Y Combinator Startup Podcast
00:24:29 · Marvin Schwaibold
[00:24:29] S1: This was all unlocked via Josh to me at a lunch the other day where he kind of, like... We installed DialKit into this demo Mhmm. Because he looked at this and he's like, this looks pretty good, but you should look at the length of the grass blades. I was like, woah. Okay. That's true. So I asked I asked Codex, hey, how many how many grass blade variations do we have? And it said, we have about 217,000 different grass blades, but they only differ by, like, point six, point seven, point eight. So we were like, okay. Let's just build a toggle for it so that we can see it ourselves. Yeah. I don't wanna have to go back and forth with the interface and and chat about this. Expose the underlying structure. Exposing the underlying structure would also show me where AI had made mistakes. The original version of the terrain map that it had implemented was completely wrong and and and skewed. Mhmm. So I couldn't get to my outcome anyway because AI had misinterpreted something five prompts ago that I didn't know about anyway. Dialkit kind of unpacked that for me. But then, in general, you can just mess with a few of these values, and they kind of help, like, bring bring some of this... Like, they they they help visualize Mhmm. What what I what I really wanted to see. And if if if, you know, the the length here is longer, then you you can you can introduce more wind. This was something I wanted to to test and see how how crazy I could get with the Yeah. With the wind movement. You can see it it gets a little wild. But, yeah, I think this is just a small example of a little bit of, like, a a fun project just to try and, like, see how far can you get with with the tools. And these are things that I think before AI, I I I couldn't do. I just... I I might have had these ideas, but I but but I but I wasn't allowed or or able to execute on them. And I think that's just in general what's changing with a lot of the... With with the design role right now. Any... Anyway, like, it's it's it's... Designers are becoming more full stack as are engineers and PMs. It goes it goes it goes in every which way.
00:26:13 · Aaron Epstein, Marvin Schwaibold
[00:26:13] S0: Yeah. There's no limitations now. Right? And, actually, this is one of the one of the common patterns that we've been seeing a lot, creating prototypes and then creating, little widgets that allow you to control different variables in them to to be able to test it really easily and get it right. Yeah. And previously, it wouldn't have been worth anybody's time [00:26:32] S1: Yeah. [00:26:32] S0: To do that. You would just, you know, maybe play with variables and code or something until you got it, and then you'd call it good. And that would take way longer, or you wouldn't even spend the time doing it. Yeah. Now it's so easy to create new little software tools to be able to control these variables and test things and dial it in perfectly Yeah. Which I guess is where the name DialKit comes from. Yeah. So, yeah, maybe tell us more about DialKit here. So this is a product that makes it really easy to create and then tweak a lot of these variables in whatever project you're working on. Right?
00:27:01 · Marvin Schwaibold, Aaron Epstein
[00:27:01] S1: Exactly. So so yeah. That's that's that's basically exactly how it works. You can just run NPM run via via his website. There... He has a little prompt for it. Mhmm. You can just plug it into to whatever you're working on. I I have another project that I can quickly show. This is just another version of DialKit Mhmm. In this specific in the specific project where I was manipulating a a carousel. Mhmm. This is inspired by Mike Matas. He's a design lead at at Love From, and and his portfolio carousel works in this way, and I wanted to see, like, there's so much nuance in the way that carousel works and the way you can drag down an artifact. And when you let go of that artifact, the way... Basically, almost like energy ripples out from that from that specific artifact and triggers a collision effect with the other artifacts left and right. Building out this... The side panel here right now helped me basically look under the hood Mhmm. Of of my own... Of of of the own Frankenstein that I created here [00:27:59] S0: Yeah.
00:27:59 · Aaron Epstein, Marvin Schwaibold
[00:27:59] S0: Yeah. [00:27:59] S1: With 91 prompts, and it just helps you dial in some of these some of these different some of these different parameters that are really important. Like, pull pull boost means the faster I drag this down, the stronger the stronger the boost is. You wanna play around with that toggle a little bit. It can't feel too intimidating or or too or too strong. Otherwise, the otherwise, the whole system just feels off. And I know when it feels off, but the back and forth with chat just doesn't work. Yeah. You need to be able to to to always expose those kind of those kind of values. [00:28:27] S0: It seems like a lot of... All the projects that we've looked at here and a lot of what you're describing is just having... Setting an unreasonably high bar, and now we have the tools to actually be able to meet it much faster than it would have taken before. Yes. And so what is the role of the designer? And and maybe even nondesigners, how should they be thinking about design? You know, a lot of the audience that watches this are, maybe founders of early startups that that maybe feel like they're engineers but don't have a design bone in their body Yeah. Or, designers that are maybe trying to figure out, like, could I start a company, or could I actually build the product? Yeah. I'm so used to, you know, designing a Figma and passing it off to somebody maybe where where you guys have been in the past. How should they think about themselves and being able to uplevel the way that they use AI to create higher quality design?
00:29:17 · Marvin Schwaibold
[00:29:17] S1: A lot of the way I keep thinking about AI in general is just it's an infinitely patient collaborator and and and and teammate. Codex won't get mad at me if I need 91 approaches at getting the animation correct. If I had done that with my engineer, they would probably flip out. But... So my my my my advice to to to everybody is, like... And it sounds kinda silly, but, like, tinker with the tooling. Like, you can go in and just describe what you wanted to do, and when you see a result, like, don't give up. Just just explain to them that this is not how you envision it. Send it a website where you really like the carousel animation, or give it a screenshot from from Save It or Cosmos of something that you... That that you think looks really beautiful. Show it a color palette, that it should start to copy for you, and just keep going back and forth and back and forth and kind of shaping your narrative together with with with the tool. I think that's that's that's that's really important. And for designers specifically, my trick or what I always learned was just, just try to copy. Like, even now, I'm I'm trying to imitate this this carousel animation that's been around for for quite a while because now I have an infinitely patient teacher and and friend that I can build it with. Mhmm. And and so now I can look under the hood, and that's, you know, I'm doing that in my own time on my own weekend without bugging any of the engineers because it's my experiment, and I wanna understand and and and decompile how how this thing is put together. And that teaches me how to be a better manager and how to be a better collaborator and be a better team member. And I think that's how we should be be be treating these tools.
00:30:43 · Aaron Epstein, S2, Marvin Schwaibold
[00:30:43] S0: Yep. That's that's great advice. [00:30:45] S2: YC's next batch is now taking applications. Got a startup in you? Apply at ycombinator.com/apply. It's never too early, and filling out the app will level up your idea. Okay. Back to the video. [00:30:59] S0: Should we review some websites? [00:31:00] S1: Yeah. I'd love to. Let's do it. Alright. Let's do it. For sure. [00:31:02] S0: First up, we've got n stack. So let's see. Okay. Yeah. You go. This is nStack, the only AI workspace you'll need. One powerful agent, one intuitive desktop workspace, and every tool you need to handle any task. Okay. [00:31:17] S1: I mean, I think right off the bat, I would say one thing that's very nice about it is the fact that they're emulating, obviously, the desktop in general. So it feels like you're on a desktop, and I think you can probably use these and explore these. And, I mean, you... I think what's nice about this is, like, you're basically just in their product already, and you're and you're using their product. Yep. [00:31:34] S0: I think I'm a little confused about what to use it for, though. It's like it's an AI... The only AI workspace you'll need, it's one desktop, every tool you need to handle any task. And it's hard when it's so broad to figure out what should I use this for. And maybe, literally, you can use it for anything. Yeah. But I feel like sometimes it's helpful. Like, what do you want the user to do when they hit this?