The AI Startup Rethinking How we Learn

I'll be able based on the intent, the goal in their mind, understanding of user to dynamic generate the learning plan on the user behalf. So, this

represents a lot people do doom scrolling.

[music] Bring what as a concept that we want to build something free people from feed.

Ooh, that's a tough shot.

I'll be very I'll be very impressed. I

will try to impress.

[laughter] Thanks.

Jisong is the CEO of the free, a personal agent designed to make learning fun. The free creates interactive audio

fun. The free creates interactive audio lessons based on user intent and [music] top knowledge sources. It's extremely

personalized learning from your notes and [singing] spoken feedback, [music] letting you pick from different learning styles like humor based and even letting you control the tone and voice of your personal learning agent.

[music] Jisong scaled them to hundreds of thousands of users in only a few months, but even founders like Jisong could use a break.

[music] Thanks for coming, man. Thanks for

having me. Of course. I'll start us off with a break and then you need to explain what this is here that you brought me cuz this is so cool. Sure.

So, this book is actually generated by our own content model.

And this one have no author.

The all the true authors of this book is actually 50 builder of AI last years.

So, what we do is our engine we just feed into the name of this builder, 50 builders into our engine. Our engine

will do all the heavy lifting, search research paper they published last years, the interview they have, and then translate all these learnings into a

personalized book just for a 7-year-old kids called Lucy.

And so, it's truly personalized just for that girl in the language she can understand. And we treat that as token

understand. And we treat that as token to show in the future when people consume content, people should consume in truly personalized way. Yeah, I I guess that sums up what you guys are building very well. It's like very

personalized in that sense. That's like

your mission statement, I guess. It's

just like how to use AI to make learning fun and like very accessible. Totally.

How did you become like very passionate about that? Yeah, so when we when we

about that? Yeah, so when we when we start the companies, we look at around and say what AI can change. Mhm. And we

find okay, AI now is start to help people to draft email, send email, reply email. AI can help people to

email. AI can help people to like even do the sales. AI agent can do a lot of stuff. And when it's come to learning, especially for adult to learn, they still do it very basic and

rudimentary way. What we do is we get

rudimentary way. What we do is we get recommend by certain book, we purchase it, we we spend time to read the book, we get recommend for the YouTube videos,

we subscribe. I subscribe a lot of

we subscribe. I subscribe a lot of podcast. So, it's still very manual and

podcast. So, it's still very manual and not really be disrupted yet for AI. Mhm. So, we see a good opportunity to provide a better way

for people to consume and learn. Mhm.

[music] And in addition, I think also it's also a passion for both my co-founder and I during universities. I I'm not a big fan

during universities. I I'm not a big fan for classroom.

I I really enjoy the online class. And

when important reason is I can choose the speed of class. I can I always choose 10 I sorry, two times. I wish I have that time.

Sometimes is when it's very hard to understand, I just rewind it. So, I I think it's very basic way to manifest like how powerful it can be if learner

can control how they learn. And before

AI, what I can control is the speed and what time I can move fast, what time I should rewind. With AI, it can be

should rewind. With AI, it can be controlled more personalized. We haven't choose the

more personalized. We haven't choose the color yet.

Yeah, so the table's still open. Okay, I

think [music] this one. Okay, let's see it.

I don't know what you were talking about saying you're not that good. You made some some good some good

good. You made some some good some good contact.

Oh, I can I can hit the ball, of course.

[laughter] At least.

Sorry, I didn't mean to underestimate you.

So, you were doing a lot of angel investing also?

Yes. What have you learned from being on both sides of the table?

I will say it's always fun to be a builder. It's much fun to be a builder

builder. It's much fun to be a builder Yeah. than be a investor. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. than be a investor. Yeah, yeah.

So, when I was angel investor, mostly I put some of my personal money into my ex-coworker or the alumni from my school because I know them fairly well. I know they're

very good, so I put money on. But I

don't really participate into the process.

[music] And when I start to build my own company, the feeling become entirely different.

[music] I not just understand the surface of business. I understand ins and outs. So,

business. I understand ins and outs. So,

I would say the the angel invest experience does give me enough horizontal knowledge. I know like what

horizontal knowledge. I know like what sector, what it looks like, what is seed round versus angel round. But being

building own startup just give me a huge opportunity to learn a lot of stuff and also try to translate a lot of our vision into concrete product that can make impact to

many other people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And

you guys are obviously be doing very well. Was was there like a moment when

well. Was was there like a moment when you thought, "Okay, this is really, you know, kicking off?" Yeah. The first

signal we have is when we launched it when we want to launch it really quick, so we don't even build app. We quickly

web coded website. We don't even have login and sign up feature because takes time to build it.

And we find even without any login, sign up, certain user actually surprisingly come back every other day and they still retain after one week. I think it's a good

signal like people wanted. I remember at that time we have a pricing button, but it doesn't really functional.

[music] Mhm. But I do receive the email from one

Mhm. But I do receive the email from one of the user. He's not in US, I think he's in the is Europe. Like he he can say, "Okay, I

is Europe. Like he he can say, "Okay, I know right now it seems you haven't charged, but I make I know you're going to charge. Will you if I start to pay

to charge. Will you if I start to pay you now, is there any chance I can give some discount?" So, it's it's a time like you

discount?" So, it's it's a time like you don't even charge the user, but user start to asking these kind of questions.

That give me some signal. Yeah, yeah.

And the other signal I got is whenever we release new versions, we get a lot of love and hate from the user. So, the

love is something we have we make update. And also during Christmas,

update. And also during Christmas, Thanksgiving, a lot of users send me the message and say, "Hey, just want to say thank you for building the product." And

also hate is whenever we mess up something, we we ship really quick.

Sometimes we cause some bug and user will very annoying and say, "Okay, why you have the bug? My like my highlight all the highlights was

was gone." They're very

was gone." They're very panic about it. Yeah. But that's the moment I know people care about what we are building. Yeah, yeah. You know you

are building. Yeah, yeah. You know you have a good product when your customers are proactively reaching out to you asking you to to charge them. Yeah. And

then on the um the side of people reaching out in response to like different degradations of features, it reminds me of kind of the GPT-4 5 situation where they

degraded the old models and I guess that happens whenever you kind of give someone such a strong personality that they're interacting with like the right this customizable narrator and you can customize the tonality and they're

giving you your daily news. If you make a small change to that, I kind of understand why people start to get a little bit sticky to them. Totally. And

also that also what we learned through the way because you all thanks for using our product and [music] we right now provide different style for people to engage with the content. You can choose

deep version, like quick version or fun version. And through the way in the

version. And through the way in the middle of when we iterate our product, there was a version actually remove it.

But that after version, I received the most message from the user because they want this feature back. And

the learning through that is actually user still want a lot of controllability. They don't want be

controllability. They don't want be fully automate when they engage or when they interact with the product. Mhm.

I think that was translated like GPT-5 when they launched it, people feel like it's less [music] personal. They don't

know me. Yeah, agreed.

Ooh, nice. Yeah.

Ooh, that's a tough shot.

I'll be very I'll be very impressed.

[music] I will try to impress.

Thanks.

That's an amazing effort, to be honest.

Yeah, I guess we got excited when we were talking a lot about the product, but maybe it'd be helpful if you give kind of an overview, I guess.

Sure. So, so what we are building is Befreed and Befreed is a personal agent designed for learning. Designed for the learning for adult. So, different from

the traditional learning platform which you only provide static, [music] one-size-fit-all lesson, what we do, what we provide is choose truly personalized audio lessons in the format

like interactive audio lesson. So, user,

whatever land with our product, [music] they can choose to type the goal in their mind. Our agent as connected to a

their mind. Our agent as connected to a lot of different knowledge source and be able based on the intent, the goal in their mind, understanding of the user to dynamic generate the learning plan on

the user [music] behalf. And through the way user interact with our product, our memory, the agent memory of user will be keep updated. So, this plan and this

keep updated. So, this plan and this narrations in the audio lessons will be keep change and evolve tailor for the specific user. Mhm. So, [music] it's it

specific user. Mhm. So, [music] it's it has a persistent memory and gets kind of like iterately or iteratively smarter rather on you know, delivering you kind of [music] these personalized insights.

Yeah. And and we started to get into a bit about like the different tonalities, so you can give it like a deep research perspective where it actually [music] goes goes very granular. You can make it

more like humorous where it explains it in like maybe a funny more accessible way that you'll remember, but it's not like intellectually rigorous. So, you can do

intellectually rigorous. So, you can do that for the different narrators and then combine them so you get like different flavors of right these these kind of conversational styles. Exactly.

And what we observe the user want to use us, they are not just choose different style based on the content themselves.

They also choose different style based on their own mood. Let's say sometimes in the morning time they can want some quick because they do their morning routine like toothbrushing. They just

want to quickly get some idea. Sometimes

they want the deep. Like sometimes in the bedroom time they just want to have like a fun like lightweighted humorous versions. So, I would do

humorous versions. So, I would do observe even for the same user, same content, they choose to engage in different style. [music] Yeah. Yeah, it

different style. [music] Yeah. Yeah, it

makes sense. Like in the morning, right I'm driving to work I want like the no-nonsense, you know, give me the news.

Yeah.

Maybe I'm looking at like a harder topic uh and then maybe I want you to put it in kind of a funny or heuristic way I can I can remember.

Do you have any guess what style is the most popular one?

Oh, what style is the most popular?

Yeah.

Probably the humorous one?

Nah. Quick one?

Deep. Oh, so that's the last my last guess. That's what surprised me. But

guess. That's what surprised me. But

when we launched it, I think probably quick or fun. Yeah. But in the end actually deep. And deep usually take

actually deep. And deep usually take half hour to finish. But the main purpose for them come to our platform is not like podcast just information [music] informative consuming. They come to our

informative consuming. They come to our platform for the learning purpose.

And you can customize not only the voice but also like the tonality, right? So,

can I say give me like a middle-aged guy very angrily teach me about history. You

can I You can do something like this.

You can do it. Right now we actually some users is doing that. And

also some users was change the narratives by provide say okay, just like the book I show you. Some users say okay, try to explain because we have a lot of like user not native English

speaker.

They tells this you can use more common English word to narrate the entire audio lesson for me.

And now this kind of feature is buried [music] behind like only the power user know it. So, that's why we also building

know it. So, that's why we also building a new versions will make all these great feature be more available and easy to find for the new user.

And so now as we have the, you know, the sun setting on our our beautiful city in the background, maybe you want to paint a vision on your kind of future outlook. Like what

does the e-learning space look [music] like? You know, what are the exciting

like? You know, what are the exciting things still yet to come? Yeah, so our vision by building befree is empower each person to learn in the best way for them.

Uh I won't like quantify with a huge number like say trillion, billion. I

would more envisioned as a simple way like every morning when we go to the coffee shop and maybe I I choose Blue Bottle myself.

And when we people in the line, people we should use something quickly learned from befree. And after I my coffee is ready,

befree. And after I my coffee is ready, I learn something. Yeah. And we want befree has been built into people's lifestyle become part of their daily

life to empower the people after graduate from school to really achieve the goal in the way they want instead of just waste a lot of time

spending on the social media or other place. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

place. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Thought you're going to hit the bank shot.

No way. [music]

I [laughter] don't believe it.

Don't believe it.

I don't I don't believe it.

Surprise. I'm surprised, too.

I knew you were bound to hit a bank shot sooner or later with how hard you've been already been hitting them.

Oh my goodness.

Luckiness is very important for game and startup. That's why we play pool. It's it's symbolic. That's why I

pool. It's it's symbolic. That's why I chose it. Not not just because I like

chose it. Not not just because I like the game. And I guess I have to ask you

the game. And I guess I have to ask you since obviously everything you guys do Ooh. Ooh, I did not expect it to go in.

Ooh. Ooh, I did not expect it to go in.

How did you come up with the name befree cuz I know there's a good story there.

Befree is actually is a be free from feed.

So, this represents a lot of people do dumb scrolling brain rot as a concept that we want build something free people from feed instead of

keep consume the feed the algorithm machine generate for you. We want you to mindful learning through the [music] way. So, that's the origin of the name

way. So, that's the origin of the name of befree. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

of befree. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

I thought it might go in that in that direction there, but it's buy multiple other similar domain.

[laughter] It's like the the the the corporate story and then there's the true story.

It's a good email domain. [laughter]

I need to start doing something.

Don't Don't you dare.

OH MY GOD. WOW. NO.

Almost almost.

Ah, yeah, that's your guys mascot, right?

all the place in our product in our landing page because we want to give people a feeling is a personal feeling.

Because we build we we we a consumer product right now and I feel that it's very important because they give personal feeling.

[music] They make people can recall it is befree whenever they see the app. Yeah, yeah.

We take some time to bring up this app.

specifically. Yeah, [music] yeah. What

is that little guy? It's a white fish.

[laughter] Why is fish because when we look at we want the animal as our avatar and we try to find the any animal flying and

run the land I feel they all occupied by other company. [music]

other company. [music] And the fish is only a few left. So, we go with fish.

[laughter] Nice. Nice.

Nice. Nice.

Wow. Ooh.

[music] Oh, no. Almost.

Oh, no. Almost.

Oh.

Thanks for give me a [music] ride.

Don't do it. Make me look bad.

Good job. Wish you have fun. I good.

Good game. Good game.

I blew a four four-ball lead.

You just gave it to me, you know. Good

game.

Yeah well.

You uh you earned it. You earned it.

[music] Good game, my friend. Good game.

All right.

Awesome.

So, with that yeah. Oh, okay.

Thank you.

This is not good. I think I've done four interviews and I'm two and two so far. Yeah, so not a good I've lost

so far. Yeah, so not a good I've lost half my games.