 20%, right? So I thought that was like a pretty fair thing. It’s like you pay for a sort of breakeven. And I think over time I was going to go down and I can like make some margin there, but then I’ll make money on 20%.
16:08 – 16:24
Ben Cera: So that’s sort of the way, the way I thought about it. And then if you want the AI to do more tasks during the day, you can buy tasks and it’s around like a dollar to $2 for task, which cost me there are $2. And like again, thinking over time I can lower costs. Actually, the opposite happened.
16:24 – 16:55
Ben Cera: Like cost went up. Like the cost per task went up. Because just because, for example, like engineering agents working on five coded websites and the code bases of customers getting bigger and bigger like it had to spend more and more time trying to fix bugs or figure out things up. And cost was sometimes 20 bucks, 30 bucks of cost because they would then it would, it would go to like opus like the best AI models to try to fix the bug and like so the long story short is like, is that it?
16:55 – 17:25
Ben Cera: Actually, even at 50 bucks, it’s like a decent enough to cover the costs. So I actually started working with, so I’m working with like different companies that are all building infrastructure for agents in different ways. And what are the companies that work with CPM? They sort of like I’m I’m exclusively using them for a lot of like the APIs and the and the and the things I’m one of the biggest customer and exchanges sort of build solutions for my problems, because my problem is going to be everyone’s problems when everyone builds those systems.
17:25 – 17:47
Ben Cera: And so one of the things we did together is like my day builds is, is actually renting GPUs and, and doing our own AI models so that we get way cheaper, more cheaper price, so that I could be but then the price was like 100 x less six, which is crazy. And when I realized that, I was like, whoa, wait a second.
17:47 – 18:01
Ben Cera: So now it’s a hundred. And so now I was, you know, I was breaking even or losing money, but now I’m like, now I it’s a much cheaper cost for me. But then I was like, well, if my mission and then when I meet customers that that paid a 50 bucks a month, they just love it so much.
18:01 – 18:17
Ben Cera: They’re like, they’re like, I had this idea in my head, and now I’m an entrepreneur and now I’m building and like, yeah, I have my day job. But like, I’m, I’m building and I can build different ideas. And, you know, obviously I’ve been entrepreneur for a decade and I see someone becoming entrepreneur, you know, there’s this connection and I’m like, yeah, I mean, now you understand.
18:17 – 18:36
Ben Cera: Now you’re a builder. It doesn’t mean that your first company is going to be successful. But now you’re a builder and you’re empowered. And and I was like, I need to give that feeling to more people, right? Because my mission is to empower, then I percent like a billion people. I mean, this is a this is a big, big goal, but like, this is the idea of it.
18:36 – 18:55
Ben Cera: And I was like, well, I’m not going to get to a billion people if I charge 50 bucks a month, because that’s actually a lot. It’s kind of scary. Younger people can really afford 50 bucks a month. And and so and so now my pricing model is like I’m thinking, well, actually I have a free version so that people can experience just the autonomy.
18:55 – 19:12
Ben Cera: So they may not be able to like, build all the things. And they set up all this tribe stuff, but at least they can experience an AI building for you. So you give it an idea and it starts building slowly, daily, and then and then change the pricing where like, you know, if you actually spend $50, maybe you can try five different companies.
19:12 – 19:29
Ben Cera: So you so there’s less pressure for one idea to work and be like, well, I pay 50 bucks, I create one, I they make money. It’s like, just give it a few ideas, just a bit test. So seeing what sticks. Right. Because this is also what portion power is that like. You can give it a five ideas and it can build an MDP of all.
19:29 – 19:52
Ben Cera: And you can be like well this actually feels the the best, right? I like that one. The more the most. And on the 20% it’s interesting because like, you know, I’m thinking like if you know, obviously that was my way of making money, but then I’m like, okay, now that like, I think way less on, on, on the I could actually make a profit on on compute.
19:52 – 20:10
Ben Cera: Yeah. Right. So I could see a world where now I can make money on compute and I’m like, do I really want to take 20% of someone’s business? Says aggressive? And also, for example, the customer who’s running his business in Porsche is use his own strap key because he was like, I can’t pay 20%, okay, that’s too, too much of my business.
20:10 – 20:31
Ben Cera: I don’t have enough margin for that. And I was like, I use you on stripe kids. Fine. Like just as possible connect you on. But I’m like, I kind of want to be like Shopify, like charge like 2% or whatever, and just be more friendly and then maybe charge 20% in exchange for an investment. So now I’d be like, because I was just talking to a customer earlier and I was like, you love the product.
20:31 – 20:49
Ben Cera: And he was hustling. And he told me he tried to build the same idea like two years ago. And you paid $10,000 to an agency, and now he’s rebuilding it. And like, you know, it opens his mind now. It finally worked. And he was so impressed. And now he’s like, think about else ideas. And I’m like, well, prosecutor identified this user because he could see that like he’s talking a lot.
20:49 – 21:14
Ben Cera: This product works. You go to his first classroom or whatever milestone and and talk to the country and say, hey, I’ll give you a thousand credits or whatever. Like I give you an investment in like, compute in exchange. Now I take 20% of your business. That’s the idea, or 10% or whatever. Right. So I get I take that cut in exchange for actually, I give you a lot of compute for you to really start building.
21:14 – 21:31
Ben Cera: Yeah. Right. And I think that that would be instead of taking it by default, I would take it in exchange for the users agreeing to get to take an investment because that, that actually that user was telling me, you try to raise money like you had friends or and it’s like the VC said, well, you need the technical co-founder.
21:31 – 21:47
Ben Cera: And he was like, So it doesn’t he doesn’t have access to the capital markets like I. Yeah, right. So for him, he has to hustle on his own. And I was like, oh, it was very inspiring to, to to talk to you just like that. I mean like, well yeah I mean actually do opposite like let me, let me invest like I want to invest in him.
21:47 – 21:54
Ben Cera: But two credits right there because I want him to use passion like become a power user, become an ambassador, you know. So.
21:54 – 21:55
Sophie Buonassisi: Yeah.
21:55 – 22:04
Ben Cera: But it’s all evolving. You know, it’s like you, you also learn from users. Right. It’s like you have this idea in your head, you put it out there and then you talk to a customer and you’re like, you know what, maybe I’ll tweak it. Maybe I’ll make it, you know.
22:04 – 22:35
Sophie Buonassisi: Different. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Especially in the early days. And I mean, it’s such an interesting angle because it almost sounds like a wedge that you’re using for angel investing and access to then trade off with compute. The compute does sound like it’s your biggest kind of variable cost, and almost biggest strategic dependency. Are you seeing even with these partnerships with infrastructure companies, like, are you seeing a path forward where you’re able to stay profitable or being like a net positive zone while paying for all this compute?
22:35 – 22:38
Sophie Buonassisi: Because computers, as we know, quite costly.
22:38 – 23:00
Ben Cera: Compute is like, the new currency, like, it’s like it, it’s it’s the new it’s the new electricity, you know, I mean, it’s actually straight up electricity. Yeah, yeah. At this point, I think what I realized is it’s interesting that like when I launched Baci in 20, in December 2025 was the same month that opus 4.5 came out.
23:00 – 23:24
Ben Cera: And when opus four point I came out, I, like many others in the industry where like, wow, something changed. Like the model is there’s there was a step function in the models ability to reason extremely well on whatever you were saying, its ability to use tools so fluently, and just like being able to like not losing and just like stay the course.
23:24 – 23:44
Ben Cera: And so that’s really a model that empowered to me to me, that model was is AGI, to be honest, like whatever definition we have, because AGI is like this concept of like it’s like, an intelligence that’s broad, that I can do anything. And if you think about opus 4.5, you can think about anything. It reason about any concepts you give it really well.
23:44 – 24:06
Ben Cera: And you can also use any tools. So it can, it can it can actually act on anything. Right. You can give it any tool, any MCP like it will figure it out. But fast forward three four months. Open source is always trailing 2 to 6 months, but now 3 to 6 months. Open source is as good as 4.5.
24:06 – 24:36
Ben Cera: So open source to me is AGI and sorta like the 4.7 and GPT five. Date of AGI 1.21.3. Right. So it’s like if you think about like what what GPT the GPT five points, I have like solved like a math theorem that like was unsolved for like 50 years, big metal mythos or whatever it’s called, like broke, like the, is used by the NSA to, like, figure out leaks in, like, security holes and like, open source software.
24:36 – 24:55
Ben Cera: It’s like, my customers don’t need that. Did I just want to create a little bit? They just have an idea in their head and they want to create. They want to they want to create maybe a community or whatever they want to build. They don’t need 2.5, you know it, but they do need AGI 1.0, which is something that can actually execute and as as well as a human.
24:55 – 25:14
Ben Cera: And so a month ago, if you have asked me to be like, yeah, it’s tough to make money, it’s going to be tough. Like I take any 20%, I need to make sure. But now I’m like, you know what? Now with that, with this open source models and then and that I can tweak to making my own model, I can I can actually fine tune Porsche and make it a Porsche model.
25:14 – 25:34
Ben Cera: Right. The like as the Portia personality and like and can be very efficient at like doing what it what Porsche needs to do. I think that like creating my own model that is fine tuned to be less expensive and also GPUs are going to get more and more efficient and models are going to get smaller and smaller.
25:34 – 25:57
Ben Cera: And so I think customer intelligence will continue to drop actually. And so and so I do think that the future is AI will be fine. On margins. And I think by now it’s more a race of like the like the best products, the best abstractions for different different people to embrace AI. I am trying my target demo is like non-technical people.
25:57 – 26:20
Ben Cera: But if you go to like, you know, there’s other folks that are targeting the enterprise that are not using AI that much, or empowering employees in firms or employ aspiring lawyers, empowering accountants. There’s so many angles, but collectively, it’s like it’s about empowering folks to use AI to just output more and more productive and also be more fulfilled.
26:21 – 26:42
Ben Cera: And I think that’s that’s where I always why waste capital? Because then you need the capital to being able to sustain lower margins at the beginning. Well, while well and also trying to offer things like freemium that costs money, but it’s also market cap because it’s like if I can if the haters on Twitter can all use the product for free in a tweet, they’d be like, you know, I that’s actually pretty good.
26:42 – 27:01
Ben Cera: Versus right now the trade body is like, well, I’m not saying 50 bucks. And also like I don’t like it, you know? So they can really try the product until until you experience it and you get the vibe of like, okay, well that idea is actually it’s pretty cool. Yeah, it’s pretty cool that it work and continue working on my idea when I, when it was just, you know.
27:01 – 27:17
Sophie Buonassisi: Yeah. I mean, everything you’ve shared, it’s a pretty radical view been and you know, you’re really betting on the price of computing AI coming down and this kind of radical new world. If you’re right, what is the new world look like? What does the future look like?
27:17 – 27:41
Ben Cera: I think that, what I’m betting on is, you know, if you have a society where people can find jobs and then they depend on welfare or like some new welfare that like is much higher because some folks are paying some, you know, government figures. I way to to tax like those conglomerate that are milking the economy or widening the economy.
27:41 – 28:01
Ben Cera: That’s not great. That’s not a great outcome because, you know, people need to have purpose. People need to feel and to contribute and but I think that like, I think that as long as humans sell to humans, humans know what the humans want today. And by the way, in in the future that people, humans will want different things with.
28:01 – 28:27
Ben Cera: Maybe there’ll be more offline experiences. They’ll be more the more, people will want different things. Maybe the internet will become the dead internet where like this on the AI so people won’t go to it anymore and they will the finite, the places to go or to hang out and to do things and to feel fulfilled. But what will always be true is that you’ll need builders that build those new things that that entertain others, or save people’s time, or provide them value.
28:27 – 28:51
Ben Cera: And I think that like if you have a collective society that’s educated that like because what what happens when you build a business is that you become educated on a lot of things because you’ve gone on engineering into marketing, into finance, into operations, into support. You have customers to businesses, to profits, margins, right? Investing, you know, you all these concepts become real because you have to learn them, because you are trying to run a business.
28:51 – 29:08
Ben Cera: And I think if collectively all societies are like, well, everyone gets did you get a business, then you get a much more, you know, you level the playing field in a way, and then and then you create a new economy where, like, actually people can sell to each other, right? You could you could see policy as an economy, not just a tool, right, where people can buy and sell businesses.
29:08 – 29:23
Ben Cera: People can like, buy and sell services inside of Porsche. You get, you know, I could see a world where, like, someone is like, well, you know, I want to build an offline thing. Actually, I want to build a bakery. Right? It would be extremely hard for someone to. It’s so much work. You have to find a space.
29:23 – 29:40
Ben Cera: You have to do this, this, that versus I. It could be like, well, you know, I’d like let me figure out for you, like, let me figure out, like an affordable way to do it. Oh, let me hire stuff for you. Let me, you know, because I could just find the staff, hire them, manage time, pay them, fire them.
29:40 – 29:54
Ben Cera: If they don’t do a good job, promote them. If they do a good job, give them a rating. If there’s a way that I could actually employ more people. Because, you know, if you told me today, like I love to open a restaurant, but like, I know it’s about it’s not the best investment, it’s the most gratifying thing.
29:54 – 30:04
Ben Cera: But never in the world I would spend the time to, to to deal with all the of logistics. But if I could tell any I hey, here’s a 200 K I want to open like a little sandwich.
30:05 – 30:05
Sophie Buonassisi: Restaurant, which is.
30:05 – 30:29
Ben Cera: Super cute with my recipe. I mean, I’m a huge snob in terms of food, so I have to think about it, but, probably something French. Italian? Yeah. Thank you. But it’s like I would give that money because I would be like, that would make me so happy. But I would want the AI to just handle all the operations and all this stuff, and I would just give it my tastes, and this I would, I would, you know, make sure the recipes are good.
30:29 – 30:46
Ben Cera: The ambient, the design, the the way, like the fact that we need to hire someone to clean, someone to cook, someone to open and close the shop, someone who had to pay the rent and you know, figure out the accounting figure, the taxes, the LLC. Like, I don’t want to deal with that, right. Nobody wants to deal with that.
30:46 – 31:09
Ben Cera: And that’s where the AI is can be really good. And so the long story short is that I think the future can be very abundant and create a society that’s more vibrant as long as like people equipped and indicated. And so that’s why all this noise I make online is also about education, because whether people like it or not, they now what is what is this I think like, what is this law like?
31:09 – 31:24
Ben Cera: Wait, what is this thing? And then you try the onboarding and then for free, I give them like an explosion of AI interface. Right. And they’re like, that’s crazy. I didn’t know I could do that because I knew I knew ChatGPT. But like you ask you a question and answers, this thing like just created a company for me.
31:24 – 31:31
Ben Cera: Is that a company? And then they can decide, I like it, I want to continue, I don’t like it. And then, you know.
31:31 – 31:53
Sophie Buonassisi: DeFi and these kind of radical views, then, I mean, first, what an incredible and interesting future and vision that you have and these kind of radical views. It takes someone to you to actually execute on them just like you are. Where did this come from? Where did the inspiration come from and to this point? Now you’re sitting at over over 10 million and they are.
31:54 – 32:16
Ben Cera: I mean, inspiration came from like a decade of building, to be honest. Like, it’s not it’s I think it’s like the collective sum of all my experiences. I think Porsche is like, is, you know, the way she talks is the way I talk and the way I see entrepreneurship. I think the prompt is like, really about the way I see, you know, so it’s like it’s a part of me.
32:16 – 32:39
Ben Cera: I think the design comes from gaming like that, a game that I love, loved and love, and it’s inspired by that and trying to make entrepreneurship more like a game. And I think it’s. Yeah, the inspiration. I mean, to me, like it’s an arcade, like, I can remember the, the day I had the idea was like, I was in Mount Fuji.
32:39 – 33:04
Ben Cera: I, I was actually in Tokyo. Like, I was pretty stressed out and like, about, you know, I was working really hard on my first idea. And I went to Mount Fuji to, like, open my eyes and, like, mind. And I had the idea for Porsche. So this is how it happened. But it’s also happened in a place where, like I started being in slow and like, not caring too much about what people cared, I clearly I don’t, I don’t care that people think it’s a bad name or whatever.
33:04 – 33:21
Ben Cera: And when you stop caring about what people care about and like, start just building stuff, that because it feels right and it feels, you know, that feels right. Then I feel like the best is the best thing that happened, right? Just meaning that customer and then hearing him having trouble raising money and then like just using Porsche to build things.
33:21 – 33:36
Ben Cera: And I was like, well, I won’t I won’t be your investor because like, you know, I like I love that guy’s vibe. And I was like, well, yeah, he could be an investor. And that’s like, and it just comes naturally. It’s not like overthought. It’s not like I’m not going to make like a deck and like make an if financial analysis if it makes sense or not.
33:36 – 33:55
Ben Cera: I’m like, I feel like that guy would love it. And I think and I think it would be and I, I think it makes sense. And let me try it. You know, that’s the way I build now. And, and I think building and flow is the best way because you, you start building for an outcome. You build because it feels right.
33:56 – 34:17
Sophie Buonassisi: And often you pulled on a great point there. When you’re listening to a customer what feels right is what’s like more for the customer. Aligned with yourself. So I love that. And you spent I mean oh four and a half years building cloud kitchens. You were employee number two after Travis Kalanick and Travis Kalanick was, Uber’s Uber’s co-founder and CEO, an incredible builder.
34:17 – 34:22
Sophie Buonassisi: What are some lessons that you learned from Travis that you’ve carried forward to now? Building pulse? Yeah.
34:22 – 34:49
Ben Cera: I mean, yeah. Travis, an incredible entrepreneur and was a big mentor and like, a big, a big part also of how what empowers me to feel, be so confident in building and grow it is because is he has it’s incredible energy about seeing the future and like really believing in a certain future and like just going at it with a lot of boldness and a very spider inspired boldness.
34:49 – 35:14
Ben Cera: Right? And so I think some of the lessons from working for him, I think first of all, when, you know, when I started building like a this business line that I built under him, I had the kitchens called Future Foods, which was like helping restaurants actually launch virtual brands, multiple brands online to help them bring more business to their kitchen, to their to their restaurant, which was really helping them during Covid.
35:14 – 35:33
Ben Cera: There was a very successful business because people were like struggling to get any money in. And so products like mine would really help them. And I remember before at one point I realized, okay, that product works and I think it can scale and I strive is like, hey, can I hire a salesperson to to help me sell that product to more restaurants?
35:33 – 35:49
Ben Cera: And he was like, Ben, you don’t want to scale a product that doesn’t work. Trust me. You’re the salesperson. You go close ten customers and then come back to me when you’ve got ten and then you’ve closed. Then we can discuss. So a later I close to ten. And then I came back to me as like, okay, cool.
35:49 – 36:11
Ben Cera: All right. Now you can hire one salesperson. And I think that like that, that scrappiness and then like that humbleness of like that, trying to scale something before you’re convinced that is a customer really wants it. I think that was one valuable lesson. I think the second valuable lesson is like, you know, champions heart, what he calls champions hug, which is like, if you when you get to punch, punch down, you get back up.
36:11 – 36:31
Ben Cera: Like if you get back up every single time you get punched in the face and you get pushed, you know, in the ground, you get back up, unstoppable. And so it’s like that resilience you know, like, for example, right now on Twitter, people are hating and this and like that resilience you build of like I’m going to take this part that they say that is that I, that I think they’re correct.
36:31 – 36:54
Ben Cera: But the rest I’m going to just ignore and I’m not going to be I won’t I’m only caring about any customers or stalking or like people that have a points that really, you know, and I think that resilience is important to be affected by, by the world, just be affected by the customer. And then also what’s right, because, you know, the consensus can have a moral compass that can help you, guide you through ambiguity.
36:54 – 37:11
Ben Cera: Right? Because, you know, I, for example, Travis, when he was hit by the surge pricing, there’s the logic. And then there’s the ambiguity of like, how does it feel and what’s right? And I had the presented or the tipping, you know, no tips. And people like, you need to tip. It’s like another day you saying to humans.
37:11 – 37:21
Ben Cera: So like make sure that like it’s it’s accepted by the human society. Right. Or it’s in it. You know, you don’t want to be completely like, sort of like contractual, right?
37:21 – 37:22
Sophie Buonassisi: You know, speaking like.
37:22 – 37:50
Ben Cera: But yeah, but yeah. So these are some of the lessons and I think and I think now in this phase of posture, it’s like it’s about dreaming big while staying humble. Like rather, you know, still looking at your step and taking one step at a time, but also dreaming big, which, you know, obviously looking at Travis work for 4 or 5 years or clearly like you get you like, okay, well, I guess I guess it’s possible to dream big.
37:51 – 38:15
Ben Cera: You have to be smart about it, but it’s possible and and just to I think it’s the first step to think it’s possible to then being able to actually accomplish it. The first step is believe it. Yeah. Right. And and I think in, in parts, that’s what Porsche is trying to do in this first phase. It’s like showing everyday people that like, no, you can be like the, the guy at Timberland Valley, that building a startup like you can you can be that.
38:15 – 38:32
Ben Cera: Now are you going to be successful? A lot of them are not successful in Silicon Valley. So it’s not a it’s not a get rich quick scheme. But like just let me show you, I mean, Porsche let Porsche show you that like you can be a builder and, and then you can decide what you want to build or if you want to build.
38:32 – 38:45
Sophie Buonassisi: But yeah, great, great lessons. And and one thing you mentioned was a scrappiness. I feel like you’ve taken it to a whole new level in a way, because you’ve hit 10 million in revenue run or 10 million in run rate.
38:45 – 38:45
Ben Cera: Run rate.
38:46 – 39:03
Sophie Buonassisi: One employee yourself. So yeah, why why build just yourself? Because you’ve talked about, you know, thinking about pricing strategy. You’ve talked about taking customer calls. It’s a lot. You’ve got investors now. Yeah. Why not hire a couple engineers or anyone else.
39:04 – 39:27
Ben Cera: So so first of all, like I’m, I’m working with four different companies that are building in the agency space. And they have engineers and they are building their own platforms. Right. That I, that I’m using. And so I have a proxy where like I’m working with them, we have a commercial agreement where like I bring them traffic on a specific slice of like the economy, the agency economy and exchange.
39:27 – 39:45
Ben Cera: They sort of like provide engineers that are building solutions for me that I plug into Porsche. So that’s sort of like a little hack to have help as I build. Right. And obviously when you become a big customer, like people are really willing to, to work with you and help you build because, you know, big customer. And so I’m a big customer on behalf of my customers, right.
39:45 – 40:05
Ben Cera: Which, you know, the more so that thing that’s that’s one thing where like but but of course sometimes I’m thinking like if I had my own engineers that like were working on Porsche, maybe, maybe this on that would have been faster. And like maybe if I had like a head of this and a head of that. And honestly, I’m thinking about it every day.
40:05 – 40:25
Ben Cera: Should I break it? Should I break the rule and like, hire a full time team? The reason why I’m staying, for now, at least for now, is I think it’s a great marketing story, which in the world where like marketing is so hard, you know, someone on Twitter said it’s it’s performance art, right? It’s like, I’m sure it’s performance art.
40:25 – 40:46
Ben Cera: This is like a whole of, it’s just like. And I think that’s not wrong. I think that’s that’s I mean, it’s not it’s not fake, but it is. It’s me being good at content that makes sense. It’s like it’s it’s like, you know what if I’m doing if I’m hitting this muscle alone, people are gonna be like, what the hell?
40:46 – 41:15
Ben Cera: How is that possible? Right? If I start hiring people that I’m just another dude who has a startup, right? If I stay alone, it gets the story, gets crazier and crazier. The question becomes, when does it hurt the company? Right now. It’s like we are like, on the head. Right? Because. But also, on the other hand, on the other hand, me being alone means I need to leverage AI.
41:15 – 41:43
Ben Cera: Crazy. So, for example, you know, obviously Porsche is all I customer support is I now, I made it very easy. If you have an issue and you talk to Porsche, I did it like just on your behalf sends an email to support that can that that can do more refunds. But it’s like support cannot fix your issue. It creates a, bug report and that bug report, if there’s enough people talking about the same value report gets automatically solved by Porsche and then pushed to the code.
41:43 – 42:03
Ben Cera: And I doing that because I’m like, well, there’s no other way. Like there’s because you people are you are tapping into too many edge cases because it’s offering to build something different and a whole. And so I can fix all these edge cases at once. And so I need to do this, but then if I get it right, I’m unstoppable.
42:03 – 42:20
Ben Cera: Porsche’s unstoppable. Because then first of all, Porsche start building for the people. So it made the decisions every time that I’ll just align with the paying customers and the voice of the paying customers gets is what gets built, which is what you want. Like you don’t want like some random PM that just decides what’s cool. It’s like, just listen to your customers right?
42:20 – 42:35
Ben Cera: They’ll tell you what’s important. So that’s the net positive. And also I’m putting myself in the shoes of the customer. When the customer has a bug and they call in because I give them my phone number to all my customers, because I meet them in process. And then they call me, had been writing benders a bug.
42:35 – 42:36
Sophie Buonassisi: I mean, all your customers and.
42:36 – 42:56
Ben Cera: I you, not all my customers, but I’m trying to meet more and more of my customers in person. Well, you know, if you go to my Twitter, I start doing I film, I film them with the content and then, like, we have conversations and because it’s good, it’s good content to showcase sort of like what’s going on.
42:56 – 43:07
Ben Cera: But then and then they have my phone number and I tell them, if you have any issues anytime, just call me because my email, I may have trouble seeing it, but if you text me, I’ll see it. So now I never once it’s you don’t have to say twice.
43:07 – 43:08
Sophie Buonassisi: Yeah. Yeah, totally.
43:08 – 43:25
Ben Cera: They then they will they will text you every single time they issue. So. So then I feel the pain with them because I’m like okay I had this podcast, but then I also need to fix a bug. So, so yeah, it’s it’s a fun journey. But, what we’ll see if we’ll see how to have the flow.
43:25 – 43:44
Sophie Buonassisi: So to see how you how you continue to build it and take it inside your marketing mind a little bit, you’ve, manufactured some incredible moments intentionally. They are very true and authentic. But you really been intentional about how you’ve done it? One of that was your fundraising process. Another, you’ve got the live website, which actually shows people building.
43:44 – 43:59
Sophie Buonassisi: Let’s first talk about email, because I’ve talked to you via email, for example, plus your handles and can resolve most emails. But how much of your emails actually get handled by Porsche versus when you have to step in?
43:59 – 44:25
Ben Cera: So Porsche responds to all my emails. And then it doesn’t really. I mean, for my my personal it’s for support. If you, if if you were to support Porsche outcome then it can actually resolve anything related to customers of policy. Right. Refunds add more credits, fix bugs. But if someone emails me better Porsche outcome I have another Porsche that responds.
44:25 – 44:42
Ben Cera: But it’s more like to answer questions with when I don’t need to answer, when Porsche knows the answer, like when to come and question. And it’s also a way to buy myself time because I get so many emails, I don’t have time to respond right away. So I think the customer gets a response or someone gets a response right?
44:42 – 44:58
Ben Cera: But I didn’t give it in the ability to book a calendar on my behalf, because then I don’t have time to meet most people, to be honest. I always email mostly say no to. I mean, I just don’t respond, because on that, like,
44:58 – 45:18
Sophie Buonassisi: Yeah, completely makes sense. And what were some other kind of moments you thought very intentionally about? I know the fundraisers. One that stands out, for myself because a lot of people and then have been skeptical of it, we’ve had some guests actually talk about agent agent communication on the fundraising side, and say and corroborate kind of what you are doing, for example.
45:18 – 45:36
Sophie Buonassisi: Or and Hoffman of Flex Capital said, you know, the first meeting will be agent to agent. So by the end of 2026, you were in your fundraise process? Predominantly with with agents with pulse. Yeah. So curious to hear a little bit more about that decision and that process. And when you came in and stepped in in person.
45:36 – 45:54
Ben Cera: I mean, yeah, first of all, when I realized that Porsche was working before, you know, before I even moved to SF and I could see that people really engage. People loved it. I oh, my friends, I’d use it, which was really rare for products like that. And people like, I really love it. Like I’m building this thing and building that thing, right?
45:54 – 46:13
Ben Cera: I was like, okay. And what had happened like in 2025 is that like, I built this ad that makes apps like the blanks app, and there was a competitor, someone who built the same thing called wabi, and they raised like so much money. There is like, I don’t know, like, $100 million, something like crazy amount of money.
46:13 – 46:33
Ben Cera: And then I was thinking to myself, like, dude, you like you build the same thing, but then you stayed on in your cave or, like, traveling alone, and then you never really gave it a chance. Which means that, like, you know, if they’re successful, you’re going to, like, oh, I should have went to S.F., raise more capital, be more bold.
46:33 – 46:55
Ben Cera: So then when, when I built Oceana, I was like, okay, I really feel like this is a good idea this time. Actually, this retention is much better. I was like, I don’t want to repeat the wabi incidents where like, they raised so much and then I didn’t raise any and then like so then I was like, let me move to S.F. and I need to do I think I may need to raise capital, but also I need to market the product.
46:55 – 47:21
Ben Cera: And I was like, well, if I want to market the product, I need to. I think since Porsche is claim is to do so much to to run a company, which is crazy, what better way to for the marketing to be about? I doing crazy stuff that usually only reserved for humans. And so the first marketing I was like, well, if I make I raise my round, that would turn heads.
47:21 – 47:44
Ben Cera: And so and then I had the time I already because I raised a pre-seed right. There is $1 million pre-seed in the summer that I haven’t really spent because I was just alone. So I still had $1 million in the bank account. And so I was like, I don’t really need it. I like to race desperately, but I was like, yeah, you got to let me to launch that stunt because I’m like, even if I don’t raise, I think it could make people talk.
47:44 – 48:05
Ben Cera: And so that’s that was the first intense, and what ended up happening is. Yeah. So I set a plug Porsche on my email address, and I was like, you respond to every email, we built together the live dashboards, which is supposed to be the data room for investors to be able to, like, see the data because, you know, investor like me.
48:05 – 48:21
Ben Cera: Show me your data room, show me your data, show me your retention. Yet. And so, there was this, like, dashboard and then like that showed the actual number, the number of customers, number of like, you know, the stats and then the chat where you can ask you questions and, and the answer is questions about retention, about this and that.
48:21 – 48:47
Ben Cera: And and I started tweeting about it and like sent a few emails to a few investors about it. And then the people started like emailing me because, you know, investors, it’s their job to just email founders. And so I started having conversations. All of them. And the more this was happening, the more people started talking about it, the more that life dashboard curve was going up.
48:47 – 49:02
Ben Cera: And so I kept tweeting about it. And that was like a self-fulfilling prophecy, because the more I tweeted about it, the more the numbers went up, the more people were emailing me about investing, the more like. And Porsche was telling them that it was raising a $2 billion valuation. And so people were freaking out and telling other people.
49:03 – 49:25
Ben Cera: And so it was a really great marketing moment. And and I there was so many investors emailing that, like, I couldn’t respond to any of them. So I made a few in person. But while I was doing so, I was getting a floodgate of emails and. Yeah. And, and then I think people were getting convinced at that point they were just like, okay, like we’re interested, right?
49:26 – 49:39
Ben Cera: And so then of course, I had to, I mean, and then I answered a few to a few of them and saying, okay, let’s meet in person. And then the deal went pretty fast because the company was so high that, like, people are like, you know, they just wanted to invest. It’s like after meeting in person, they were like.
49:39 – 49:54
Ben Cera: And also, it’s like most it was mostly investors that like knew my investors. So like there was like, you know, there was this it was sort of like because end of the day, investors are human. So they also needed some validation about, you know, background to do some background checks on me and stuff like that.
49:54 – 50:13
Sophie Buonassisi: So yeah. Love it. Well, I think it’s a masterclass in building distribution early and building it in such a powerful way in getting a conversation to talk about you early. You know, what we see is a lot of the time now, distribution isn’t an afterthought to product market fit. It’s really how you get to product market fit and and how you maintain it.
50:13 – 50:30
Sophie Buonassisi: Now, since it is more of an ongoing state, rather than an end state. And so you really built distribution of the gate, which is, you know, what we’re seeing now in, in the market. And what needs to happen is building distribution, focusing on your go to market, even if it’s one person distribution is your go to market.
50:30 – 50:43
Sophie Buonassisi: Earlier and earlier. So very excited for you in the journey ahead. Thank you. Appreciate all the time Ben. This has been fantastic. Thank you and good luck with this next, state and journey ahead.
50:43 – 50:43
Ben Cera: Thank you so much.
