Building Lovable: $10M ARR in 60 days with 15 people | Anton Osika (CEO and co-founder)
Description
Anton Osika is the co-founder and CEO of Lovable, which is building what they call “the last piece of software”—an AI-powered tool that turns descriptions into working products without requiring any coding knowledge. Since launching three months ago, Lovable hit $4 million ARR in the first four weeks and $10 million ARR in two months with a team of just 15 people, making it Europe’s fastest-growing startup ever.
What you’ll learn:
1. Why you need to be in the top 1% of AI tool users
2. Watch Lovable build a functional Airbnb clone in 30 seconds—complete with working features and modern design
3. The unconventional hiring approach that helped build a 15-person team capable of extraordinary execution
4. How traditional product development will look with AI
5. What skills will matter most to product teams going forward
6. How Anton’s team discovered a breakthrough in AI “unsticking itself”
—
Brought to you by:
• Sinch—Build messaging, email, and calling into your product: https://sinch.com/lenny
• Persona—A global leader in digital identity verification: https://withpersona.com/lenny
• Fundrise Flagship Fund—Invest in $1.1 billion of real estate: https://www.fundrise.com/lenny
Find the transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/building-lovable-anton-osika
Where to find Anton Osika:
• X: https://x.com/antonosika
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/antonosika/
Where to find Lenny:
• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/
In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Introduction to Anton and Lovable
(05:12) Lovable’s rapid growth
(09:39) Live demo: Building an Airbnb clone
(18:34) Tips for mastering Lovable
(21:42) The origin story
(26:50) Scaling laws and getting AI unstuck
(33:20) Reliability and unique features
(36:25) The vision and future of Lovable
(38:14) Skills and job market evolution in the age of AI
(40:30) Hiring philosophy and team dynamics
(46:21) Building in Europe
(48:02) Prioritization and product roadmap
(51:38) Tools and work environment
(53:17) Tactics for moving fast
(54:37) Advice for building product teams
(57:11) Empowering non-technical founders
(58:31) Future developments and user support
(01:01:23) Failure corner
(01:05:20) Final thoughts and advice
Referenced:
• Lovable: https://lovable.dev/
• Lovable Launched: https://launched.lovable.app/
• Cloudflare: https://www.cloudflare.com/
• Supabase: https://supabase.com/
• GPT engineer: https://github.com/gpt-engineer-org/gptengineer.app
• Microsoft Copilot: https://copilot.microsoft.com/chats/cmFw8dTsGU8D6b9siqQ6U
• Fabian Hedin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fabian-hedin-2377b0144/
• Behind the product: Replit | Amjad Masad (co-founder and CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/behind-the-product-replit-amjad-masad
• Replit: https://replit.com/
• Cursor: https://www.cursor.com
• Bolt: https://bolt.new/
• GitHub: https://github.com/
• Lane Shackleton on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laneshackleton/
• FigJam: https://www.figma.com/figjam/
• Linear: https://linear.app/
• Sana Labs: https://sanalabs.com/
• Duolingo: https://www.duolingo.com/
• Claude: https://claude.ai/
• ChatGPT: https://chatgpt.com/
• Lovable on X: https://x.com/Lovable_dev
Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.
Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.
What you’ll learn:
1. Why you need to be in the top 1% of AI tool users
2. Watch Lovable build a functional Airbnb clone in 30 seconds—complete with working features and modern design
3. The unconventional hiring approach that helped build a 15-person team capable of extraordinary execution
4. How traditional product development will look with AI
5. What skills will matter most to product teams going forward
6. How Anton’s team discovered a breakthrough in AI “unsticking itself”
—
Brought to you by:
• Sinch—Build messaging, email, and calling into your product: https://sinch.com/lenny
• Persona—A global leader in digital identity verification: https://withpersona.com/lenny
• Fundrise Flagship Fund—Invest in $1.1 billion of real estate: https://www.fundrise.com/lenny
Find the transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/building-lovable-anton-osika
Where to find Anton Osika:
• X: https://x.com/antonosika
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/antonosika/
Where to find Lenny:
• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/
In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Introduction to Anton and Lovable
(05:12) Lovable’s rapid growth
(09:39) Live demo: Building an Airbnb clone
(18:34) Tips for mastering Lovable
(21:42) The origin story
(26:50) Scaling laws and getting AI unstuck
(33:20) Reliability and unique features
(36:25) The vision and future of Lovable
(38:14) Skills and job market evolution in the age of AI
(40:30) Hiring philosophy and team dynamics
(46:21) Building in Europe
(48:02) Prioritization and product roadmap
(51:38) Tools and work environment
(53:17) Tactics for moving fast
(54:37) Advice for building product teams
(57:11) Empowering non-technical founders
(58:31) Future developments and user support
(01:01:23) Failure corner
(01:05:20) Final thoughts and advice
Referenced:
• Lovable: https://lovable.dev/
• Lovable Launched: https://launched.lovable.app/
• Cloudflare: https://www.cloudflare.com/
• Supabase: https://supabase.com/
• GPT engineer: https://github.com/gpt-engineer-org/gptengineer.app
• Microsoft Copilot: https://copilot.microsoft.com/chats/cmFw8dTsGU8D6b9siqQ6U
• Fabian Hedin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fabian-hedin-2377b0144/
• Behind the product: Replit | Amjad Masad (co-founder and CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/behind-the-product-replit-amjad-masad
• Replit: https://replit.com/
• Cursor: https://www.cursor.com
• Bolt: https://bolt.new/
• GitHub: https://github.com/
• Lane Shackleton on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laneshackleton/
• FigJam: https://www.figma.com/figjam/
• Linear: https://linear.app/
• Sana Labs: https://sanalabs.com/
• Duolingo: https://www.duolingo.com/
• Claude: https://claude.ai/
• ChatGPT: https://chatgpt.com/
• Lovable on X: https://x.com/Lovable_dev
Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.
Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.
Summary
Building Lovable: How AI is Revolutionizing Software Development
In this insightful interview, Anton Osika, CEO and co-founder of Lovable, shares the remarkable story of how his company is transforming software development through AI. Lovable is an AI-powered tool that turns English descriptions into fully functional products without requiring coding knowledge, positioning itself as "the last piece of software" anyone will need to write.
The episode showcases Lovable's extraordinary growth trajectory - reaching $4 million ARR in just four weeks and $10 million ARR in two months with only 15 people, making it Europe's fastest-growing startup ever. During a live demo, Anton demonstrates how Lovable can build a functional Airbnb clone in just 30 seconds, complete with working features and modern design that users can immediately interact with and modify.
Anton explains how Lovable works by connecting to backend services like Supabase and deploying to Cloudflare, allowing non-technical users to create complete applications through simple text prompts. What sets Lovable apart from competitors is its unique ability to visually edit elements directly in the generated application and its focus on packaging the technology specifically for non-technical people.
The conversation explores the future of product development, with Anton suggesting that being a generalist will become increasingly valuable. He recommends that product teams should prioritize hiring people with diverse skill sets who understand architecture, design, user research, and product development. When hiring, Anton looks for people who deeply care about the product and users, possess obsessive attention to detail, and have demonstrated excellence in at least one dimension.
Anton shares valuable advice for mastering AI tools like Lovable, suggesting that users should be patient, curious, and extremely clear in their communication with the AI. He believes that spending a focused week using AI tools to solve a real problem can put someone in the top 1% of AI tool users globally.
The interview concludes with Anton's vision for the future of Lovable, including plans to make the system more "agentic" (capable of making decisions independently), improving collaboration features, and helping founders succeed after building their initial products by providing guidance on user acquisition and growth strategies.
Transcript
0:00
lovable is your personal AI software
0:02
engineer you describe an idea and then
0:04
you get a fully working product the
0:06
reason is to enable those who have had
0:10
like such a hard time finding people who
0:12
are good at grading software that's been
0:14
their absolute bottleneck and let them
0:16
take their ideas and their dreams into
0:18
reality you guys hit 4 million AR in the
0:21
first 4 weeks you hit 10 million AR in
0:24
the first 2 months with just 15 people
0:26
you're the fastest growing startup in
0:28
all of Europe how did you decide on
0:29
lovable as the name it's so sweet the
0:32
best word for a great product is that
0:33
it's lovable a lot of jargon that I like
0:35
to use to like emphasize what we should
0:38
be striving for is building a minimum
0:39
lovable product and then building a
0:41
lovable product and then building an
0:43
absolutely lovable product so I I took
0:45
that jargon with me in the company name
0:47
people wonder just what jobs will be
0:49
more important what skills will be less
0:50
important doing a bit of everything
0:52
being in generalist is I think much more
0:54
important than it used to be if I'm
0:56
putting together a product team today I
0:58
I would really obsess about getting as
1:00
many skill sets as possible for each
1:02
person I hire what have you done that
1:04
has allowed you to grow this fast with
1:06
so few people people love the product
1:09
that's the driver of the
1:14
growth today my guest is Anton OC Anton
1:18
is co-founder and CEO of lavable which
1:21
is essentially an AI engineer that takes
1:23
an English prompt and codes a product
1:25
for you in minutes you can then talk to
1:27
it iterate on the product and then
1:28
launch it to the world it's one of the
1:31
fastest growing products in history the
1:34
fastest growing startup in Europe ever
1:37
and as Anton describes their goal for
1:39
lovable is for it to be the last piece
1:40
of software that anybody has to write
1:43
because it'll be able to create all
1:45
future products for us they launched
1:47
just a few months ago in the first 4
1:49
weeks hit 4 million ARR in the first 2
1:52
months crossed 10 million ARR all with
1:55
just 15 people absurd in our
1:58
conversation we covered a lot of
2:00
including a live demo of lovable how
2:02
their team operates how they hire what
2:04
do most enable their team to scale this
2:06
quickly with so few people Pro tips for
2:08
using lovable how it all started how he
2:10
recommends you build product TPS going
2:12
forward with tools like this existing
2:14
what skills will matter more and less
2:16
going forward plus how to think about
2:18
lovable versus competitors and so much
2:21
more if you're trying to wrap your head
2:22
around how product building will change
2:24
with the rise of AI tools this episode
2:26
is a mustat if you enjoy this podcast
2:29
don't forget to subscribe and followed
2:30
in your favorite podcasting app or
2:32
YouTube also if you become a yearly
2:34
subscriber of my newsletter you now get
2:37
a yearfree of perplexity and notion and
2:40
superhuman and linear and granola check
2:43
it out at Lenny
2:44
newsletter. with that I bring you Anton
2:48
OC this episode is brought to you by
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/
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Lenny this episode is brought to you by
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5:14
Lenny Anton thank you so much for being
5:17
here welcome to the podcast it it's a
5:20
pleasure to talk to you Lenny great to
5:22
be here I don't know how you have time
5:23
to do this podcast your life must be
5:25
insane these days with the uh the pace
5:28
at which you guys are scaling just how
5:30
much is changing in AI every day uh so I
5:32
just extra appreciate you making time
5:34
for this I think you said it's 10:30
5:37
your time is when we're doing this I'm a
5:39
bit tired yes mostly from the the crazy
5:43
pace of everything but yes we're gonna
5:45
this is gonna be a invigorating
5:46
conversation you're not gonna be able to
5:48
sleep I'm sure I'm sure okay so for
5:52
folks that are maybe a little bit
5:53
familiar with lovable or not at all
5:55
familiar what's just what is lovable
5:57
what's the simplest way to understand it
6:00
I'd say lovable is your personal AI
6:02
software engineer you describe an idea
6:05
and then you get a fully working product
6:08
that from the and what this means is
6:11
that entrepreneurs actually today they
6:14
turn their ideas into real businesses
6:17
and we have a lot of designers and
6:19
product managers that uh create the
6:21
first version of of their product ideas
6:23
to show to their teams and and some of
6:26
them become Founders because of like
6:28
their the empowerment from
6:30
um but also developers themselves they
6:33
actually writing code or creating
6:35
products much faster and um I mean the
6:39
the reason it's pretty obvious for me so
6:42
I'll spell it but I'll spell it out the
6:44
reason why we're doing lovable is that I
6:48
don't know about your mom but like my
6:50
mom doesn't write code and my
6:54
friends almost all my friends from
6:56
throughout my life reached out for help
6:58
like Anon I want I do I need to build
7:00
something how do I find a great software
7:02
engineer and we're building for this 99%
7:06
of the population who don't write write
7:08
code um currently if you're technically
7:11
inclined you get much further but over
7:14
time
7:15
naturally the way to build software is
7:18
by just talking to an AI That's How is
7:20
it I love the way you guys describe it
7:22
and uh you didn't mention but I think
7:24
it's like building the last piece of
7:25
software ever how do how do you how do
7:27
you phrase that yeah we say we say we're
7:29
building the last piece of software the
7:31
last piece of software okay we're going
7:33
to do a live demo but first of all can
7:35
you just share some stats on the scale
7:38
of this business at this point because
7:40
it's quite
7:41
absurd yeah so we launched lavable less
7:45
than three months ago and now we have
7:48
300,000 monthly active users and 30 of
7:51
those 30,000 of those are actually uh
7:54
paying uh and the it is growing on this
7:56
at the same rates like you you just
7:59
almost only through organic word of mou
8:03
okay and uh I'll share a couple stats in
8:05
terms of Revenue just so folks know this
8:07
and we'll have this an intro too I think
8:08
you guys hit four million AR in the
8:11
first four weeks you hit 10 million AR
8:13
in the first two months with just 15
8:16
people you're the fastest growing
8:18
startup in all of Europe and you guys
8:21
had to rewrite your entire code base
8:23
recently and you couldn't ship any new
8:24
features for a while is there right
8:26
that's that's right yeah people were
8:27
saying like oh you're shipping so fast
8:29
and we were all quite frustrated because
8:32
we wrote our service in this you know
8:35
kind of scripting language and then as
8:38
we started scaling we we were just now
8:39
we have to throw everything away and
8:41
rewrite it in a more performant way okay
8:44
uh before we get to demo last question
8:46
you shared there's some companies that
8:47
have started based on lovable I didn't
8:49
even know that so what are some examples
8:51
of companies businesses that have
8:53
launched off of lovable and now are
8:55
actually companies I I mentioned the
8:57
signers using lovable and and one of our
8:59
early users Harry he he started
9:03
shipping real web apps to his clients
9:05
instead of just shipping the signs and
9:08
then he went on to say okay wait I'm
9:09
going to start an AI startup and and his
9:12
he his company he like launched on
9:14
product hunt and everything and making
9:16
uh money is just like lets anyone upload
9:19
their photo libraries and then it's C
9:22
like Ai pares and C categorizes it and
9:25
if you go to launched. lovable. apppp
9:28
like this is an app build Bel lovable
9:30
which is again a product product hunt
9:32
version where you can see a lot of
9:34
businesses or small s featured there
9:38
okay cool so we're g to come back to
9:39
some of the stuff but let's get into a
9:41
let's get into demo I I rarely do demos
9:44
on this podcast but I'm finding that uh
9:46
I think it's really important for people
9:48
to see these products in action because
9:51
in the large part this is the future of
9:53
product building and a lot of people
9:55
hear about oh yeah AI is coming and I
9:57
don't think a lot of people actually see
9:58
what the latest tool are capable of and
10:01
so uh I love showing these sorts of
10:03
things on this podcast H so Lenny I was
10:06
thinking um did you ever consider making
10:08
a copy and build your own adbn this I I
10:15
haven't but go on how about you do that
10:18
let's do it let's do it okay so we're
10:19
gonna make our own Airbnb okay so I I
10:22
just put in the first prompt for an rbnb
10:26
clone okay let's look and what what the
10:29
prompt just to for folks that aren't
10:30
watching two words rbnb clone that's the
10:33
pr I like she start INF and then what
10:36
you get is that the AI says okay I'm
10:40
going to go through what does a
10:42
beautiful rbnb clone look like and it
10:45
goes a bit of like decision design
10:47
decisions and then I'll zoom out to see
10:49
more of it h we we have this just UI
10:54
that is I mean it has all the the nice
10:56
things you would expect from araban
10:58
mclone where
11:00
um you see different categories and you
11:02
can see two listings fromb with login
11:06
buttons and everything so far it doesn't
11:09
have the functionality of rbnb it just
11:11
has the UI I would now ask for an
11:14
improvement on some of the functionality
11:17
like if I'm switching category I want to
11:19
see different listings let's say but if
11:22
you if you have any thoughts on what we
11:23
should build next let me know okay and
11:26
so you have this pre-loaded so you don't
11:27
see how long it would take but how long
11:28
would this normal take for it to just
11:30
write all this code and have it for you
11:31
the the first prom takes 30 seconds 30
11:34
seconds okay and it's like a very good
11:37
copy of Airbnb yeah I love that you
11:39
didn't have to show it to design you
11:41
just tell it Airbnb and it knows okay so
11:44
your question is what what I want to add
11:46
to my own version of Airbnb what I've
11:48
always wanted to explore buying the
11:51
place that I look at just like is this
11:53
for sale so what if we see what that
11:55
would feel like if you're just like a
11:57
way to buy buy a listing okay so let's
12:01
let's how about we add I mean prompting
12:04
is important here so let's be specific
12:06
but we would ask um creating a add a
12:10
button on the listing which say purchase
12:13
this this Airbnb home is that it perfect
12:17
so add I've
12:20
got and I'll be even more specific it
12:25
will pop up a model um to purchase the
12:31
listing perfect and I love so I think
12:34
some things as you're typing I'm just
12:35
going to share thoughts as you're doing
12:36
this so the site that you ask this AI
12:40
engineer to build like it's actually a
12:42
functioning website you can browse
12:44
around it's not just a design the say
12:47
obviously there's no like actual
12:48
listings here like there's no actual
12:50
houses here say you were trying to like
12:52
actually build Airbnb and you wanted to
12:55
start adding like actual homes that plug
12:57
into this how does that sort of Step
13:01
work so as you said this is just kind of
13:05
the mockup UI but it's Al also
13:08
interactive if I want to add login and
13:12
add listing
13:14
management
13:16
then we would connect something called
13:19
The backend so where data is stored
13:20
where users Lo information is stored and
13:23
I can show you how how to do that um
13:26
first let's just try out where we got
13:28
with this short prompt of adding the
13:31
adding the purchase uh listing and it it
13:34
didn't do exactly what I wanted I said
13:37
uh add um a button or I didn't say what
13:40
a button should say but it says book now
13:42
and if I click book now I get uh the a
13:47
booking confirmation so the the AI was
13:50
like okay it didn't really it was
13:52
probably surprised by you wanting to buy
13:55
the listing since it's rbnb right so it
13:57
still says book the listing but it's
13:59
shows a a pretty model where I can click
14:02
confirm and pay and then it says yeah
14:04
booking confirmed I'll just say real
14:06
quick I love that this is actually a
14:07
really good example of why being a good
14:10
product manager is important uh a lot of
14:13
wasted time happens when you're not
14:15
clear about the problem you're trying to
14:16
solve and why you're trying to solve it
14:18
and all that kind of stuff so it's
14:20
really cool that this is a use case
14:21
where you have to be really good at
14:23
explaining what it is you want and it's
14:25
interesting you don't have to tell this
14:27
a this aiy you know humans want to
14:29
understand why is this important uh
14:31
mostly you need to be very clear about
14:33
what it is you're doing uh and I love
14:34
that's a really strong PM skill you know
14:36
PM's really good at that so we have that
14:39
explaining exactly what you expect and
14:42
what you're not getting is even more
14:44
important with AI than with the humans
14:47
but um so so I go into hooking up more
14:51
of the actual functionality but first
14:54
I'll actually show you something um that
14:56
like how what's the fastest way to
14:58
change what went wrong it's it it
15:01
created uh buttons that say book now and
15:03
I want them to say um buy now and uh
15:08
what I could do is Select this item and
15:10
say change it to buy now but what we
15:14
just released is that you can actually
15:16
edit this like this is a fully
15:18
functioning product but you can edit it
15:21
visually like you can like you do in
15:23
square space and Wicks and so on so I'll
15:25
just change the text to BU now and then
15:28
it instantly it change just uh it
15:30
actually changes like deep down in the
15:32
code base but it's very fast to to do
15:35
that so I think people listening to this
15:37
and seeing this if you're not aware like
15:40
this is The Cutting Edge of tools like
15:42
this no other tool out there lets you
15:45
generate code from an AI engineer and
15:48
then actually just like change a small
15:50
element of it of every other tool that
15:52
I'm aware you have to like ask the agent
15:55
do this for me and then you hope that it
15:56
does the right thing so this is a huge
15:57
deal which you just showed
15:59
right yeah now it says by
16:01
now that's and that's something that you
16:03
just launched correct we just launched
16:06
it a few days ago but uh I want to go
16:08
into for building the full functionality
16:10
but what it looks like is that you
16:12
connect um an open source backend as a
16:16
service and that's called super base uh
16:19
and I have this instance to connect to
16:22
that's completely empty just like one
16:24
click to set that up and now it's
16:26
connected to uh the back end it's just
16:29
like automatically generating and
16:31
explaining um generating sound code and
16:33
explaining what I can do next and what I
16:36
would do now is say let's let's add
16:38
login let's say let's add login and
16:41
where is it actually hosted on the back
16:43
end and everything in general yeah
16:46
so everything can be one clicked
16:49
deployed and then it's running it's
16:51
hosted by like a cloud vendor which is
16:54
hosting I think a huge chunk of the
16:56
Internet it's called Cloud flare um and
16:59
the back end is hosted by the also good
17:03
cloud provider which is called super
17:06
based amazing okay uh let's wrap up the
17:10
demo that was unless there's anything
17:11
else was there anything else really
17:12
important you wanted to show no I mean
17:15
I'll just explain what you what I would
17:16
do next I would say okay let's add login
17:19
um let's make the listings editable by
17:22
the users so users can upload listings
17:24
and um then this is going to take a bit
17:27
more time but with patience and um good
17:30
prompting skills you're going to get to
17:32
a full working airbn that was a really
17:35
good uh piece to add so basically like
17:37
this is getting to a place where it
17:39
actually is not so different from actual
17:41
Airbnb uh people can log in they can add
17:44
their home you can add internal tools to
17:47
add listings for your say sales team Ops
17:49
Team basically it just will allow you to
17:52
build a market place that looks a lot
17:54
like careb um amazing okay thank you for
17:58
the demo I think for a lot of people
18:00
they're like yeah I've seen this kind of
18:01
stuff for most people like holy
18:04
it's unreal what like it's almost like
18:06
we're taking for granted now you can ask
18:09
a an app to build you a whole website
18:13
and that cost probably like a few
18:14
pennies it took like five minutes versus
18:18
like it would have been tens of
18:19
thousands in like weeks and weeks and
18:21
months Even build just a
18:22
prototype mean these tools as we see
18:25
here they're already very good like it
18:27
looks really good as well um but mainly
18:30
I I would say they getting uh better
18:33
very very fast and I I'd say like one of
18:36
the bigger bottlenecks is now they're
18:38
not integrated into the current way that
18:41
you have your existing products and so
18:43
on but since they getting better so fast
18:46
so fast I think the best thing for
18:49
people who are interested in this or
18:52
like interested in just being a part of
18:53
the future economies get your hands very
18:56
dirty with these tools because being in
18:58
the top 10% in using them is going to be
19:01
to absolutely set you apart in the
19:02
coming months and years so let's let me
19:05
follow that thread so say you are
19:08
magically able to sit next to everybody
19:12
that is uh using lovable for the first
19:14
time and you could just whisper a tip in
19:15
their ear to be successful with lovable
19:19
what would that tip be it it takes a lot
19:20
to master using tools like lovable and
19:24
being very curious and patient and I we
19:27
have something called chat mode where
19:28
you can just ask and like to understand
19:31
like how does this work like is I'm not
19:32
getting what I'm what I want here um am
19:36
I missing something what should I do is
19:39
is is the best way to be productive is
19:42
also one of the best ways to just learn
19:45
about how software engineering Works
19:47
which is you don't have to write the
19:48
code anymore but it is useful to
19:50
understand how software or how Building
19:52
Products works so that so I think that's
19:55
the patience and curiosity is super
19:58
useful the second part that we spoke
20:01
about is that
20:03
being I would if I Would S sit next to
20:05
you I would probably say like hey you
20:08
you're not being super clear here like
20:10
for example don't say it doesn't work
20:12
just explain exactly what you're
20:15
expecting and which parts are working
20:17
and which parts are not working and
20:19
that's a lot of that's something that a
20:21
lot of people don't do naturally I love
20:25
that like when you have an engineer
20:26
you're working with that is a very
20:28
expensive
20:29
uh mistake to miscommunicate something
20:31
to just forget about a future to forget
20:33
about a requirement and here it's you do
20:35
that and then like 30 seconds later
20:37
you're like oh okay sorry that was wrong
20:39
and then you could just try again that's
20:41
true it might it might be more costly
20:43
with
20:44
humans uh okay and the first step so the
20:47
first tip is chat mode so you could just
20:48
so your advice is chat with the what do
20:51
you call it do you call an agent you
20:52
call what's like the the term for the
20:54
thing that you were talking
20:55
with uh yeah lovable is just lovable
20:59
okay so you're talking about lovable by
21:01
the way where did you how did you decide
21:03
on lovable is the name it's so sweet I
21:06
think it's all about building I mean a
21:10
great product um that's what I I want
21:13
more people to be able to do and the
21:16
best word for a great product is that
21:18
it's
21:19
lovable the a lot of jargon that I like
21:22
to use to like emphasize what we should
21:24
be striving for is building a minimum
21:26
lovable product and then building
21:28
lovable product and they will an
21:30
absolutely lovable product so I I took
21:33
that jargon with me in the company name
21:36
that is great absolute level product Alp
21:39
the is the new MVP okay so we talked
21:43
about this the scale you guys have hit
21:45
at this point I imagine it's far beyond
21:46
10 million AR do you share that at this
21:48
point or you keeping that private we we
21:51
we don't an on numbers but I I could
21:54
probably do a twx tweet about this quite
21:56
soon yes okay so it's far beyond 10
21:59
million ER at this point uh it's uh one
22:02
of the fastest growing startups in
22:04
history the fastest growing startup in
22:05
Europe I want to zoom us back to the
22:07
beginning what is the origin story of
22:10
loable how did it all begin what was the
22:12
journey to
22:13
today I I think I was not impressed by
22:17
like what people were doing with the
22:19
large language models when after
22:21
especially after I was using them way
22:23
back but when CH gbt came out they were
22:26
starting to get really good at taking a
22:27
human instruction and spitting out code
22:30
and
22:31
then um people in my team I was the CTO
22:35
at a YC startup they felt like oh Anon
22:38
you're exaggerating this is not going to
22:41
change anything in the coming years so I
22:42
wanted to prove a point and I created a
22:46
open source tool called GPT
22:49
engineer where you you write something
22:52
like create a snake game and then it
22:54
spits out a lot of code a lot of
22:56
different files and then opens the snake
22:58
game
22:59
and then I tweeted a video about that
23:02
and um gbt engineer is today the most
23:06
popular uh open source tool to showcase
23:11
the ability for large language models to
23:12
create applications is that like 50
23:15
something 50 something thousand GitHub
23:18
stores and like dozen of academic
23:20
references and I know that I'll just add
23:22
that it like GitHub shut you down
23:24
because I thought it was some kind of
23:25
attack that like how many stars you
23:28
getting many people are using it right
23:29
yeah so that was that that came later
23:31
that that's with lavable thisable
23:34
lavable
23:36
um earlier was always creating new
23:39
projects on GitHub when someone used
23:41
lovable and it was we asked them is it
23:44
fine like how what's the limits here
23:46
they said oh there no limits but once we
23:48
started creating 15,000 projects per day
23:52
uh so there were a lot of usage then
23:55
some engineer when was on call maybe
23:59
they woke up in the night and they saw
24:01
their servers are were taking too much
24:03
load because of us so then they they
24:06
shut off down completely and we got this
24:08
email that said oh you broke some kind
24:10
of rules and we didn't know what was
24:12
going on that's some much just story I
24:14
heard when uh chat GPT was originally
24:16
being trained Microsoft servers were uh
24:20
blocked it because they thought it was
24:22
some crawler and it was just actually
24:23
like the very first version chat gbt
24:25
being trained on on data anyway keep
24:28
going
24:28
and so I I built this tool called GPT
24:32
engineer and um I was thinking about I
24:37
mean we're go we're seeing the biggest
24:40
change Humanity will ever see I think
24:42
where like before you had manual labor
24:45
being taken over by by machines but now
24:47
it's actually cognitive labor being T
24:49
being done better than humans by
24:52
machines and what's the best way to have
24:55
some kind of positive impact here it's
24:58
not to make Engineers more productive
25:00
which is there's a lot of companies
25:01
using a to make Engineers more
25:03
productive Microsoft you build co-pilot
25:04
and so on but it is to enable those who
25:09
have like such a hard time finding
25:12
people who are good at creating software
25:13
that's been their absolute bottleneck
25:16
and let them take their ideas and their
25:19
dreams into reality so enabling more
25:22
entrepreneurship and The Innovation by
25:25
building the AI software engineer for
25:26
for anyone and then I I put I grabbed a
25:30
previous colleague of mine who has also
25:32
been a Founder Fabian and I said we we
25:34
should build something like GPT engineer
25:37
but it it has to be for the people who
25:39
don't write
25:41
code that's the story okay and then that
25:44
became lovable there's like the shift
25:46
from open source into a product that
25:48
anyone can use but also pay for makes
25:51
sense okay so from that point uh I saw
25:54
stat they started making a million
25:56
dollars in AR per week and once you
25:58
launch lavable is that true yeah so we
26:01
launched um so we actually called the
26:04
first version of the product like GPT
26:06
engineer app uh and that that's it was
26:09
very different in some ways um and we we
26:12
launched that under a weit list and so
26:14
like oh yeah we have this weight list
26:16
and we got a lot of feedback and
26:17
iterated and finally when we thought the
26:20
product was really good we said okay now
26:21
we have a lovable product and it was
26:24
mainly on the AI that we did a lot of
26:26
improvements
26:28
once we launched that that was 21st of
26:30
November so that's almost three months
26:32
ago we uh just hit like one mill million
26:36
AR in a week and then it kept go growing
26:38
at that that pace it's still growing at
26:41
even faster than that pace faster than
26:43
one million AR per week holy okay
26:48
that sounds like product Market fit to
26:49
me you said that you did a lot of work
26:52
on the back in I saw you tweet about
26:53
this that you guys figured out some kind
26:55
of unlock on scalability like a new SC
26:58
scaling law that allowed you to build
27:00
something like this what can you talk
27:02
about there that kind of on the
27:03
technical element allowed you to build
27:05
something new and and the successful
27:08
there are many scaling laws I would say
27:09
when you build AI systems and this one
27:12
in particular is about when you put in
27:14
more work this the pro the product
27:16
reliably gets better and better and what
27:20
you what you've seen um generally when
27:24
you have ai building something is that
27:26
it can get stuck in in some place it
27:28
stars is super good in the beginning and
27:30
then it gets stck what we did was to
27:33
painstakingly identify places where it
27:36
go stuck and um there there's a
27:39
different approaches but address like
27:42
different ways how we do it but address
27:44
the places where it gets like tuned the
27:46
entire system quantitatively and having
27:50
a very fast feedback loop to improve it
27:52
in the areas where it got stuck the most
27:54
important areas it still does get stuck
27:56
sometimes but that's the scale law and
28:00
um we're still early in that scaling law
28:02
I would say and so when you talk about
28:05
things getting stuck it's like the the
28:07
AI agent just saying like I don't know
28:08
what to do from this point and or like
28:10
they introduce some kind of bug is that
28:11
is that an example of getting stuck
28:13
introduces some kind of bug and then um
28:17
it's not smart enough to figure out how
28:19
to get out of that bug I see and this is
28:21
a common a common problem people have
28:23
with tools like this is they like get to
28:25
a certain point and then it's like well
28:27
I don't know what to do I'm not an
28:28
engineer like here's a bug it's running
28:30
into or the infrastructure is built the
28:32
wrong way and so it sounds like uh one
28:35
of the paths to solving that is what
28:37
you're describing is you make the AI
28:40
smarter to get to avoid more and more of
28:42
these places they get
28:43
stuck another is people just learning
28:46
how to get AI
28:49
unstuck uh this something when we had
28:51
omj on the podcast from replate he said
28:52
that this is like the main skill that he
28:54
thinks people need to learn is how to
28:56
unstuck AI when it runs into a problem
28:59
uh just thoughts there I don't know
29:01
anything along those lines come up as I
29:02
say that me this is something that uh is
29:05
a problem today and it the frontier of
29:10
where this is a problem is very rapidly
29:14
like receding back so uh what we did was
29:18
we identify the most important areas
29:20
like oh so specifically adding login
29:23
creating data persistence
29:26
adding payment with stripe like those
29:29
are the things that we made sure it
29:30
doesn't get stuck on for example um and
29:33
the places where it gets stuck today um
29:37
is currently the something that where
29:39
you can use being very good at
29:41
understanding and getting unstuck but in
29:43
the future it won't be so important this
29:45
is just going to not get stuck and I
29:48
know you're you're not talking super in
29:50
depth about this because this is one of
29:51
your unfair advantages this kind of
29:53
stuff you figured out so I'm not going
29:54
to push too far I don't know I know you
29:56
want not everyone to do exactly the same
29:57
stuff stuff so I want to zoom back to
30:01
the pace of growth that you guys have
30:03
seen one of the big stories everyone's
30:05
always looking at you guys of like 15
30:07
people 10 million AR in two months
30:10
that's absurd it's something I don't
30:12
know if it's ever been done in history
30:14
if if so it's maybe a couple other AI
30:15
startups recently how have you been able
30:18
to do this what have you done that has
30:20
allowed you to grow this fast with so
30:23
few people I'd like to take credit of
30:26
like having done everything end to end
30:29
in the product um but what but we're
30:33
building on top of the kind of the oil
30:36
here which we have discovered oil which
30:38
is are the foundation models right um
30:41
and then what you what we've done is
30:42
that we obsessed about what's the right
30:44
way to present this to a user what's the
30:46
interface for the human to get as much
30:48
out of this as possible
30:51
packaging together I I showed you in the
30:53
demo that you how you can add
30:56
authentication and making this work
30:58
seamlessly together as a whole that
31:00
that's what we've done and then people
31:03
love the product that's what that's the
31:05
driver of the growth uh the for getting
31:10
awareness we' mainly been posting what
31:13
we've shipped on social media that's
31:15
that's how people know about us so
31:17
building in public is is is how people
31:19
usually describe that so it's like uh I
31:22
think it's like you guys have the
31:23
advantage of the demos are just like
31:24
holy you can do that and then you
31:26
guys share the numbers that you guys are
31:27
growing at so it's innately interesting
31:30
and
31:30
sharable uh but I imagine most people
31:33
have something interesting to share I
31:35
guess is there anything that you think
31:36
you did that other companies maybe
31:38
haven't done that make the product so uh
31:42
lovable that I mean the the te is
31:45
everything in building a great product
31:47
so I I just give a give a big shout out
31:50
to to te that has written the code I I
31:53
Haven written the code Rec much of the
31:55
code recently I would say um
31:58
and the I mean you you want people who
32:03
can ship really fast and have have good
32:05
taste for like what is simple what's the
32:08
right
32:09
abstractions and I think that's what
32:11
we've done differently and have have
32:13
this Obsession for us making it better
32:15
and better and
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Flagship this is a paid
33:21
ad okay I want to come back to the team
33:23
because I know you have a lot of
33:24
thoughts there in terms of writing code
33:26
how much do you guys actually use AI to
33:28
write the code that is building lovable
33:30
like how does that work on your team we
33:32
have set up lovable so that we can
33:34
change lovable with itself we have done
33:37
that um since there's a lot of
33:41
like hyp specific things um in terms of
33:46
running a separate like we spin up a
33:49
dedicated computer for each user uh it's
33:53
doesn't do everything lavable doesn't do
33:55
everything so we use we like
33:58
the tools are for developers not for the
34:00
99% most of the most of the time and uh
34:04
everyone uses AI all the time in writing
34:07
code it's also a great course for
34:09
experimentations and other tools like
34:11
cursor and stuff like that like any
34:12
tools you can sh I think cursor is the
34:15
um the one that almost every everyone
34:17
uses in in the team yeah okay cool we I
34:20
did a survey recently in on tools that
34:23
my listeners and readers use in cursor
34:25
like 177% of all people that read my
34:27
newsletter use cursor already which is
34:30
absurd and you guys are in there too
34:33
okay so kind of along these lines
34:34
there's obviously other competitors and
34:36
companies in the space so everyone's
34:37
always wondering uh you bolt repet
34:40
cursor is a different kind of thing
34:42
what's the simplest way to understand
34:43
maybe how Lev B might be different from
34:46
say bolt and ret which I think are
34:48
probably the
34:49
closest the packaging for non-technical
34:52
people is what we what we aim for and um
34:56
I showed you in the demo that that you
34:58
can edit the text like you can change
35:01
the colors and so on instantly with
35:04
without having to go into like code
35:06
editor um and without having to wait
35:08
this about 30 seconds for the AI to to
35:10
the full change so uh that's the the big
35:14
way that we think about packaging it and
35:16
then for you know making sure that this
35:21
can be used as productively as possible
35:23
in a larger team uh something that's
35:25
different from I think the other other
35:27
tools is that it's it is synchronized
35:30
with GitHub and that means that you can
35:33
use cursor if you're or the people in
35:35
your team that that want to be more low
35:38
level they can use cursor and while the
35:40
people who don't want to mess and set up
35:42
their local file system and commit to
35:45
GitHub and so so on they you can use
35:47
slbl not getting stuck is I I think the
35:50
most important thing for people and
35:51
that's why we came we can't enter the
35:54
space late we haven't done the same type
35:56
of marketing as many others and we're
35:58
still um from the people that I talk to
36:02
ranked as the one that works most
36:04
reliably I I love it okay so uh so this
36:08
point about how you can just use lava B
36:11
to build a lot of it for you and then
36:13
get into cursor to edit and tweak is is
36:16
a really big point and you're saying
36:17
other other companies aren't as good at
36:19
that yeah I don't know any other dust
36:22
that oh he W let you do that amazing
36:24
okay and then what's kind of like the
36:26
vision for lovable like what's the end
36:30
state of this is this everybody can
36:31
build anything they want sort of thing
36:33
what's the simplest way to understand
36:34
where you're going in the next I don't
36:35
know five 10 years I mean I have to say
36:38
so we're building the last piece of
36:40
software and it is inherently very hard
36:42
to predict how the world looks like in
36:44
five years these days it's very hard and
36:47
but the last piece of software how I see
36:49
that is that it's almost instant to go
36:53
from what you want to change in a
36:55
product or what you what product you
36:56
want to build to having it fully working
36:58
end to end integrated with any of your
37:01
existing systems or integrated with the
37:04
kind of the very powerful third party
37:06
providers already today you can just ask
37:09
add a chat with open Ai and then you get
37:12
a chat with open AI in your in your
37:14
product but um that's like just work
37:17
working perfectly is the something
37:20
that's coming in the coming two years I
37:22
would say um and then after that
37:28
there is a lot of things in building a
37:30
product that is not just engineering
37:31
side
37:32
right and I think um an AI can be very
37:38
useful in AGG aggregating and
37:41
understanding your users so like if you
37:44
have if you use the analytics tools you
37:46
know that there's something quite common
37:47
which is to see how users have
37:50
interacted with the product AI can do
37:52
that an absolutely massive scale and
37:55
propose changes to a human to say like
37:57
yeah that sounds like a good change to
37:58
make it a bit more intuitive and it can
38:01
also automatically run spin out AB tests
38:05
so that you can see with data all these
38:08
improvements to the product so that I
38:10
think that's on the horizon as well
38:12
quite
38:14
soon like what's interesting about this
38:16
in in one way is people wonder just what
38:19
jobs will be more important what skills
38:21
will be less important let me share a
38:22
thought I have and then I want to get
38:23
your take and see where you go with this
38:26
it feels like what is getting more
38:28
valuable as being good at figuring out
38:31
what to build and then knowing if the
38:33
thing you had built is correct and good
38:36
and ready so it's like Discovery
38:39
ideation uh
38:41
idea part of the step of launching a
38:43
product and then it's like taste and and
38:46
craft just like is this the thing is
38:48
this going to solve people's problems
38:50
because the the building now is being
38:52
done more and more and it's interesting
38:54
it used to be the reverse engineering
38:55
was the hardest most valuable skill and
38:57
now it's like figuring out what to build
38:59
you could sit there and you you could
39:00
just tell what to build and a lot of
39:02
people get to your screen I'm sure and
39:04
they're like I don't know what to build
39:05
I don't know what people want and it's
39:07
like that's the thing now so I just
39:09
reactions to that and thoughts on what
39:10
skills will matter more and less I mean
39:13
if you're if you want to if you're a
39:15
founder or you want to build something
39:16
yeah I I totally agree that figuring out
39:19
what are what are pain pain points and
39:22
seeing like there are pro often
39:25
currently solutions to every some kind
39:27
of solution to everything what is the
39:29
and how can you make this tenic better
39:31
somehow like figuring that out is super
39:34
important when you have um an existing
39:37
product then I think taste and like
39:39
refine tasting what is what is good is
39:41
even more of the important part the tech
39:46
like the engineer skill set is still
39:48
going to be important because that that
39:51
helps you understand what are the
39:52
constraints so what you can build and I
39:55
just think a lot of software Engineers
39:58
are probably a bit scared now like okay
40:00
am I out of a job what's going to happen
40:03
but they should see themselves as the
40:05
people who translate the the problems
40:07
that are stated by a human probably um
40:11
to Technical Solutions and but they do
40:15
have to abstract themselves up a few
40:16
steps not just like looking at the in
40:18
their text stack like oh I can just do
40:19
the front end changes they Engineers or
40:23
technical people are very good at
40:24
understanding what are the constraints
40:26
technically and they should see
40:28
themselves as that translators is there
40:30
like a like is it almost like you want
40:32
to be learn the enge manager skill of
40:35
overseeing Engineers versus like the
40:38
actual engineering skill or is you think
40:40
it's still going to be really important
40:41
to learn how to code and be really good
40:43
at that I mean doing a bit of everything
40:46
being in generalist is I think much more
40:48
important than it used to be and the if
40:52
if I'm putting together a product team
40:53
today I I would re obsess about getting
40:56
as much
40:57
of as many skill sets as possible for
41:01
each person I I hire like they should
41:03
know how architecting and system works
41:07
prably they should know design they
41:10
should know they should have product
41:11
taste they should know how to talk to
41:12
users I think everyone should be able to
41:14
know should know a bit of all of that
41:16
preferably easier said than done it's
41:19
hard to find people that know all these
41:20
things so let's Segway to hiring and how
41:23
you hire how many people do you have at
41:25
this point is that some you sure yeah
41:28
now we're at 18 18 okay wow so I love
41:32
that you it sounded like you're about to
41:34
say oh we have 100 people now no 18 okay
41:36
so you went from 15 to 18 uh okay great
41:40
so what do you look for when you're
41:42
hiring people the way saw you describe
41:43
it on Twitter as you look for cracked
41:45
Engineers the best cracked team in
41:48
Europe things like that I guess just
41:49
specifically what are you looking for
41:50
when you're hiring I think the most
41:52
important thing is that people care a
41:55
lot and they're not just like oh I'm
41:58
here for a job I'm here for being as as
42:01
a passenger on this journey but everyone
42:03
should really care about the product the
42:05
users and Care a ton about the team how
42:09
the team works together and that you're
42:11
always contributing to making the team
42:14
work more productively together and that
42:18
like care or preferably Obsession ER
42:21
gets you very long
42:23
way and then um you do
42:27
often want to have like absolute
42:29
absolute superpower of some Dimension to
42:32
be able to understand and do as many POS
42:34
things as possible like have this
42:36
generalist brain that quickly learns any
42:39
skills but be super super good in in one
42:42
dimension and that's for us that's of
42:44
that's mostly cramming as much out of AI
42:48
out of the large language models and
42:50
understanding the um the entire
42:53
parameter space of what you can change
42:55
to make this the our product to perform
42:57
better so how do you actually test for
42:59
these things you know like some of these
43:01
things described I think everyone's
43:02
looking for like they care about the
43:04
user they want to collaborate well just
43:06
like when you're because like you have
43:08
18 people building in a company that's
43:10
growing more than a million AR every
43:12
week like that's an absurd uh uh scale
43:16
and the people you found are clearly
43:18
world class and I think a lot of people
43:20
are going to like want to hire the type
43:22
of people you're hiring so when you're
43:24
actually interviewing how do you sus out
43:26
some of these things like like their AI
43:27
cramming skills their team building
43:30
collaboration what do you actually do I
43:33
ask people what they've done before and
43:35
they these people that I'm describing
43:38
they have often done something where
43:39
they care a lot about what they've done
43:41
before uh and dig into details about the
43:47
technical things that they did and then
43:50
um I mean we do the normal thing of
43:52
giving it showing a very hard problem
43:54
that is a bit unorthodox that someone
43:56
hasn't seen before preferably and see
43:58
how they think through the think and
43:59
reason through that I then something
44:02
that I think is more Uncommon is that we
44:05
do I pretty much always have people join
44:09
the work simulation for at least a day
44:11
often a full week awesome okay so work
44:14
trial that's awesome so basically they
44:17
work with the team for at least a day
44:19
you said like sometimes a week yeah and
44:22
uh I love this point you made about they
44:24
show they cared deeply about some they
44:27
previously worked on and you can you
44:29
look for just like obsession with the
44:31
thing that they built last or something
44:33
they worked on like what percentage are
44:36
Engineers of these
44:38
18 the 12 at least write code in at
44:44
least part times 12 out 18 okay cool uh
44:48
you when we were setting up you're like
44:49
oh our Engineers creating content now I
44:52
think that's a cool example of of how
44:54
people do a lot of different things yeah
44:56
uh also okay so I have your job posting
44:59
that you shared once of
45:00
like the actual job description I'm
45:03
going to read a few lines from it it's
45:04
uh very inspired by Shackleton right
45:07
would you agree cool I love it by the
45:09
way did you write this or did you have
45:11
ai write this job description where you
45:12
like create an engineering job
45:14
description FR let me read it to you I
45:15
don't even know you may not know
45:16
whatever you referring to uh I'll read a
45:19
few lines here long hours High Pace
45:22
candidates must Thrive under high
45:23
urgency under AGI timelines approaching
45:27
uh difficult Mission ahead honor and
45:29
recognition in case of success those
45:31
seeking comfortable work need not
45:33
apply and then there's a few other
45:35
things collaboration with other
45:36
exceptional Minds purpose larger than
45:38
any normal engineering role generous
45:40
share in the Venture success
45:43
amazing thank you thoughts yeah so I I
45:46
did I did get some help with the the
45:48
formatting of this but then I was mostly
45:52
me doing the the exact pring of the
45:54
different sentences so good and I love
45:57
that you know to some people it's going
45:59
to be like holy I'm not signing out
46:01
for this but to a lot of people the
46:02
people you want is like yes this is
46:04
exactly what I want to be
46:06
doing great amazing Okay cool so so it
46:10
feels like one of the elements of hiring
46:12
here is uh create a really good filter
46:15
to be clear about just how intense this
46:18
is so that the people that want that are
46:20
the ones drawn to
46:21
you okay and then you're also you're in
46:24
Sweden uh fastest growing startup in
46:27
Europe ever thoughts on building in
46:30
Europe Sweden versus the US San
46:33
Francisco yeah so this this ambition
46:35
level that you you're talking about in
46:38
the job is more Uncommon in Sweden and I
46:41
think that is the like the biggest
46:44
unlock that someone like me who sees
46:48
that this is the um like the time in
46:53
human history when you have the most
46:54
impact per worked hour and and that's
46:57
why we have to be super ambitious like
46:59
just up the ambition level and then then
47:00
we can maybe retire and have ai take
47:03
care of most most things in society um
47:07
that and inspiring people to be this
47:11
ambitious um in a place where the
47:15
average ambition is lower but the talent
47:17
the raw talent is um much more available
47:21
is is a great recipe I think that's a
47:23
great recipe so the and that's what
47:27
I think it's some kind of Advantage
47:28
there it's a bit of a double-edged sword
47:32
but but it's some kind of Advantage so
47:34
I'm hearing is like there's there's
47:36
incredible people in Europe they're just
47:38
not uh they're harder to find and what
47:41
I'm hearing is like the key is how do
47:43
you sus them out and get them to to want
47:46
to talk to you yeah most people in
47:50
Europe they haven't thought that oh do
47:53
going on an extremely ambitious mission
47:55
is what I want to do so that's that
47:57
figuring out who those are H is is a big
48:00
part of it awesome okay I want to talk
48:03
about priorization I
48:05
imagine all these things that I just
48:07
shared about just like how uh ambitious
48:09
this mission is how much you're doing
48:10
the last piece of software you must have
48:13
a bazillion things that people ask you
48:15
to build that you want to build what's
48:17
your approach to deciding what to biriz
48:19
and actually build I ju Just Top Line I
48:22
think identifying what is the biggest
48:26
ball neck what the biggest produ problem
48:28
and iterating fast on saying okay this
48:31
is the biggest problem let's really
48:32
really solve that that problem and then
48:34
picking the next one um and not
48:37
overthinking not like dreaming out the
48:38
long road map that's my my default it's
48:41
a very very simple algorithm um
48:44
understanding what is the most B the
48:46
biggest problem is not always a simple
48:48
simple problem I
48:50
think yeah so we spend time as one
48:53
should on talking to users list
48:57
reading up on what people are writing we
48:59
we have the F board for where people do
49:02
a lot of requests as you say and then um
49:07
when we pick one of the problems we're
49:10
quite engineering lead like for a
49:13
product like ours it's hard to be like
49:15
have uh product managers that are not
49:18
Engineers say oh this is what we should
49:20
do now
49:21
because like the right solution to the
49:25
problem might be in time Tangled in
49:27
things that are um like technical
49:31
details they might be entangled in
49:33
technical details of like okay yes this
49:36
is the biggest problem but we should Sol
49:38
we should have this larger technical
49:40
initiative that's going to solve all of
49:41
these problems so it's it's quite
49:43
engineering lead um compared to many
49:46
other product companies as it should I'd
49:48
be I'd be worried if you guys had a
49:50
product manager at this point makes that
49:52
would not that wouldn't make no sense
49:54
right now I imagine the answer is it's
49:56
chaos and there's no actual uh defined
49:59
process but just like what does it look
50:01
like generally like what's kind of the
50:03
Cadence you guys operate on how do you
50:04
take an idea to like build it spec it
50:07
launch it just like what does that look
50:09
like if you have something if you look
50:12
back like three months we mainly said
50:15
okay let's do this weekly planning and
50:18
we have we have like a fig Jam board
50:21
where we have all the main problems and
50:23
then we have kind of rank them which are
50:25
which on do we focus one more f on next
50:27
or this week um and then we have a demo
50:31
where we say like okay this are this the
50:33
things we Shi this week so they get
50:35
everyone on the same page and we do have
50:39
a bit more of a road map now and where
50:41
we say like here are we going to make so
50:45
sure you can support custom domains next
50:47
they're going to add
50:48
collaboration uh after that and and the
50:53
like the biggest problem now or the the
50:55
biggest initiative now that solves the
50:57
biggest problem is making the system
50:59
more identic um and that has a bit of a
51:02
longer road map but we still do the
51:03
kadence of weekly planning these are the
51:06
like the things we're focusing on this
51:09
week it's mostly there's a good word for
51:12
this that you I would want you help with
51:14
with Polish fixing the bags and and
51:18
polish this week and that was the
51:19
planning on Monday that was actually
51:21
this week was uh Polish Polish week I
51:24
love that uh how far is this road map
51:26
that you're now having I mean it's uh
51:30
clear over the coming month but it
51:33
stretches up three months and then but
51:35
with with in one month it's probably
51:37
going to look a bit different okay and
51:39
then what are the tools you use just for
51:40
folks that want to understand like the
51:41
latest tools so you said fig Jam what
51:44
else isn't that stack of tools I mean we
51:46
do so many things in our company in
51:49
linear because it's just such amazing
51:51
product so we we do Talent application
51:54
tracking in linear oh w
51:57
after going through and and this seeing
51:59
a l of the other made custom made tools
52:01
for that uh linear and then uh feed jum
52:06
so simple uh how soon until one of your
52:09
engineers is an agent engineer in AI
52:12
engineer do you think do you have a
52:14
sense I love to dig into what what does
52:17
that question actually mean um I think
52:20
we've been talking about like oh AI that
52:23
would require um or something playing
52:26
chess that's that's AI like if you if an
52:29
if a computer can play chess that's Ai
52:30
and now that's like oh no that's a chess
52:33
program and we always shifting this
52:36
forward and forward um I
52:39
think
52:42
anything that a human doesn't do is just
52:47
a smart computer system right so what
52:51
is when is some when is an a software
52:54
engineer and agent
52:57
I think it's always going to be just
52:59
we're building in lovable is just an
53:01
interface that humans interact with to
53:04
create the software that they want and
53:07
then how we solve that is that going to
53:09
be an agent under some definition yeah
53:11
sure I think so but uh that's less
53:14
important to me okay I like
53:17
that let me ask this you guys are moving
53:20
super fast scaling like crazy you
53:22
described a little bit about your
53:23
process weekly planning uh fig Jam Board
53:26
of is and now there's a road map that
53:28
you're kind of thinking out in the
53:29
future is there anything else that you
53:31
found was helps you move this fast that
53:34
gives you a lot of Leverage over the
53:35
small team you have to ship quickly and
53:37
move fast that you haven't already
53:39
mentioned we we work from the office
53:42
most of the time I think it's it's
53:44
pretty nice then you can say like hey I
53:46
think we're thinking wrong about this
53:48
thing or like shouldn't we actually do
53:49
this other thing and especially I think
53:52
lunch like eting lunch together is a
53:54
pretty productive hour
53:57
uh where you're cross-pollinating I mean
54:00
people are constantly thinking
54:02
subconsciously as well about the how to
54:04
solve the different problems and which
54:05
the most important ones are and then
54:07
being in office um has this like Focus
54:10
or most of the time you should be Focus
54:12
but you also have this like high
54:14
bandwidth where everyone has a bit
54:15
unstructured
54:17
communication I love that uh the answer
54:19
to uh the CEO of a company that's the
54:22
one of the most advanced AI tools in the
54:24
world is one of your answers to how to
54:26
move fast is like lunch together I love
54:29
that it's so human and so it makes all
54:32
the sense in the world but I love that
54:33
that's still a part of this
54:35
yeah okay you talked about this kind of
54:38
on the same thread you talked about if
54:41
you were to start in a team like a new
54:43
product team today say you were head of
54:45
product somewhere or head of RPM uh VP
54:48
of product somewhere building a new
54:49
product team scaling a product
54:51
team what would you do going forward
54:55
that's different
54:56
from what people have done in the past
54:59
in terms of who you're hiring how you're
55:02
structuring them that kind of thing just
55:04
like what do you think people should be
55:05
thinking as they build product teams
55:07
going forward knowing tools like lovable
55:09
exist and all the other stuff that's
55:11
going on I mean everyone should be
55:13
excited about using AI I think that's a
55:15
pretty big one um and then and the team
55:20
working really well together is is what
55:23
like the lunch you have to H like to sit
55:25
down and solve problems together um you
55:29
should at the bottleneck for most
55:34
products these days is not going to be
55:36
as much on engineering but having good
55:39
taste good intuition about your users
55:42
and um that I mean engineers and
55:47
everyone preferably in the team should
55:48
have that like willingness at least to
55:51
to want to go through that motion and
55:52
listen to the users um and
55:56
truly understand what what they care
55:59
about what's kind of like the background
56:01
of most of the engineers and people
56:03
you've hired are they like is there
56:05
anything like in common are they just
56:07
like
56:08
super uh impressive humans generally
56:11
like you know champions of programming
56:14
contest stuff like that I don't know
56:15
like what are some attributes of the
56:16
folks you've hired so far I think Ro
56:21
cognitive capability is the strongest
56:23
like di the the strongest correlate of
56:26
being at love lovable
56:29
but there there is this startup mindset
56:32
that I I think is also very strong being
56:35
a bit more being being much more
56:39
interested in moving very fast and uh
56:41
iterating fast than having like a lot of
56:44
structure a lot of
56:45
process and thinking about the business
56:48
as a whole more than thinking about my
56:50
specific profession my specific craft
56:52
that I'm see myself like wanting to dig
56:55
in into on me amazing okay so smart like
56:59
very smart entrepreneurial acts like an
57:03
owner yeah doesn't just uh isn't just
57:06
like this isn't just a job but they feel
57:07
like they actually have agency okay this
57:10
is great there's something you said kind
57:12
of along these lines that uh I think is
57:14
important that one of the things that
57:16
gets you excited about what you're
57:17
building is giving people superpowers
57:20
and especially people that don't out a
57:21
code basically 99% of people is there
57:24
anything along those lines that you
57:25
think is important to share it's very
57:28
clear to most people who have been
57:30
Engineers or been Founders that the um
57:33
there's so many that have failed in
57:35
their Endeavors because they didn't have
57:37
someone that know how to solve the
57:39
technical parts
57:41
and now that we're close to having
57:45
people know that this was like know that
57:47
this was exist and they work they solve
57:49
everything uh it's going to be an gri an
57:53
explosion of like entrepreneurship and
57:56
better software product we're not going
57:59
to settle for all the annoying bad
58:03
technology that we that we use today and
58:07
um
58:09
everyone uh who has an idea is going to
58:12
say like okay I'm gonna build this thing
58:14
and show you that this is the best this
58:17
is the best version of the product or
58:19
what our company should be doing instead
58:21
of having long meetings or like writing
58:23
up documents so it's um going to be
58:26
empowering across a lot of different
58:29
professions and and places in the world
58:32
what's what's next for lovable what's
58:34
kind of like the next few things they
58:35
might launch as this episode comes out I
58:39
mentioned this agentic behavior and when
58:41
I say agentic what it means is that the
58:43
you give more freedom to the system to
58:46
decide what what happens next it might
58:49
want to write a test run those tests and
58:51
see like oh the tests fail let let's fix
58:52
those so so that's um one the big
58:56
unlocks for getting further faster and
59:00
on then there's some more like obvious
59:03
things that you want to
59:05
do to go all the way to easily go all
59:10
the way to making money with lovable and
59:13
that's that's like how do you set up so
59:15
that it's hosted on your specific domain
59:18
how do you collaborate seamlessly with
59:21
your team H and making that that easier
59:24
so that are just obvious things um and
59:28
something we're thinking about is to
59:31
help the founders succeed after they
59:34
built their first version and like how
59:36
do they get more users how do they get
59:37
feedback how do they get the word out if
59:39
they buil something
59:41
useful I was just gonna say that that
59:44
that's that's exactly where my mind went
59:45
is like everyone's gonna be building all
59:47
these things no one's ever gonna get any
59:49
traction with these tools because no one
59:51
knows how to find users get anyone to
59:53
basically go to market and growth is
59:55
like a whole different skill so that is
59:57
so cool that you're thinking about that
59:59
how do we run some paid ads for you how
60:01
do we think about SEO how do we think
60:02
about Word of Mouth reality referrals
60:05
that is very cool okay yeah we already
60:07
have some playbooks that we that we help
60:10
the people building with like how how do
60:11
you do those things that you can find up
60:13
on a Blog oh interestingly this makes me
60:16
want to buy some meta stock because all
60:18
these apps that everyone's building
60:20
they're gonna all be running paid ads on
60:21
Facebook and Google oh my God what a
60:23
good business those other guys got uh I
60:27
want to come back to you said that you
60:28
can work on your existing code base this
60:30
actually a big question for a lot of
60:31
people they see all these tools they're
60:33
all like amazing for prototypes and
60:35
concepting you talked about how you can
60:37
actually do this within your existing
60:39
codebase use lovable let me correct you
60:41
there you cannot use it on any con
60:45
existing codebase got it um we kind of
60:48
have a research preview of of importing
60:50
your codebase but what you can do is if
60:53
you start in lovable then you can have
60:55
engineer is editing it how in whatever
60:57
tool they want to use for editing it
60:59
okay cool that's great clarification so
61:01
I guess just for people because a lot of
61:03
like most list here are not building
61:04
something brand new they're working
61:06
within an existing product so you're
61:08
saying that that is coming you can use
61:10
lovable in the future in some form with
61:13
your existing app and product great wow
61:17
that's huge okay because that's
61:19
basically the most most people so that's
61:21
going to be a big deal okay uh final
61:24
question we have the segment on this
61:27
podcast called failure Corner okay where
61:31
most people come this podcast they show
61:32
all these stories of success and
61:34
everything's going great and here's all
61:35
the things always winning you guys this
61:37
is a good example just up and to the
61:39
right the fastest growing product ever
61:42
uh what's an example when something
61:44
totally failed in the course of your
61:46
career and and what did you learn from
61:48
that I I'm withit hard pressed to find
61:50
something that totally failed but I
61:52
think there's a bit of a product lesson
61:55
um where I was the first employee at an
61:58
AI startup here in stockolm called sonal
62:01
labs and the premise was just okay so
62:05
humans learn in different ways you if
62:07
you personalize then you get two
62:09
standard deviations more uh effective
62:13
learning so there there are a lot of
62:16
products like education software that
62:19
helps you learn um that is not
62:22
personalized and we could build we were
62:24
building an API personalized
62:27
learning uh and the I mean the AI and so
62:32
was it was pretty good but
62:35
the thing that we were doing in the end
62:39
was to say like okay here's this product
62:41
here someone has build a product or some
62:43
some way to learn where be it like
62:45
English thing du lingo and then that the
62:50
people that have that product have to
62:53
use this Advanced AI API to start to
62:56
making it
62:58
personalized and it was it's a very hard
63:01
like retrofitting like oh you have to
63:02
switch out the engine and put in this Ai
63:05
and it it's the big learning here is it
63:10
didn't work very well on for the company
63:12
I mean the company wasn't super
63:14
successful in this the big learning is
63:16
that you have to start with like how is
63:18
this product working end to end and then
63:21
add AI or think where should we add
63:24
AI so that was big learning for me that
63:27
um you you really want to see like like
63:32
how the what is the big picture of the
63:35
user what's the big picture of how this
63:37
should how do you think the user
63:38
experience should be and then add
63:40
something with AI uh to solve specific
63:43
problems and now now Sons is doing great
63:46
but it's it's not on top of that product
63:48
specifically that's I think it's a lot
63:50
of people hear this and they're like of
63:51
course but I think it's so hard to
63:54
actually remember this point when you
63:55
have cool Tack and you're like holy
63:57
everyone needs to try this they're going
63:58
to love it and then you don't realize
64:00
like no one actually cares if it's not
64:02
solving a problem for them you know
64:03
there's like a lot of novelty products
64:05
that like everyone want to use for a
64:07
little bit and then like forget and it's
64:09
not I don't actually need this often and
64:11
so I like what this makes me think about
64:13
is there's all these product lessons for
64:16
what is likely to help your product be
64:19
successful and an app like like a tool
64:21
like lovable can help you do this
64:25
because because if someone is building
64:26
something you can guide them okay what's
64:29
the problem you're solving for somebody
64:32
how many people have this problem how
64:35
much does this matter to
64:37
them maybe we should add like the Lenny
64:39
mode it activates in lavable activates
64:42
like this product product
64:45
coach questions you wait hold on are you
64:49
this why let's take a step
64:52
back everyone's G be like out of my way
64:57
yeah
64:58
exactly what's your yeah what's your
65:00
experiment plan uh that's actually I
65:01
think there's actually a big opportunity
65:02
there to say people because you know
65:04
there's like a play around with this
65:05
thing and then there's like okay but
65:06
really is this anything people actually
65:09
want can we call it Lenny mode is that a
65:11
fine with you 100% awesome let's do it
65:15
I'll license you no cost sure okay okay
65:18
we made a deal here let's do it okay uh
65:21
Anton is there anything else that you
65:23
wanted to share anything you want to
65:24
leave listeners with
65:26
uh before I let you go and go to sleep I
65:28
think again the the world is changing
65:31
quickly and it's very fun you should see
65:34
that's like have fun in all all of this
65:35
change um and the best thing you can do
65:40
for your current profession or if you
65:42
want to have a new job is to be in the
65:45
top 1% in knowing how to use the AI
65:47
tools so go out there use use lovable
65:51
use other a tools and become um make
65:54
sure to understand or try to understand
65:56
as much as possible and how to use them
65:58
productively um that that's that's
66:01
something I I tell all my friends in
66:03
jally and I I like love the audience to
66:05
know as well okay well I gotta make try
66:07
to make this even more specific for
66:08
people uh how do you know if you're in
66:10
the top 1% like what's like a heuristic
66:13
almost of like slash how do you get
66:15
there is it just use it a 100 times a
66:17
day what else what can you recommend
66:19
yeah I I think if you spend a full week
66:23
on trying to reach an outcome the best
66:26
way to learn is like I want to do this
66:27
thing and then I want to use AI to do
66:29
that thing uh and you've spent a full
66:31
week you're you're in the top one% in
66:33
the global population if you have
66:37
friends that you surround yourself with
66:39
friends who who have this Obsession or
66:41
they also care a lot about this uh then
66:43
you'll be quickly in the top
66:46
0.1% so what I'm hearing is like find a
66:48
problem that that need that can be
66:51
solved like find a problem a pain point
66:52
for yourself or someone yeah and then
66:54
end to end like fully solve that problem
66:56
spend a week getting from idea to like a
66:59
thing that was actually somebody's
67:00
actually using yeah and you're in the
67:03
top one% yeah I I think at the top yeah
67:07
the top one% by just spending a a full
67:09
week and making like asking AI if you
67:12
don't understand so make making sure
67:14
that you understand yeah like that's the
67:16
thing people forget you just ask like
67:19
like you would would you ask the chat
67:20
feature of lovable in this case or would
67:22
you go to cloud or chat GPT to ask for
67:23
advice I mean my recommendation here if
67:26
you're in product is to use lavable to
67:29
build software and and learn that AI
67:31
tool if you're and then you should use
67:34
chat mode and chat mode I have to add is
67:37
something you activate in your user
67:39
profile it's not launch like in the in
67:43
the main product so it's in in in Labs
67:45
but if you add that flag then you can
67:48
use chat mod if you're if you want to
67:51
learn some other AI tool then you should
67:54
I mean ask that tool or ask Claude B
67:58
about how how how that topic that domain
68:01
works okay amazing uh where can people
68:05
find you where they where can they find
68:06
lovable and how can listeners be useful
68:08
to you lovable posts updates and me on
68:12
lovable Dev on Twitter and we post
68:16
things on LinkedIn as well and there a
68:17
lot of lot of things coming out and
68:20
changing in how we will software so you
68:22
can follow lovable Dev and you can
68:24
follow me at Anon OA at Twitter um I'd
68:30
love more feedback on what people like
68:33
where people see this is huge change for
68:37
them and we there lot a lot of people
68:39
posting about that on Twitter but there
68:42
we have a Discord where you can share
68:43
like oh this is how I use loveable it
68:45
was super useful to me um and H
68:49
feedback. lovable dodev you can give you
68:53
can ask for uh new features there's a
68:56
lot of people asking enough boting what
68:57
features you want next so and that's
68:59
useful that's the most important thing
69:00
for us we just want to solve people's
69:03
problems amazing Anon you're doing
69:05
incredible work what a what a journey uh
69:07
I'm excited to have you back someday
69:09
when we see more chapters of this
69:11
journey to as do we all that's why
69:13
people listen to this podcast uh Anton
69:16
thank you so much for being here thank
69:18
you so much Lenny bye
69:22
everyone thank you so much for listening
69:24
if you found this valuable you can
69:26
subscribe to the show on Apple podcast
69:28
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69:31
also please consider giving us a rating
69:33
or leaving a review as that really helps
69:35
other listeners find the podcast you can
69:37
find all past episodes or learn more
69:39
about the show at Lenny's podcast.com
69:42
see you in the next episode