a16z ‘s GP, Anish Acharya has an interesting take on what it will take for an AI consumer startup to be super successful.
“If it’s weird and working, it’s exactly where we want to invest…Weird products tend to win.”
“My controversial take on this is that we all know there’s a need for human connection, but I think the human part is overstated,”
“Look at the companion apps, where people are building deep relationships and friendships, and it’s text on a screen. There’s no illusion it’s not an AI, and yet the depth of relationships and engagement is super high. It’s hard for me to take anything from that other than that there’s a real connection there.” - Anish Acharya
Extreme products win.
Successful consumer products have strong "word of mouth" virality due to surprising or even unserious early use cases (e.g., Snap as "just a sexting app"). But these products often fulfill a real need that shines through in engagement and retention metrics.
What all weird AI products are you using?
Here is an experiment we did - we changed the entire home screen experience of our newly launched AI product, BigIdeas - and we made it look more like ‘TikTok’ of Ideas.
And the result? Almost 4X jump in the engagement. So yeah, Weird*Working is a great way to look at consumer AI experience.