💀 Timing is Like Surfing

Bookasleeper's failure story, an idea in AI + relationship analysis, and fan AI-created music                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 January 04, 2024 | [Read Online]( [fb]( [tw]( [in]( [email](mailto:?subject=Post%20from%20Failory&body=%F0%9F%92%80%20Timing%20is%20Like%20Surfing%3A%20Bookasleeper%27s%20failure%20story%2C%20an%20idea%20in%20AI%20%2B%20relationship%20analysis%2C%20and%20fan%20AI-created%20music%0A%0Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fnewsletter.failory.com%2Fp%2Ftiming-like-surfing) Hey - It’s Nico. This is the first issue of 2024. This year, I’ll be working on Failory full-time for the first time ever. I started Failory in high school and then got into university. Throughout these last 5 years, I’ve been working on the project just a few hours a day during my free time. In mid-December 2023, I got my Business Economics degree and decided to start working FT on Failory. My goal for 2024 is to make Failory the best newsletter for startup founders. To achieve this, a lot of changes and improvements will be happening over the following months. But I can’t achieve this goal without your help. I want to co-build Failory along with you. Your feedback will directly impact which content I send, which sections I add, which guest authors I bring, etc. At the bottom of each email, you’ll find a survey in which you can let me know how I’ve done it on that issue. Besides that, you can always reply to my emails. I read and respond to every one of them. Okay, that’s all — here’s what I got today: - Timing is important for startups, and it’s like surfing 🤔 - An idea in the intersection of AI and social relationships 💡 - Fan AI-created songs are the next thing in the music industry 📈 FROM OUR SPONSOR Dreaming of creating content that ranks and draws customers, but unsure where to start? Meet [ContentShake AI](: a tool that makes writing top-notch copy as easy as having a coffee break. Designed for small teams and busy entrepreneurs, it’s your secret weapon for generating organic traffic and user engagement. Imagine combining ChatGPT’s AI capabilities with Semrush’s powerful SEO data—all in a friendly, easy-to-use package. Now, you can spin up SEO-friendly articles and social media posts that attract and retain your audience—all without breaking a sweat. With [ContentShake AI](, it's not just about writing content; it's about breathing life into your ideas with ease, telling your story, and watching your business grow. [Try it now for free: →]( 💰 Fundraising [Shield AI raises $300M]( at $2.8B valuation. [InCred raises $60M](, enters unicorn status. [Arkon Energy raises $110M]( to grow US Bitcoin mining center. Healthcare startup [Devoted Health raises $175M](. Robot homebuilding startup [BotBuilt raises $12.4M](. 📰 News Hard tech VC Countdown Capital [shutting down](. News startup The Messenger [begins layoffs](. Clearhaven Partners[closes new $580M]( fund. OpenAI[looking to raise new funding]( at $100 Billion valuation. Anthropic [reportedly on track to deliver]( $850M in annual revenue. 🔗 Resources [Lessons learned]( from building an app and failing. [Growth learnings]( from June, Figma and more. [Thread on business ideas]( to start in 2024. [How to accelerate growth]( with a lean team. [A list of industries]( VC’s investments have attracted since 2021. Sam Parr and Shaan Purri share [how they got their first 100 customers](. 🤔 THOUGHT Timing is Like Surfing In February 2020, Silvan Kraehenbuehl launched his startup Bookasleeper, a night train booking platform. Over the first month, Bookasleeper had 100’000 website sessions and generated tens of thousands of euros in revenue. But in March 2020, COVID hit Europe in full force, and train services were stopped entirely. They offered fight, but in September 2020, [Bookasleeper was shut down](. Silvan quickly picked himself up and joined the team of Rentouch, a remote visual collaboration software founded in 2012. In Rentouch’s case, the pandemic, its duration, and its restrictions were an upside: inbound sales started going in like crazy and the company scaled up quickly. By 2022, Silvan become CEO. In 2023, Rentouch was acquired by Scaled Agile in a successful exit. So what’s the lesson here? Rentouch was a moderately successful venture with few prospects of improvement until a worldwide, radically life-changing event came and tipped the business scales in their favor. [Timing matters a lot for startups](. You can’t predict timing; you can’t change it. But you can pay attention and understand where you and your company stand. You can see the wave coming, and it comes regardless of how prepared you are — so what you should do as a founder is ensure you’re ready. It’s also important to choose the right wave: your risk-tolerant nature makes you see opportunities left and right, but not all possibilities are worth exploring, and focus is a startup founder’s most prized possession. 💡 IDEA [tw profile: Justine Moore] Justine Moore @venturetwins [tw] Hearing multiple reports that the girls are exporting their WhatsApp messages and taking them to ChatGPT for relationship analysis Dec 22, 2023 340 Likes 17 Retweets 31 Replies AI + Relationship Analysis People are exporting their WhatsApp message history and importing it to ChatGPT for relationship analyses. The idea: Build a tool that makes this easier. The user connects the app to WhatsApp, iMessage, and Instagram with one click and selects which chat to analyze. The app then delivers a report with an analysis of emotional tones over time, communication styles of each one, conflict patterns and resolution advice, and ideas for improvement of the relationship. [Texts From My Ex]( and [DataRobot]( are two startups building in this space. 📈 TREND Fan AI-Created Music The above chart represents the interest in “AI music” over the last two years. The music industry has been one the most benefited (or harmed, if you ask some) by AI. In this niche, something I’m following is how fans are creating or transforming their favorite artists’ songs. Plenty of fake tracks went viral over the last year: - [Kanye West singing Hey There, Delilah](. - [Called Heart On My Sleeve, a fake song by Drake and The Weeknd](. - [NostalgIA, a fake song by Bad Bunny](. For fans, there’s nothing better than being able to generate hundreds of new songs that have lyrics and styles similar to those created by their favorite singers. This is why I believe there’s an opportunity to build tools that allow fans to create, listen, and monetize “fan AI-created music”, as well as solve licensing challenges. I’ve been playing with [Musicgen Remixer](, which turns a song into another style. 📰 CLASSIFIEDS 📞 Struggling with your startup? [I offer 60-minute strategy calls]( to discuss idea validation, MVPs, growth strategy, and more. 💡 Struggling to validate your startup idea? [I've created a course]( on how to use pre-sales to validate it. 📈 Struggling to achieve PMF? I've [written an eBook]( about the exact strategies used by Slack, Intercom, and Airbnb to achieve it. 💰 Struggling to raise funding? I've curated lists of [2,100 accelerators and incubators]( and [1,000 VC firms](. 📊 Looking to get in front of +40k startup founders? [Sponsor this newsletter](.​ 👂 How Was Today's Newsletter? - [🔥 Great]( - [😒 Meh]( - [👎 Not Interesting]( That's all of this week. Cheers, Nico Update your email preferences or unsubscribe [here]( © 2024 Failory 1309 Coffeen Avenue Ste 1200, Sheridan, Wyoming 82801, United States of America [[beehiiv logo]Powered by beehiiv](