Dr. Mario Lenz

Founder Mode. "There are currently at least 2 #founders who do this effectively - Elon and Jensen. I have heard/ read almost all their interviews over past 4 years and there are many tangible principles they have explicitly mentioned: * They have deep technical expertise in their domain and are hands on with the most complex parts. They are engineers first and managers second. * They believe in micro management and often nano management. They are control freaks. They believe in flat hierarchy and assembly world class small focussed teams. * They work 24x7 and expect everyone in their company to do the same. They don’t believe in work life balance and are always in a rush to accomplish things. * They build things purely based on conviction and can see far out in the future. Often decades. They never do customer surveys, customer feedback coz they believe customers don’t know what they want and it’s their job to provide them that. * They believe in building unique world class products / services and don’t feel the need for marketing and advertising. They never play the competitive game and truly believe competition is for losers. * You will never ever hear them use a single business jargon. They often say and describe complex things in the simplest words that a layman would understand. They are masters at simplifying complex things to the most basic form. * They are super experts at first principle thinking and every decision and action is based on that. * They often operate alone without a cofounder coz they need to make high conviction bets and don’t want anyone second guessing them. * They run hundreds of experiments and some of them are huge. They don’t mind if their huge bets spectacularly fail in public since they give zero thought to what others think and how they perceive them. * They are extremely independent-minded and do not conform to standard norms especially related to management and business. * They are experts at spotting and predicting big trends and capitalize by betting on them way early in the cycle. * They are usually obsessed and possessed about few key things which they believe are sacrosanct and high impact variables in their vision and business strategy. * Their ideas are so contrarian and they are so early in the space that when inflection occurs they tend to become monopolies with no competition in sight. * Another positive side effect of being super early and being obsessed with high quality is they end up building entire vertically integrated stack further solidifying their moat in the long run. * The vertical stack also helps build huge platform base and spin new products on regular basis for very long." Via @techprimitives on X commenting on: https://lnkd.in/dxu6yyC3 #entrepreneurship #startups #leadership

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This table by Antler allows to guide founders on how much to raise in their first round. You can use it to form an initial understanding, but keep in mind: 1. The numbers are German, so they’re conservative. 2. The numbers are from last year. But as a starting point for research, they are definitely useful. #Startups #Fundraising #Entrepreneurship #Founder #Traction

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On speed of execution: Last week one of our customers had asked for usage analytics. Analytics were shipped before the week ended. End-to-end, full-stack. We also made analytics available through our API. A classic startup advice is to move fast and break things. This phrase is used so often that before Reform, I took it for granted. It just seemed like a best practice, but I never really questioned why it is so important. After spending the last year talking to customers, here’s my answer to that question: you can think of a startup as a video game, and what you’re really trying to do is level up. As you level up, you uncover a set of truths that were previously unknown to you; you get to learn more about your customers, your industry, how to build a business, how to sell, etc. You simply just become better at the game. You certainly are a worse Super Mario player at level 1 than you are at level 10, and your friend is certainly a better Super Mario player at level 20 than you are at level 10. If you’re moving slow, your rate of improvement is slow, and the next level just gets harder and further. What you’re really doing when you move fast is shortening your iteration cycle, accelerating your rate of improvement, helping you arrive at the truth faster. As you uncover more truths, your chances of success simply compound. A startup with a compound interest of 1% can never compete with another that has a compound interest of 5%. Happy building my friends 😊 https://lnkd.in/evFq4sJQ

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What’s next for Langauge Models #OpenAi By Colin Jarvas, the Chief Architect. Super interesting talk by Colin at #TOA Berlin. 😎He talked about : 1. Some good and bad examples where the chatgpt was used. 2. What are places it’s been extensively used and are successful: 👩‍🚒Usecase : - Customer Service - Autonomous Assistant - Content creation 👩‍💼User experience : - Balancing control and automation - Multi-modality - Translations 3. What is coming next ? - Increasing intelligence of text model - Increasing multi-Modality And more. Parting Advice for all the people who are using OpenAI’s platform is there in the video. #ai #openai #whatsnext #chatgpt #AIEngineers

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The Intriguing (& Hypothetical) #Architecture of a #Reverse Glassdoor : Reimagining #Candidate #Evaluation & #ExEmployee #Feedback [Part 1 of 2] #Disclaimer: This is a Discussion Starter, not a #Blueprint 😉 Imagine a #platform where the tables are turned on #candidateevaluation. That's the concept of a "Reverse #Glassdoor" - a system for #companies to rate #candidates & #exemployees. While this #idea is #controversial, let's explore an architecture of such a platform that prioritizes #fairness & #anonymity as well as #benefits all - #employers, #recruiters & candidates! Focus on #Skills & Fit, not Identity: - => Skill-Based #Endorsements: Companies anonymously endorse or rate candidates’ proficiency in specific demonstrably displayed skills relevant to the position they interviewed for during the #assessment process => Project-Specific Feedback: For completed #projects or #internships, companies provide anonymized feedback on a candidate's #performance #metrics or #contributions => #CulturalFit Assessment: #Design multiple-choice questions to gauge a candidate's #alignment with company #culture (work style, values) Building a #Reputation System: - => Verified #Reviews: Only companies a candidate has demonstrably interviewed with can leave feedback. This ensures #authenticity & reduces the risk of #fake reviews => Weighted #Ratings based on #JobRole: The importance of certain skills varies depending on the #position => Time-Decaying #Scores: Endorsements or feedback weight diminishes over time, reflecting a candidate's ongoing #skilldevelopment, thus ensuring that most recent performance carries more significance Protecting #Privacy & #Ethical Fairness:- => Candidate Opt-In: Candidates explicitly choose to participate, allowing them to #control the #information displayed => Aggregate #Data & #Insights : Anonymity & #security are paramount. Companies see broader #trends in #skillsets or cultural fit without revealing #individual information. They provide feedback on #anonymized #profiles with unique #identifiers, ensuring no individual candidate is publicly identifiable => Focus on Skills & Contributions, not #Biases: Feedback centres on objectively assessed skills & contributions, not personal #opinions. A structured rating system emphasizes job-specific skills, cultural fit & performance metrics, mitigating unconscious bias . => Double-Blind #System with 2-factor #Authentication: Implement strong measures to prevent unauthorized #access & ensure only #verified companies participate fostering #objectivity & protecting #reputations => #Dispute #Resolution: A mechanism for candidates to address inaccurate or misleading information is essential Could this architecture be a viable or beneficial #solution, or is the #risk of misuse too high with insurmountable #challenges or are there better ways to approach? Let's discuss in the comments! #hrtech #futureofwork #recruiting #candidateexperience #hrmtechnology #talentacquisition

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This is insane! In Germany 🇩🇪, if your startup has closed a VC funding round a notary will read every single word of the docs out loud in front of founders 😳 I couldn't believe it, so I had to verify it. It's 100% true: "In Germany, a notary is required to read out the entire document aloud to all parties present during the notarization process, ensuring everyone fully understands the legal terms and implications before signing". It seems Germany isn't serious about startups... h/t Nathan Benaich for calling this out P.S. check out 🔔linas.substack.com🔔, it's the only newsletter you need for all things when Finance meets Technology. For founders, builders, and leaders.

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Are these the most frequently asked questions by developers when using a headless CMS like Storyblok? Based on our experience with clients, they are. 👉 What are the steps to set up development, staging and production environments? 👉 What is the best way to handle global data? 👉 How can you create reusable components? 👉 What methods are used to render global components in a visual editor? 👉 How do you render multiple pages as a reference on a single page, such as in automated related blog posts? 👉 What are the guidelines for setting up a sitemap? 👉 What is the best way to handle multiple languages, at either the folder or field level? 👉 How should you handle alternative text tags for images in different languages? Which should be the first one I talk about?  And do you have questions I should add?

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"An "investment loop" in user onboarding occurs when users start using the product with a low-friction entry point (no signup form). As they progress through the onboarding, they become more likely to continue using the product. Only once they're sufficiently invested do you ask them to sign up with email (and perhaps their credit card)." https://lnkd.in/gxUSb7Y3

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👉 Just Product Conference is almost here! Proud of our line-up 🤩 Join us in Munich or via the FREE Livestream with the following speaker: ✅ Bob Moesta Pioneer of the Jobs-To-Be-Done Theory, Bob has shaped my thinking in profound ways. His approach to customer interviews is transformative, and it's a rare opportunity to see him live in Europe. Don’t miss this chance! ✅ David Pereira Author of "Untrapping Product Teams," David is a Munich-based thought leader who has inspired product professionals globally. His experience is grounded in hands-on learning and reflection, making his insights incredibly valuable. We’re lucky to have him on stage! ✅ Nimisha Sharath Sharma Nimisha brings expertise from top US tech companies like Microsoft, Instacart, and now Uber. She’ll be sharing her knowledge on how leading companies build AI products—can’t wait to gain insights from her experience! ✅ Kristina Walcker-Mayer As CPO at AILY LABS, Kristina leads one of Munich’s most successful B2B startups, leveraging AI to drive data-informed decisions. I'm eager to learn how she structures her AI product teams to achieve such impressive results. ✅ Millie Zah Millie, Head of Product at DAZN, will share how an entrepreneurial mindset drives product success. Flying in from London, she’ll offer unique insights into how to apply entrepreneurial thinking to your product journey. I consider myself as an entrepreneur and think, that entrepreneurs are great product manager. That's why I super curious about her thoughts. ✅ Sebastian Borggrewe Sebastian has coached over 200 product professionals and will reveal the most common struggles PMs face and how to overcome them. Expect a talk filled with real-life stories that will resonate with every Product Manager. ✅ 🦔 james hawkins James, co-founder and CEO of PostHog, has established a radically transparent leadership style. His team shares their vision, goals, and roadmaps etc. publicly—an approach I’m excited to learn more about. Stoked to have him and see insight out, what the fruits and struggles of his leadership style are. Get your ticket or join the FREE Livestream. I don't care which option you go for - just go 😜

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I'm in Berlin today as I moderated a panel at the Atlantic Labs AGM, on How AI is changing the SaaS game. My esteemed panelists were the builders. Whether AI first like Albert Astabatsyan, CFA Co-founder of Synthflow AI. Or building AI into an established large SaaS company such as Daniel Khachab, CEO of Choco. Or utilising AI for parts of it's solutions like Mariam Hakobyan, CEO of Softr which enables you to spin up an app from a few lines of code. We covered the challenges of brining AI into you existing SaaS Solution. AI first vs SaaS first and whether that was even the right question. How AI will impact the workforce and topics such as whether AI will replace many of the SaaS Apps that companies use today, like Klarna is doing. What was good to see was that there were only two AI sessions within the agenda and it didn't dominate. Whilst AI is an important revolution in the world of tech and how we work, we've seen conferences that maybe get carried away with the hype and do too much AI, and maybe forget what they are at the core. At SaaStock Europe this year, there will be some amazing AI focused talks from the likes of Tomasz Tunguz and Des Traynor to name but two. However SaaStock's content has always been about how to you build, grow and scale a successful SaaS business, led by those that are doing it or have done it. So we recognise the importance of AI and the impact in SaaS, but what you'll learn this year from some great entrepreneurs, operators and investors is really how can you build a successful SaaS company. Thanks to Atlantic Labs and my former colleague Sophie Louise Rowe for having me, and letting me get some reps in before Dublin (and for not getting too carried away with AI). Berlin is wonderful and great to see the entrepreneurial ecosystem thriving. If you want to connect with your fellow SaaS builders, experts and investors, then Dublin is the place to be next month 14-16th October. #AI #Berlin #saastockeurope #saastock #saas #dublin

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📣 Free founders-only event below! I often see founders get a lot of early traction in signing customers and then hit a wall when trying to scale that repeatedly. Why?? Maybe it's because: 1️⃣ that 1st group of customers came through warm intros from your accelerator batch 2️⃣ you've already combed through industry connections from your previous career 3️⃣ you're just good at brute-force selling but you're only one person 4️⃣ you are still narrowing in on product market fit Next week I'm hosting a free, founders-only candid discussion with two people who have had to break through this wall out of necessity and now coach countless founders on this. More on our speakers: 📈 Ian Illig took his 1st job out of college at a friend's startup (employee #1). He quickly found himself trying to sell a product that was still finding its market fit. Fast forward years later and Ian had completely built out the sales team and revenue, allowing the company to get acquired. And then he turned around and did the same thing again with the same founding team. 👀 Sonia Baschez was one of the 1st employees at Atmos, a consumer & builder-facing product for homebuilding. She developed early marketing channels & helped the company grow from Pre-seed to Series A. Sonia optimized product launches to reach the right customers, a challenging feat given their core customers are actively NOT in the tech bubble (aka Techcrunch and a thread on X are not going to do the trick). Whether they know it or not, both Ian and Sonia have been secret superpowers for me as I've grown The Council Fund and supported portfolio companies. I'm excited to share their playbooks & expertise with founders for FREE next Wednesday. Join us 12-1pm Pacific! Link to RSVP in comments below ;)

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Me in 2019: “Hiring top product talent is hard” Me in 2024: “Keeping top talent is even harder” After five years of leading PMs, I can say that mastering managing high-performers yields the highest ROI. Nevertheless, taking high performers for granted will shutter your ‘house of cards’ in no time. In this post, I will dive into the ‘Promotion’ topic; the ‘Sacred cow’ leaders consciously try to keep vague. 1️⃣ 𝐓𝐨𝐩 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐝. - Promotion is the ultimate recognition (financial, social, and brand). - Misalignment around promotion can kill performance. - Dangling the promotion carrot quarter after quarter will break trust. 2️⃣ 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫’𝐬 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐢𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐬𝐮𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬. - You hire top talent ( = High Performance) to do job X - Ensure the talent does job X for a long time ( = Duration) - Formula: (High Performance) X (Duration) = (Company Success). - Promotion means they no longer do job X. 3️⃣ 𝐑𝐞𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐡𝐢𝐠𝐡 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐨𝐭𝐞 𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐠-𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐦 𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐬. - Reward performance peaks (take care of your team). - Promote a long-term performance upward trend. - Invest in building your team members’ long-term defensible careers. 4️⃣ 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐲 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐠𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐠𝐚𝐩. - Communicate promotion criteria early, starting with interviews. - Hire only those happy to do job X for at least three years. - Never use empty promotion promises as a hiring tactic. 🟢 Wrapping up with a few 𝐛𝐨𝐧𝐮𝐬 𝐭𝐢𝐩𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐏𝐌𝐬: 1. Ensuring that your work materializes in building a successful company has a higher long-term impact than a premature promotion. 2. The statement ‘Join at level Y and you will get promoted in no time’ indicates a questionable/toxic culture. Don’t take the job. 3. And a counter-argument: As a PM, avoid taking a role you are uncomfortable doing for at least three years. *** What do you love/hate about my ‘promotion’ philosophy? Share in the comments. 👉 P.S. The link to the full write-up is in the comments. #productmanagement #productleadership #productmanagers #product #promotion #leadingdown

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There is a tendency for many first time founders to overbuild an MVP. The reasons vary, but most often it stems from improper/lack of customer discovery and results in an improperly scoped build. The role of an MVP is not to capture the entire workflow of a potential user, rather it is to build a solution for a very specific white hot pain point that allows you to build trust with your customer and over time deploy more product and capture more wallet share. When a startup truly understands their target customer, and has isolated top priority problem areas, they are often able to zero in on a fairly narrow scope for an MVP. Oftentimes this solution can be fairly crude with a V1 UI/UX and not built to scale, but because it is meeting such a pressing need it generates robust usage from an initial cohort of users. On the other hand, when a startup fails to perform robust customer discovery, they almost always fall victim to the "feature fallacy" and overbuild initial products thinking that quantity of features will lead to adoption. It's the classic problem solving technique of throwing spaghetti at the wall until something sticks, but in early stage startups with very limited resources, this is often a path to failure. Founding teams need to balance the feature set of an MVP with their ability to ship product within the existing runway of the business - which in many cases is the sweat equity of the founding teams living off of savings or friends and family money they've raised. As such, the composition of an initial founding team is crucial, and having engineering talent on the founder team is most often necessary to bridge the gap. Founding teams lacking engineering talent and reliant on outside development contractors to stand up initial products put a startup in a suboptimal position to succeed. Investors are increasingly unwilling to fund first time founders to build out an initial product. As such, teams need to focus on a way to get a product in market and prove some degree of traction within their customer base before realistically targeting institutional capital. Raising money before deploying an initial product is possible, most notably by second time founders or early executives at high growth startups, but in many cases this subset already realizes the importance of customer discovery and getting an initial version of product in market, and optimizes for that before looking to capitalize the business. There are certain types of market opportunities where a narrow feature set is an unrealistic option for initial deployment - examples being an embedded payroll offering or a core infrastructure layer. In these cases, a founding team will need to raise capital to build an MVP. Second-time founders or founders with deep domain experience/networks who can demonstrate robust customer discovery proof points have a reasonable chance of raising capital, but most founders will struggle to launch these types of businesses.

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💡 Scaling companies face many challenges—and one of them is managing an ever-growing stack of #SaaS tools and contracts. At MVST., we early on realized that we needed a clear, structured way to track all our software subscriptions and contracts. We evaluated multiple tools but couldn't find a solution that matched both our needs and pricing expectations. Even though we have strong in-house development resources, building something from scratch would have been time-consuming and costly. Instead, we saw an opportunity to leverage low-code technology to create a #custom solution that fit us perfectly. Our tool of choice? #Retool. 🛠️  With the collaboration of our Finance team, we developed a solution that: • Monitors and manages all our software subscriptions • Sends Slack reminders for upcoming renewals or cancellations 🚨  • Updates seat information regularly ⚙️  • Keeps us proactive in contract negotiations and helps identify unused subscriptions 📊 The result? We're expecting to save over €20k this year alone by having full visibility into our contracts and avoiding unnecessary renewals. This is a great example of the power of low-code/no-code tools, and how they can drive efficiency and cost savings without heavy development investment. 🚀 Have you built any internal tools using low-code or no-code platforms? I'd love to hear your experiences! If you're interested in learning more about how we built this or want a copy of the tool, feel free to reach out! 💬 #LowCode #SaaSManagement #CostEfficiency #DigitalTransformation

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The SaaS industry is still growing. But much more slowly. Last month I shared an Aleph statistic. Over the last 3 years we have invested in 17 companies. Only 1 out 17 was a classic horizontal SaaS company. SaaS was the single best business model of the last cycle (2008-2021), but the category has since entered a maturity stage (see graph below). This new report from the wonderful software team at Avenir clearly illustrates it. Growth rates for the combined SaaS industry are quickly declining as we are entering the later stages of maturity. In other words, there’s already an established software company in most sectors - and there’s very little room for entirely new software categories. At Aleph we still believe there’s an opportunity to build successful SaaS companies, but new entrants would have to carve out market share in existing industries and displace existing vendors. Vertical software is one area where lesser competition makes it more attractive, but entrepreneurs in crowded horizontal markets would have to work harder than ever before. Another key takeaway from the report - there are only 72 publicly traded companies (with market cap > $5Bn) with a combined market cap of $5.8Tr. However, 56% of this value is attributed to Microsoft alone, followed by a very long tail of lesser performing companies. Moreover, only 2 of the largest 11 companies were funded after the year 2000 (ServiceNow, CrowdStrike). If you are building or investing in SaaS, you should definitely read the full report by Jared Sleeper, Hannah Bao and David Prilutsky (link in the first comment).

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𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗽𝗼𝗱𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗲𝗽𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗱𝗲 𝗼𝘂𝘁! 🎙️💥 Today's guest is none other than Charity Majors, CTO at honeycomb.io and my favorite writer. During our chat we talked about: 𝟭) ⚖️ 𝗢𝗯𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗮𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝘃𝘀 𝗺𝗼𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 — what’s the difference, and what good observability enables you to do. 𝟮) 💬 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗰𝗼𝗺 𝗺𝗶𝗴𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 — how observability saved Intercom from a painful, year-long migration. 𝟯) 🚚 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗻𝘂𝗼𝘂𝘀 𝗱𝗲𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 — what are the qualities of a good workflow. 𝟰) 🪂 𝗧𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝗻 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 — why it is part of every engineer’s job. 𝟱) 🤖 𝗔𝗜 𝗘𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 — how AI is changing how we write code, and a few concerns. And much more! I absolutely loved this chat. Links to the episode in the first comment 👇

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Good morning, Dearest Readers, I've been saying for some time now that SaaS has its challenges. Namely it is capital inefficient, has a low to negative profit margin, and is one size fits all. This morning, I came across this headline on Techmeme: German grocery delivery app Flink raised $115M in equity and $35M in debt, sources say at a valuation just under $1B; Flink has raised $1.5B+, per PitchBook I wonder what the terms were. Onerous for sure. Please note that they have already raised $1.5B 😱 - underwriting 'market demand' for food delivery is expensive. Now they have to accept what is most likely a down round, with more stringent terms. How do the investors ever get their money back let alone out of the company? I have no idea. What I do know though is that SaaS needs an improvement to its business model. I would start looking for tech that makes it capital efficient, increases mind and wallet share, and enables a holistic customer experience. We have just the solution if they're interested, and it's 100% web standard (sadly I doubt it. It's a mindset thing).

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Building-In-Public makes you feel liberated. Today Thursday at 1600 CET we are showcasing how to talk to an API through natural language. Imagine... Dream of the implications! To speak to an API and invoke its actions via prompts opens the door to everything... Since we launched the G-Play effort, we have learned so much on this space. Being able to do everything a merchandiser can do, putting their intellectual capacity to limitless actions, just through natural language. oi.empathy.co is a crazy space for ideation and rapid execution of this and more incredible adventures. Partnering with Spaceheater AI and Empathy's GenAI working groups is opening a whole new world. Join us on our journey, ping us to be part of Open Innovation, share your ideas. Open Innovation is everyone's space to co-create and deliver the new in line to the old values of trust, ethics and the very essence of commerce: Togetherness.

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