Y Combinator Startup Podcast
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?
00:31:34 · Aaron Epstein, Marvin Schwaibold
[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? [00:31:54] S1: Yeah. I mean, to to your point right now, like, from a visual perspective, it's very overloading. Right? You have Yeah. A lot of content in the sidebar. Yep. You have this chat history here that you can kind of scroll through. Then it seems like you have some sort of an interface here, but also kind of the main messaging Uh-huh. Of nStack sits right over here. It's hard for me to figure out exactly what to focus on first. Yeah. My German graphic design professor would always say when we were making posters in school, we were... I he... I was studying typography, he would always say that this poster doesn't dictate. It's not dictatisch. It means there's nothing in this poster right now that is drawing my attention. Like, I I don't know what to do when I look at it [00:32:29] S0: Yeah. [00:32:30] S1: Basically. Yep. I don't know what to look at first. [00:32:31] S0: Yep. Yeah. Do I click these icons? Do I go in the Slack like thing? Do I go in the chat? Am I texting [00:32:37] S1: the chat and talking to the chat here? Yeah. Why am I called Mark? [00:32:39] S0: Yeah. You're Mark, I guess.
00:32:39 · Aaron Epstein, Marvin Schwaibold
[00:32:39] S0: Yeah. You're Mark, I guess. [00:32:40] S1: I'm Mark now. I think feedback here, which would be nice, which probably would be, like, some of the some of the clutter here, would almost collapse Mhmm. And make it more around the the introduction and the headline and and what do I want the user to read and take away. Yep. And maybe a a simple way into a very quick demo of the tool or of the software offering would be really would be really important. But at least it's, you know, there's a... It's it's it's very whimsical and and feels kinda retro, which is nice. [00:33:08] S0: Yeah. And and there's always... Usually, or there should be one specific goal that is, like, the primary goal or the primary KPI or the the main thing you want a user to do when they hit the site. I'm not sure what it is here. Maybe it's, like, get started. Maybe it's talk to this agent. Yeah. But whatever it is, there's so many other things that are pulling your attention and distracting you from whatever it is the main goal is that they want the user to do. Yeah. And maybe the get started button is the is the primary CTA, but they have these other buttons over here [00:33:35] S1: Yeah. [00:33:35] S0: That were more in the middle that that looked exactly like those buttons. And so now there's multiple buttons that have the same color and are are calling... Yeah. It's like general engineering, marketing, get started. Yeah. What is the one that they want us to focus on first?