Introducing Potential AI...

Greetings, Chief Storytelling Officers.

Today is a special issue of this newsletter as I finally share the secret I’ve held since May.

I am the co-founder and Chief Storytelling Officer of Potential AI.

You may have seen the LI announcement (over 50,000 people did) and there’s much more to the story.

So first, what is it and more importantly what does it mean for you?

It’s storytelling AI to raise capital. I could bore you with all the details about training a model and building out all the constraints and scoring the model to help it improve and all those things but none of that really matters.

Nobody cares about the how email works, they just care that it does.

The same is true here. I nerd out on the finest of details when it comes to storytelling, psychology, brain science, rhetoric, tonality, oratory, and so many other things. That’s why I could build it but it’s not what matters to you.

Think of it this way…

You’re preparing for your next round of fundraising. It’s 8 weeks out from when you want to kick things off. Your current investors are telling you to build a deck and start getting things ready.

So that’s what you do. But the deck falls flat.

Then your investor asks you to pitch it to them without the deck. You fumble your way around like walking in the dark during the middle of the night. You don’t feel good about your pitch and neither does your investor.

Instead of all of that you come and start with Potential AI. (waitlist open)

You’re given a series of questions that are presented in a precise order to pull out the right information. First, it works through your Founder Origin Story. Next, you get your Startup Vision Story.

Each of them around 3 minutes long. Each of them with strong hooks and dismounts. Each of them built to make you an undeniable founder. Each of them built to make your company an inevitable massive success.

That’s what we do. That’s what Potential AI means for you.

Right now…because in the long run it will be the storytelling mentor you’ve always wanted alongside you on your journey. Think of it like Ted Sorensen with JFK. He turned JFK from a weak speaker into one of the most iconic storytellers, speakers, and leaders in history.

What if you could one day give a speech that had the same impact as JFK’s “We choose to go to the moon”?

Now let me go into more of the personal story behind this startup.

Last July I had a conversation with Matt Mochary’s Chief of Staff. You might know the name as he’s the guy who wrote The Great CEO Within and he’s also coached people like Naval, Brian Armstrong, and Sam Altman. Great reminder that even the best have high powered coaches.

When we were talking the same thing kept coming up over and over again. Build technology. The only way to scale myself would be through software.

I knew they were right. Back at that time I’d worked with around 50 founders privately to help them raise around $350 million in capital (we’ve since crossed $600 million). I could feel the ceiling as I only had capacity to work with 6-8 founders at any given time.

I wanted more founders to transform into incredible storytellers. I wanted more success stories. I wanted more capital raised using my approach that I know works.

I’m competitive. The name of my consulting firm (Competitive Storytelling) probably gives that away. So when it comes to founders raising capital, I want all the best founders using my approach and dominating the venture capital world. It’s just how I’m built.

So I set off on building the software version of me.

I talked to developers. I got quotes. I even ended up getting an MVP built.

I hated it.

It was clunky. It didn’t do what I knew it needed to do. It was a complete failure.

Months and too much money down the drain. I’d self-funded it so the pain was real. But it showed me what I needed if I was going to pull this off.

I went back to 100% focused on the coaching/consulting (I’ve never really known what to call my service as it blends a bunch of different things). As you can see the results from that focus have been incredible as in 1 year we went from 350m to 600m raised.

I love the one on one work I do. I work with some of the best founders in the world. The problem is I still knew two things.

First, I would hit a ceiling with the business because I can only work with so many clients at once to deliver the excellence I demand. Second, there were a hell of a lot of founders out there that wanted the help that I was turning away.

Some because my service is too expensive (and yes it’s expensive) and others because I didn’t have the capacity to take on any more work. Most of this year I’ve been fully booked.

So back in March I was talking with an investor who I respect and getting his advice. He said build software. It’s the way to scale.

In April I went out to SF and met up with one of my founders. He told me how he had started using AI and thought we could build an AI version of me. Sounded interesting but his startup is crushing it and he kept his focus there (as he should).

Pretty soon AI exploded everywhere and there were some crazy use cases starting to pop up. Harvey AI being one that caught my attention as a former trial lawyer.

My clients kept asking for a “Robbie in my pocket” to help them with frame control and answering tough questions. Everything started pointed towards one thing.

How could I turn my brain, my experience, and my approach into technology using AI?

That’s when my co-founder Rachel came to me and told me her idea. It was so aligned with what I’d been thinking about that we went to work on it in May.

I was still doubtful it could work.

I won’t sit here and say the last five months have been easy. They haven’t been. It’s a ton of work to build a startup especially as I still work with a small handful of clients to storytell and raise capital.

I will sit here and say that there’s no better place to build your Founder Origin Story and Startup Vision Story. There is no better place at putting together the storytelling that will raise capital. We’re building the only place founders will need to go when it comes to storytelling in this venture world.

We’ve tested it. It works.

So now I can take the stuff I love and do the work in the two most important ways. High touch, hands on work with the one on one clients at Competitive Storytelling and scalable to the masses with Potential AI.

I live in the trenches with my founders. I test and validate everything with investors. Now I’m also building a startup just like all the founders I work with.

Product roadmap, go to market, raising capital, recruiting engineers, and all the other fun stuff you all live and breath every day.

This is the quick story of Potential AI. I’ll be sharing much more of my story and the bigger story of Potential AI over the coming weeks, months, and years.

The most important story though is the one that helps you.

That’s why we’re building this company. It’s to turn each of you into a Chief Storytelling Officer so you can raise however much capital you need to turn your vision into reality.

Here’s to the storyteller.

Welcome to the team.

-Robbie