We Were Going to Shut Down Our Company…Now We’re Worth $700M | Eric Simons (Bolt)

so we were you know we were at the end

of the year we were going to start

figuring how to spin things down and so

we had a handful of ideas and like I i'

mentioned like we had tried the idea for

bold and February last year and the

models weren't good enough and so in may

we got an early preview of Sonet we're

like this whoa like this changes

potentially everything this is really

good and so July 1st we green L it and

then in October we launched it and in

the first two months alone we went from

0 to 20 million of brr in the first two

months it's just kept growing since then

and to buy know I mean it's like buy

traffic Revenue whatever I mean this is

like the number one web-based code Jen

thing in the world and I mean in

developer stuff I think it's second only

to like cursor which is crazy cuz it's

been out four months or something like

the speed here is wild but yeah I mean

we went from you know being ready to

shut down the company you know to to you

now something that's huge all right

welcome everyone my guest today is Eric

the CEO of boat uh boat is an AI coding

platform that's exploded from uh 0 to 3

million users and uh I'm excited to

watch Eric demo building a mobile app

from scratch with AI and also talk about

how his overnight success was actually

seven years into making so welcome Eric

awesome yeah thank you for having me I'm

stoked to be here yeah so shall we dig

in should I start with just to Dive

Right In show I demo this thing yeah

let's do it man I mean you just launched

product so I'm excited to take a look

yeah heck yeah yeah so for those who

haven't like heard of bull before it's

like you know a text to app product and

so I'm going to go pull my screen here

and so it's really the simplest

interface in the world what do you want

to build and there's just an input box

you can type anything and so we started

with just full stack web applications we

still do that insanely well and this

week we just announced that we also now

support building native mobile apps for

IOS and Android so you can go from idea

to App Store just by prompting it's like

pretty mind-blowing so I'll show you

just I'll start with one example you

know make me we have this like build a

mobile app with Expo so we partner with

Expo if folks are familiar but they've

got like the best react native tooling

and ecosystem in the world so this it's

really cool so build me a mo I say is

build me a mobile app that and I'll just

say I'll start with like a simple one is

a clone of Spotify see if this works and

so this this is the core experience of

Bolder so it kind of at this point kind

of looks like chat gbt or something

until this right side of the screen

comes in we have a full developer

environment that's like booted inside of

the browser this is what we spent the

past seven years building was like this

technology to like boot an OS inside of

your browser tab right but any so it's

getting to work it's installing all the

FES we need it's writing all the code

it's going to go ahead and quickly spin

up a uh a clone of of Spotify here and

one of the main I think one of the main

things people really love about bolt is

that we've done a lot of work to make

the the actual user interfaces it it

builds to be really beautiful and so

once this thing boots up you'll kind of

get to see that but but that's this is

kind of the the core of the experence

and it took this very seriously it's

making a very sophisticated clone here

of Spotify I I mean I one of the things

as a beginner program where it's just

like installing all the librar are pay

ass so it's nice that it's doing all

that for you already yeah y exactly

exactly that's like what I think you

know especially like with Bol the bir

directional you know communication

between the operating system layer and

the AI agent the AI agent have has

complete access to all the processes and

the runtime and all the errors that are

happening the state of the file system

whatever have you so it can when things

go wrong you can really dig in and drill

in and so you can see here this native

iPhone app

here that's great man yeah this looks

like Spotify right you know it's pretty

insane how well so you kind of get the

idea and this is just the UI right so we

can keep prompting and building on top

of this and so this is like I think

someone that you people use Spotify or

music as you kind of get an idea I mean

that that's zero shot right like that's

just it's just off the Dome just whip

that thing up so like let's maybe start

another app and we were kind of talking

V before they like what would be kind of

a cool app to build and so you know I I

was mindblown to find out that like CM

the meditation app is worth like three

billion dollars you

know yeah it's kind of wild so it's like

you know you want to start a three

billion dollar company right

now let's do it let's do it man yeah all

right so I build app that is you know a

simple meditation app have it be you

know

beautiful and

minimalistic and so this is like you can

you know obviously you can like you know

create like a PRD type dog where you can

like really outline what you want want

if you want to be specific but a lot of

times it's just it's fun and you

actually get really great results just

by kind of giving your general idea and

then throwing Vibes at it you know like

what does it mean to be beautiful and

ministic find out yeah you know this is

like I guess like kpo is you got the

vibe coding thing it's yeah I mean it's

kind of true I mean you can really go to

this thing and you know give it you what

the sort of feel you're looking for if

like a Super Genius Like kath is do it

that you know like I have no shamee in

just like Vibe coding too like totally

it's fun I mean then like it's not like

you're going to go and you know at this

point with where Frontier AI is at it's

not like you're going to go and someone

at at JP Morgan Chase is not like Vibe

coding transaction you logic right but

if you're building user interfaces it's

a great you know you just be very

creative and kind of spitball with the

thing so one thing I want to show here

actually so you can pull out your phone

and do this too so um the cool

integration with Expo is I we have a

mobile preview you can see on the web

which I showed earlier but if you

actually Expo has this app called Expo

go you just download that and you pull

out your camera app and take a picture

of the QR code what it'll actually do is

over the air in real time it will take

the app that you are building and build

it up on your phone hopefully this works

you know across wherever you're where

are you based out of actually uh I'm I'm

in a bear yeah okay so you're probably

connected to the same point of presence

that I am for this thing all right but

so I just booted this up this is here's

the app that we're looking at on my

phone here this meditation app and you

can actually use it it's like complet

clearly you it's like functional I can

go between the different tabs and

whatnot right and so as I'm prompting

this thing it will actually just update

like live on my phone right so it looks

like for example this timer this is just

like a placeholder that we got here

right so I can actually say you know

make the timer you know work and just

hit enter and it's going to get to work

and actually go and and make that timer

happen how does it not to make like

multiple tabs and stuff like you have

some like default prompt or something

like you know we've got some default

prompt like things that you know we

think it'll you know the different like

Fast tracks of like hey we it'll have

you'll have the best experience kind of

doing these things and you kind of

injecting you know contacts that'll you

know make more holistic sort of apps

right and now if I go ahead and click

here it should start counting down and

it does right looks like we can turn on

ambient sounds and I don't know if this

works right now let's see it's probably

a placeholder no up put some sounds yeah

so let's add some sounds like I let's

see why you know normally like if you

want the best experience probably go

some mp3s and drop it into bolt which

you can do but I'll just say you know

make the sounds actually play real

sounds you know when you click them like

the this is like this goes against

everything I know as a p man like these

kind of like kind of requirements it's

just

like like if I tell engineer this like

you know I don't think he'll be very H

happy yeah no not at all right not at

all and the kind of the cool thing is

like before you know like we're just on

the whim just prototyping idea which I

think is cool right because it's like

you know stack bletz my co-found and I

this we started backlits B like out of a

coffee shop you know just SP what would

be kind of cool ideas to try right yeah

we're like the AI will write code that's

you know not valid or you know there's

something missing and this is like one

of the nice Integrations that we've got

in bold is it will actually capture that

and then you can you know actually do

something useful with it right and and

and maybe after this let's try to make

it look a little bit more like calm like

maybe you can just like upload a

screenshot or something like do it we

can do it and let's see if this works

hopefully yeah okay there we go cool

this might be it might be a browser

issue

and pull it up on my device let's see if

we can get this rolling this this's

another actually cool thing about bold

is like if something's going wrong in

the dev environment you can actually

just refresh the page it like it's

booting an entire operating system from

scratch in here right if you ever used

any of these other online IDE code

things big problem is like you the dev

environments this happens with Dev

environments locally they just like go

wrong right so be able just like boot

the thing from the ground up here and

just have the dev server be completely

starting up from scratch it's on on

depencies writing the code huge

Advantage because you now it's you

before there was some error happening in

the dev server now it's not happening

and that's just because something in the

operating system you know got wonky just

like repo a computer ex 100% right so

that's and when you think about web apps

all the time like stuff happens with

these things right and you how do you

get back to your fresh date you hit the

refresh button and but if you're using

like a cloud VM to do that work that's

like not how it's going to work right so

that's the general idea so we can add

whatever functionality we want but it

went out and grabbed MP3s for these

things and you know have some of them

work or not okay well

it it tried its best to find MP3s that

would work but yeah that's the general

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episode let's try to redesign the UI a

little bit let's try maybe like just do

like just like a Google image search or

something yeah we it okay so maybe like

what like get a screenshot of Comm yeah

like the Comm time timer thing or

something yeah yeah let's do it let's

see what it can do here there we go this

I like that UI that looks cool yeah yeah

yeah okay let me let me go ahead and

save this and then I will go ahead and

over here and I will drag her in I'll

say you make the timer look like this

UI and's see what it does you'll get to

work it's doing

it I mean I I feel like these uh AI Coen

tools like both are like really

exceptional at front and stuff right to

they like

yeah look at that oh nice it knows to

expand it that's funny we go like

response if you get a little bit bigger

but yeah so it's like going in and out I

I can then prompted say make that Circle

you know

make the breathing

smaller and go and do that but yeah I

mean you took that because before there

wasn't even a circle I mean it was like

there's like a timer countdown right

like this thing it just kind of

ascertained okay yeah like this is

you're going to start the breathing

thing and it's going to like it should

probably go like that right so it got

that from a screenshot I didn't we

didn't say anything about that yeah need

to expand the circle yeah

exactly and and how how would I actually

deploy this to the App Store may be like

is it already show that or yeah so the

way that you deploy this look I said now

it's like fitting probably within the

viewport and it's doing its thing it's

got the timer content out there but yeah

I mean to make a mobile app like this I

mean I this would you know get X code

and all the stuff St it would be insane

and I don't know how half this stuff

works I don't most of it works right and

you want like you're like hey this looks

really great I want to get this to the

App Store so we actually up in the top

right here you can actually you can

build a web version of this if you want

and then you instantly that'll be online

want go to the App Store you can click

deploy to App Store and that takes you

over to Expo so what Expo does they all

the tooling kind that you're seeing

there like running this app Etc that's

all their stuff right um they also have

this thing called EAS that is basically

like they're FastTrack actually like

building these things and and getting it

into the App Store and so for both Apple

Google you have to sign up for

individual accounts right uh to go and

um actually do that but then um EAS you

can run from like command line uh

whether it's like locally or in Bolt you

can actually say take this Expo react

native project they will bundle it up

and then using your app store

credentials they will publish that to

test flight or actually into App Store

review but it's like you tap like you

know out of five or 10 minutes maybe if

you already have all this stuff set up

like you're you register on Apple or

Google and then you just link e with

those like it's wild how fast it is to

actually get deployed I think the Expo

folks actually made a video going from

like idea to App Store with the launch

of this week I think we're doing a live

stream with them I think like next week

or something but yeah they've done a

phenomenal job you know of making this

crazy easy to actually take these things

to the App Store yeah I love how you

kind of partner with these other uh

platforms like you know Expo for

deployment to App Store and also

superbase for dat databases right to

extend BS functionality yeah yep

absolutely yeah so up here if we want to

add a you know Su based database we can

click so if we want to have like user

log in and let people you know track

their meditations or share it with FES I

don't know yeah you can build full stack

web and mobile apps with this you know

and yeah like there's you know expo's

great at mobile superbase is great at

database the hosting like we do a web

build of this thing that's using netlify

to do the hosting so we've got great

Integrations with you the best companies

in the world that that specialized in

this stuff just built in out of the box

and how about if I uh like if I want to

refer a change or like can you like walk

through some of that yeah yeah so like

this one right so you know I said make

the breathing Circle smaller and so

right here on every message there's a

you the most recent one there's an undo

button and on all the other ones you can

say roll back to checkpoint right so if

I if let's say we didn't like this

change I could just you know hit revert

and what'll happen is it's now we have

the the big circle back again oh was

fast that's like almost instant instant

yeah cuz it's we're checkpointing every

single message turn and so then you

would basically just calculate the diff

apply it and then you know the dev

server picks that up and recompiles it

you know usually within milliseconds

that's great man because yeah I I was

using some other ID the other day and

like you know I have to use like GitHub

and stuff and like you do all commands

yeah just kind of a pain too yeah it's

like a huge pain right and often with

these with you know the reality of using

these AI you prompting based you know

text to app things is like the AI is

just going to do stuff sometimes it's

going to take what you say it's G like

kind of be you know do something that

you know is following your instructions

but like isn't and you're like oh crap I

need to roll that back and like change

what I what I actually want then like

you know and so what you need to have

this sort of you know having that be a

fast process where you have to like dig

around how like check out a specific

command or you know whatever right is a

pretty key part of you know the

experience you know to allow to actually

use these things well okay so do you

have any uh like can you give me like

your top you know three to five tips for

actually gting the most out of both like

Beyond just like Vibe Co coding like

what are some tips to actually yeah if

you're like really building something if

you're really if you're building like a

an app or you're not just like you like

well we're just having fun here right

but if I really wanted to like take this

to production I mean a lot of this stuff

you're sitting down and kind of planning

out like hey what am I looking for right

like having a clear idea of okay what

should the different pages be how should

they like like what should generally be

on them how should it work like what

exactly I'm looking for because when you

come into the prompt here it's like

coming in with that information and you

can like you actually list out the

different things you need has a huge it

has a huge swing on this thing's ability

to actually make an app that's going to

really fit your your requirements and

then with that you want to break it into

concrete you don't want to like just

throw an entire PRD at this thing or

whatever you want to like break it into

concrete tasks where like those an

engineer right it's like the same way

you would start out if want to build

this app what we do we would build out

just building the UI we would be like

okay does the breathe functionality work

okay yes it does and this like generally

looks good okay let's go to this tab

does this a look and function you know

like without all that Core Business

logic does the skeleton this thing

actually like work yes or no right once

you kind of get that done then you go

okay now let me actually add let me add

my database let me add authentication

like let me go like let me go get the

actual MP3s to play this thing from you

know all those sorts of things like you

want to start adding the logic in once

the UI is complete because you're kind

of just delineating then like what the

AI is focusing on doing it's not

focusing that on like UI stuff it's just

focusing on hey when that button gets

clicked you're going and you know making

you're going and like registering the

user in superbase right versus if you

were saying okay make me a login page

that has superbase right up and like it

sometimes it can do that right but if

when things go wrong you have to like

completely revert but even if some

things are working for that one tromped

it's like you can't granularly kind of

roll back that okay no no that just that

one part wasn't quite right you know

because all this stuff is combined in a

mega you know commit basically from the

AI you know so that that would be kind

of my recommendation this is like anyone

you know Building Products in general

it's like have a plan and then you know

kind of like really think through what

you want break down you know those into

specific trunks start with the UI first

get the UI to really be great and then

break out the chunks of okay now like

let's make the login page actually log

you let's make the registration B

actually register you for account you

know and then like that sort of thing so

you want to you do want to wrun like a

PRD orbe help get AI to help you write a

PRD but you don't want to you don't want

to feed the whole thing into B at once

it would get confused so you want to do

it one by one that's what you're saying

typ that would be my recommendations and

again you can actually get good results

by just feeding the entire thing in and

zero shot it'll like get it all right or

most of it right you know but it's it

you know it's you can try that and if it

doesn't work then you can just say okay

let me just start from scratch and just

kind of break it out piece by piece then

right but yeah so but generally if you

do the work of having a PRD you know

just B which is like just a fancy way of

saying like having a plan like of like

how each page works how the

functionality will work it'll allow it

puts kind of you know bumpers on what

the agent is going to actually go and do

which which is just really helpful for

you to actually get to the end zone and

have a great app really quickly you know

and how about I think you probably stop

sharing now chat about stuff yeah but

how about like when I get stuck in this

like you know Doom Loop right where like

he was making bugs like so so obviously

you can hit the button like fix fix the

bug but what if it doesn't work yeah

good question I mean this is like this

is kind of the problem with all of these

things is that inevitably you will

you'll end up and I think if you like

try and fix a bug hit the fix bug button

like more than three times in a row with

us we go okay like let's take a step

back like you know can you describe what

you know what you're seeing can you go

and you know do some ancillary research

on what is happening with this you know

Etc I think so today the that's like

kind of the you know the best way to get

unjammed is like to you know go like in

our Discord and say hey I'm running into

this thing you know or Google and see if

there's information you know that you

can find that'll be helpful the kind of

the next stuff we're rolling out that's

cool we announced this one already which

is it's called like the bolt Builders

but basically you know often times you

just kind of need someone who's you know

like an expert you know on development

stuff to like step in for like anywhere

from like 10 minutes to like 30 minutes

right to just come in help figure out

what's going wrong you know and then and

get you on your way and so we're

actually rolling out a program like in

bold there's GNA be a button where you

can say hey like connect me with someone

live that can like go and punch in it's

like you there's all this stuff people

are like AI is going to replace

developers like no it's not like it's

not like the developers are more

important than ever but they just get to

focus on solving hard problems instead

of just you know slamming out HTML and

CSS right and that's kind of one one

aspect of something we're rolling out

and then the second one is just there's

been a lot of work being done on

reasoning models that are you know

making a huge difference in how

effective the buying be and we we're

beginning to roll this out now by

default in Bol where when you say like

when an error occurs you say hey fix

this thing it's we're going and doing

you know multiple different passes

across different models I mean different

reasoning models to get like you know

sort of like mixture of experts sort of

opinion on okay what is oh than yeah

what's actually happening here right and

solving it and that stuff is pretty

effective so I think over as new models

out and they keep improving Etc it's

like where you know the erors that you

run into where you need to raise your

hand for developers is you know going to

keep going down and approach zero right

but yeah that's kind of the it's a

two-pronged approach with like

technology and people you know this is

how it's done so if I keep running to

buzz on boat you actually tell me to

calm down like maybe show the calm

screen it's

like sit here and meditate for a minute

just quick and then you can keep

promting yeah yeah it does I think in

the m like says like hey like listen

like you've hit you've hit the fixed

Buton a couple times you know you might

want to go and here's our Discord like

see what's going on or like you like

blah blah you I mean because it's like

people will just kind of sit there and

just keep hammering and which is really

frustrating and for people that haven't

done a lot of development before

understandably it's like there's a

button that says fix it so why wouldn't

I click it right or like attempt fix or

you know and so it's just you know you

keep hammering that thing but the

reality is like you know often there

there's some context that's missing and

you know especially is it if it's like

context is specific to how your code

base is set up which these things end up

you know all specializing at some point

or another you you need to have that

additional context either come in from

another human from a Google search you

did or something right or like whatever

have you but or you have a reasoning

model that's like going and you know

thinking hard about it and it's like oh

maybe that's it you know so yeah I I

think it's really smart to build the

reasoning stuff into Bol because like

normally what I do is I copy the code to

like chaty B3 or something try to get to

solve it but like you know it doesn't

have all context off all my files

exactly yeah exactly exactly so so that

the early stuff we've been doing on that

it's very effective at you know really

improving the debugging experience

because it's you know has full access to

the contacts that's a key differenti man

if you guys saw that because like I find

with these Coen tools it's kind of like

the startup curve like you start like oh

this is so this is so amazing and then

you get stuck in this loop it's like oh

this thing is not not working and then

eventually hopefully people figure it

out and get back on a path you know yeah

totally I mean that that is that that is

the Challen ver us and all the other

stuff in this is like you know and I

think the thing with the Frontier Model

they're they just keep getting better

and better right so I think like one

year ago we tried building bu and it

wasn't possible because the models at

the time just weren't good enough and

now here we are right it's like now you

can actually like you know zero shot web

and mobile apps you know where like

generally like you can build you know

meaningful stuff with these things and

you will run into errors with any of

these tools but there erors where it's

like today you just have to like go

Google stuff and whatever have you

tomorrow it's like it these things are

just not going to make those errors

right period these entire classes of

problems are just not going to be

problems and I say tomorrow I mean like

literally like in the next couple of

months I think we're going to see some

new models potentially coming out that

just you know really are step function

improvement over this stuff you know

it's nice to kind of work on a startup

where like you know you have your

engineers but you also have this like

these giant companies spending billions

of dollars like making your product

better essentially right totally yeah I

mean that's I mean that that you know

that for us to you know yeah I mean it's

Bol wasn't you know when we launched in

October could you start taking off like

a rocket it was like you

know we were you know it took us about a

month to kind of like really get our

bearing straight of of kind of what was

going on here and but it became pretty

clear like okay this is yeah the Coen is

it's G to it makes sense because

software is deterministic like it either

when you write code and it execute it

either runs without errors or it doesn't

and so I compare that to like if you

have to make an LM that's like good at

law is subjective like it's like what

how did the judge feel about what was

society's general feeling at that time

about that it's like that's not

deterministic right and so it's hard to

do reinforcement learning you know on on

that type of that's like most problems

right kind of are those S things

software is not software is not that and

then that's what anthropic I think

really identified they're like we can

make the best coding models by just

doing a ton of reinforcement running on

these things and so I think we're going

to it makes sense that they are getting

better uh faster than kind of any of

these other areas right that the ls

could be used for and that it's probably

only going to accelerate I I want to

mention one use case that most people

might not know about with bolt so it's

actually pretty good for like like when

my designer makes a mockup and then I

want to explore some variations right

and and then before I had to be like hey

you know please can you please explore

this variation for me here is why but

now with b and these other tools I can

just put their design into B and be like

hey can you make this like you know two

columns or can you try this and and then

I can show them what it looks like like

almost right right the bat you know yep

totally so like that's C po I think for

PM oh huge yeah it's huge it's huge

right and even for like you know this is

what you're saying is actually one of

the main use cases that that we see

companies PMs and designers entrepre

using us for is like you this isn't like

hey you have to build your entire

company using this app sort of thing

some we have startups that are launched

to make full stack apps and making money

doing it right but when you look at

existing companies especially where they

have existing code bases the value of

this is instead of today if you want to

make a a high fidelity prototype right

typically you're going to do that

entirely in figma where you can click

between these static screens you know

and that's like a lot of work to like

lay all that stuff out right whereas if

you can just like Take Your Design

system your different components you

dump that into bolt and then you just

say okay may me a web app or a mobile

app that has this page with the D

requires this page that da da da hit

enter zero shot probably comes back with

something that's pretty usable and you

can refine over a couple of prompts boom

and that's like a real app like you say

here's an iPhone app take a screenshot

of this QR code try it and user what do

you think and actually feel it right

actually like actually not like Hey how

do you think this would feel in this

figma screen it's like CS the mobile app

you know like just like how does it and

that's like you know way faster for the

product Dev Elevate product Discovery

process you know and so I think that I

think we're you know we're already

seeing a lot of companies start to do

this where they're just doing all of

that stuff in Bull you know like they

did high level designs like the design

system whatever in figma and then

they're taking that and just putting in

Bol and that's what action making their

prototypes of stuff you know that's

amazing dud yeah it's easier for me to

generate the real app with Bol then to

like try to fit with like Auto layout or

whatever F components there exactly and

that's you know but before it's like

Unthinkable to like go to the code

prototyping stage first to that's like

expensive right to have developers SP

ders whipping up you know it's like

that's Unthinkable to but the equation

is completely changed now where it's

cheaper and faster to have a real coded

prototype and that's yeah yeah it's

amazing it's amazing so so so Eric I

want to switch gears a little bit and

talk about your company building JY like

I think most people don't realize you

spent the seven years bu this company

before boat came out of nowhere can you

talk about like you know like basically

right before you guys launched boat like

what was going on and like you know what

happened afterwards whole thing yeah

yeah yeah yeah I mean you so my I

started this with my co-founder Albert

he and I've been like childhood best

friends since we were like 13 we grew up

street from each other in Chicago and he

I learn how to write software you know

when we were 13 and just we've been

building web apps and stuff ever since

and like products and startups and

whatever and the core Insight that we

had of starting stack blist which is

like the company behind bolt and you was

the first product of this company you

stack.com was like a webbased IDE the

Insight we had was actually it kind of

it came from like when we first came to

Silicon Valley we had the Good Fortune

of bump into Dylan field Evan Wallace

when they were starting figma and this

is back in like 2012 and so we got to

see kind of the story play out for those

guys with what they were doing and back

in 2012 like first like seed round or

series that they raised or whatever they

didn't even have they didn't have a

design tool they had a demo of a 3D ball

dropping into water inside of a browser

Tab and the pitch was basically browsers

have gotten really powerful they can now

do complex 3D graphics rending with webg

and the pressor web assembly because of

this we think that we can make a design

tool we're have to create a new

rendering engine for webgl or whatever

but like if we do that we can bring

design to the web just like Google BR

docs and we'll change everything and

obviously we know how that story you

know played out for them now and it was

but it was this classic like deep

technology you know browser play and so

in 2017 2016 2017 we saw the same deep

technology browser PL emerge but for

development and so specifically there

was some apis that landed like web

assembly and shared memory and service

workers and we were like oh well like

for the first time ever you could

actually write an operating system in

web assembly like Bo Bo inside of the

browser tab so it boots like super fast

like 100 milliseconds could be like a

couple of megabytes in size you have to

write it from scratch but if you could

do that you could run full web

development tool chains in the browser

so you like use the web to like build

the web and which is kind of crazy you

can't do that right like that seems like

something that the you know browser

should be able to like have built in

capability to like build you Windows has

uh Visual Studio Mac has xcode the web

has nothing so that was the origins and

really was like we wanted to build the

tool that we wish we had when we were 13

you know out a code and heck for

everything we built since then whereas

just you go to you know instead to spend

you know days weeks or months like at

big companies it takes like a month just

to get onboarded to the code base and

have your environment set up locally

like it would be great if you just open

a browser Tab and it just works you have

even solid thing right that makes sense

yeah so that was kind of the core the

core bet of the company we got that

technology to work it took us like four

or five years to really nail that and

but the big challenge we ran into then

is like developers had no interest in

leaving their local

environments a lot of developers were

using the product for free and it was

like you know widely adopted open source

and stuff we couldn't figure out the

monetization aspect and so you know last

year we were you know the company's kind

of on the Rocks because we were like we

got to figure out how this like

commercially makes sense to to yeah to

make a to be a company to be when you

raise Venture Capital you have to you

know you can't just sit around and you

know just make cool technology it has to

actually have real tangible business

value that can grow quickly and so we

you we at the end of the we're going to

start figuring out how to spin things

down and it's we had a handful of ideas

like hey here's different things we

could try that would be you know really

interesting and like I'd mentioned like

we had tried the idea for bold in

February last year and the models

weren't good enough and so in may we got

an early preview of SAA and we're like

this whoa like this changes this changes

potentially everything this is really

good and so July 1 we greenl it and then

in October we launched it and in the

first two months alone we went from zero

to 20 million of AR in the first two

month since just kept growing since then

and it's to my know I mean it's like buy

traffic and revenue and whatever I mean

this is like the number one webbased Cen

thing in the world and I mean in

developer stuff I think it's second to

only to like cursor but which is crazy

because it's been out four months or

something like the speed here is wild

but yeah I mean we went from you know

being ready to shut down the company you

know to you now something that's now

something that's huge so what this

because there's a lot lot of competitors

man there's like vzero and like rep

replate like what was the secret between

you know scaling to from zero to three

million in like four four months yeah

yeah zero to three million users you

mean yeah like um I think I mean the

technology we've been working on like

booing the operating system in the

browser thing we that's called Web

container what we made and that is

really the that's the unique

differentiator because all the other

tools in the market when you go to them

and you say hey make me an app they have

to provision a cloud VM to do that and

and so often the free tiers of these

things are very limited because they you

know otherwise people are going to be

you know mining Bitcoin or hosting

fishing sites or whatever because s's

got to pick up the bill for that cloud

BM right you can all the networking that

happens there so if they're ddosing

people with it like that's on you as the

operator right and the experience as an

end user just the latency is sucks like

every keystroke has to be synced to a

server synced back and so it's really

hard to manage these things because like

as we saw like you know like on the demo

I did it's like sometimes these things

will just like get into a weird State

and you need to like just reboot it you

know how do you do that when it's like

it's a cloud VM at the end user doesn't

control and you have like you know

millions of people using this how do you

do that how do you do that reliably and

I think that's the challenge a lot of

people are are running into and then

whereas with Bol all the computer is

done locally on the user's device just

like how figma works just like how

Google Docs work like when you go to

figma they don't spin up a cloud VM for

every user that's using the product oh

they just it's running locally on your

device and that's the same thing that's

happening with B like we're not having

to spin up a VM for every single user so

we have like a very permissive free tier

it's a great experience because there's

no latency it even works offline if you

disconnect to your internet you can keep

like editing code and stuff and still

works so that's like the big it's kind

of like an under the hood difference

that you wouldn't like you wouldn't see

it you know what I mean like even if

you're technical a lot of people are

like what this is like not using a cloud

VM you know but when you it's that the

things that you notice in the experience

is that it's faster it is more reliable

like you can hit refresh and get back to

a clean state right things are wonky or

whatever right you know there's not

there's permissive Freeds here because

you know there's you have to worry about

people mining Bitcoin um got Al some

people have come like we've seen in our

analytics they're installing Bitcoin

monitors and they're sitting there and

we're like I don't think you I don't

think you know what's happening like

you're using your electricity to buy the

Bitcoin that's funny anyways so so I

mean yeah from any user perspective they

don't know anything about cloud cloud

FMS but like the speed and the

Simplicity I think is like for for for

for me at least that is like the the

fror right you know yeah and and the

reliability too because a lot of these

other things it's just you'll get

disconnected there's some like kind of

cryptic error message that you go di in

and be like oh this thing ran out of

memory and then yeah I mean some weird

thing like that right um and then and

that and anyone who's worked in Dev

environments locally this stuff breaks

all the time it just there for a million

different reasons and so that is really

the challenge is like if you want to

provide a very reliable service you know

and that's if you want to grow big like

have lots of people using your products

you have to scale reliability in a very

you know a very direct way it's like why

is Chipotle so so great it's like you

can go anywhere in the world with a

Chipotle and that burrito is going to

taste like the same you know it's like

it's great right okay chipy up with Co

that not absolutely yeah heck yeah yeah

you know like that's you know I or

insert your favorite like you know large

you know but great you know sort of

company of choice right yeah I I also

like how you made the system prompts

open source like what was the decision

behind doing that you know yeah

unconventional it was like a very

uncomfortable one but we were you know

but we were like as we were building

bold we were looking out just you know

like in the open source world I mean

typically the open source world is like

a ton of great stuff you know where it's

like okay there's got fav reference on

this blah blah but for this stuff there

was really not a lot and so and the more

we thought about we were just like this

just doesn't seem it doesn't seem like

there's a real strategic Advantage here

like for us like we we were like if

there is going to be something that

differentiates us it's like web

container it's like that in browser they

experience that right yeah the system

prompts you know every everyone figures

out how to get around the system prompt

so you like protect your everyone's

gonna find out anyways and on top of

that like we we're we're gonna let's

just open source like the the core of BU

like let's just open source the first

version of this thing so people can play

around with it and like you know let's

see if you know we've been doing a lot

of work in open source for the past you

know five seven years here so it's like

there's tangible benefits that are kind

of ineffable but like but are very real

where people adopting your Open Source

Products really is that is a tide that

raises whatever boats your company has

and that is exactly what we've seen

happen with Bol we're like we're the

only folks in like the web based AI

coach like that have anything open

source meaningfully much less like the

actual product like you can run bolt

like locally or host it yourself

whatever with whatever model and that's

been amazing because you have our system

process everyone's the open source world

is like tweaking these things they're

like finding out stuff we didn't know I

mean it's basically like the world is

getting to collaborate and do R&D on

what are the best models for cjun like

what are the best what's the best way to

tune this system prompt you know like

what are the different things we can do

and like even product functionality

let's integrate super base or this like

that stuff landed in our open source

version before we did it yeah and so

like and so with the developers there

we've got a great relationship with all

the people that have showed up to work

on the thing because when we share our

knowledge of the stuff that's working

too and we're like hey this is you know

this is kind of what we found and then

you know ends up in the open source

product yeah when these new models come

out it's like because our team is like

20 people you know it's like we have a

25 as of this week but like you it's not

a lot of people and and we're busy just

keeping our servers online it just you

know that's that we're hiring as fast as

we can but I mean you know to really

deeply evaluate all the new models and

stuff that are coming out is a

gargantuan Challenge and so the open

source World being able to actually do

that and you know glean those results

not just for us but for everyone is

amazing

to the degree where like you know the

frontier AI labs are also using bold

it's called bolt. DIY like they're using

bolt DIY to actually test out their new

mods and say okay because how else are

they going to get this into a real

production app where they can you know

rapidly test it there's not many so

that's brilliant dude like I when I

build products I I have like you know

like a Discord too a community and like

people give me feedback on a product and

like you know my Engineers try to build

stuff but like the open source is like

Bally people are actually building the

product for you right to a certain exent

like they're probably with too yeah yeah

totally and it's cool and then they and

people will take this back they take

parts of Bol DIY and they put in their

own products and stuff and it's like and

that's like the thing right is it's like

it's a situation where the pie is

growing for everyone you know and I

think that a lot of other I think the

natural tendency if you're starting like

an AI company or whatever it's like we

got to like kind of control our thing

it's like our secret sauce and stuff and

you know like we have to increase our

valuation you know it's just like all

these like things it's like ah you know

but but the real

is you you know if you actually believe

like hey this is not a winner takes

everything scenario and in fact more

people contributing is just going to

increase the speed in which this pie is

increasing for everyone then it's like

okay well and let's be the best place

that gives out free pies like you just

to let everyone actually contribute and

play around with this stuff in a real

way you know I mean the pie is still

very small right like like you know like

the number of Engineers coders out of

everyone in the world is like tiny tiny

tiny surpris yeah yeah especially this

is enabling people that have never been

able to code themselves to actually

build you know and the people that like

there are like non-developers taking

bolt DIY and trying out the you they're

to you don't have to be a crazy

developer to swap the models in and out

and they get the stuff running locally

and so people are doing that and then

and they're these people the they

understand like a PM or a designer like

they're going to have a better

perspective on how good is this model at

making a product zero shot than like an

engineer typical one you know and so

they're actually pulling the stuff down

too and trying it out and be able to be

part of the discourse that's happening

which is really important because their

you know this is that their knowledge

set and their skill set is really key to

how products like Bolter man and AI

models actually are getting trained

right on you know good data so any so

it's it's very cool to see the ecosystem

that's um that spawned here and I'm I'm

glad that we glad we made decision

because it it was you we were it was

like in the butter we like we may regret

this we might regret this but seems like

it would be a good idea you know it's

it's just like how figma has like a

figma community right like they're

people making plugins and stuff it's

like amazing ecosystem yeah I also like

the read your stim prompt because they

kind of confirmed because you have stuff

like very important or like never do

this this is exactly how how I try to

prompt this stuff is like never it's

true yeah it's it's surprising you our

folks have tried it a lot with the you

know the

AI yeah and this is blessed

recommendations from you know from that

yeah I was like wow okay yeah because I

mean you when you see it it coming from

a programming perspective it's like that

seems like uh like when you go like

zindex 999999 to get something to show

up above everything it's like it feels

like that sort of solution to it but

that's like actually you know when

you're doing prompt engineering like

it's they having these kind of in exlan

Inc caps like you know very important

critical that it actually makes it has a

difference you know in the words and the

calization whatever so so let's wrap up

with like how you guys are building both

internally like how you guys are

building this product like you say you

have 25 people do do you have any like

product principles or values or like

beliefs in building making B greater

like building these AI products yeah

good question you know I think for us

like we want to build we want to build a

product that is great for developers and

but is also great for people that love

building products you know in websites

and web apps and so like PM designers

entrepreneurs Etc and so I think it's

kind of interesting where balancing

those like there there's not a lot of

there's not a lot of prior art products

that have been able to balance those

because it's all prior to AI Coen right

I mean it's not this is New Territory

and so it's kind of tricky you have to

like you know for us we want to take

bets because like there's only so many

bets we can take with the size of team

we have we're scal but even then like we

still it's still a fine number of things

we can sync our time into and so it's

like one of the things that are going to

be really great for both audiences you

know it's like I the analogy that I

often like kind of lean on is like it's

like a power drill you know like my mom

uses a power drill you know to install

stuff at home right get most homes in

America right have a power drill right

but so do most construction sites you

know like so do most professionals who

build you know structures right and so I

think that the trick is like how do you

build uh a tool that's like going to be

really that's going to be able to really

cater to different types of people and

different types of use cases and you

know that's powerful but it's bounded

and is you know gives you like reliable

results and yeah I think that's how we

think of the tool and then the sort of

bets that we're making and I think the

other thing is like we I we expect the

AI Cen like the AI models to get better

quickly and if you look at kind of what

happened before Sonic came out I mean

there's a lot of like a lot of the other

guys in the space if for text to app or

whatever they existed and they had all

this stuff built out around rag

pipelines and down like there's all this

in for they'd spend a year building or

whatever and then Sonic came out and

then it just obliterated all that like

son a zero shot was better than all the

stuff that that they had spent you know

however much time in money making and

and so we kind of look at that it's like

so there's like a tsunami wave that hit

but it but we expect more to happen and

so how do you like make how do you make

bets right in product and Engineering

when you're on the beach tsunami just

came there's probably another one you

probably don't want to like build a

whole village right you don't want to

like completely you know set up a whole

bunch of info that's going to get wiped

out like you probably want to like get a

really good surfboard you know and kind

of prepare for the wave that's coming in

and and set up structures that you some

can be durable some are designed to like

be like hey we this can and will get

wiped out and some things you don't

build because you're like we it's too

expensive to invest there we think it's

likely that it that this is going to

happen so that's kind of the

multi-dimensional you know sort of

analysis and and like kind of that

placing that that we're kind of looking

at least right and which I don't hear a

lot of other people kind of talking

about because it's you know I think

there's kind of a hunger to just like

laser in and do you know build the best

things now but you know I think that's

actually a really important point

because I I talked to the granola

founder too about this and yeah he made

the same point it's like you know maybe

your customers are screaming as you to

improve this feature but you know that

the next model is probably going to

improve it for you it's like you don't

want you don't want to do something that

the next model just do yeah exactly

exactly exactly and because all of that

is is just lost time and effort and like

yeah you'll get to Market a little

before you know maybe other people will

or something but then it's also going to

be probably worse than whenever the

model the next bottle has anyways and so

you're kind of better off you know and

that's the trick things you just don't

know you don't know you don't know what

things necessarily going to improve so

you have to like it's hang outside the

opening eye anthropic offices you know

what's going on guys yeah it helps be

like the Early Access programs or

whatever I think for these but like but

even then it's like you know it's when

you're doing like it's how do you do

road map planning six Beyond six months

heck even six months you know it's like

that's that's the stuff where it's it's

fun because it's so Dynamic everything

can change you know and and we've seen

it happen already and so we're we're

acutely aware and and paranoid about

okay we startups are an energy

conservation and application project and

so it's like you case boy like the

granola founder what what they said is

like dead on it's like you know not a

good investment of time if you think

there's high probability that this will

be fixed Upstream effectively you know

maybe in short order you know you know

what I really like about all this like

you know I feel like there's a lot of

like kind of work to a certain

extent with like like pm has a right

bunch of documents and then developers

have to like you know tell all

environments and like download stuff and

like the core feedback loop is just like

you build something you talk the

customers show the customer you build me

like that so like that's what I really

like about what you're building because

like you're getting those bull

man like just just like getting stuff

into the hands of customers as quickly

as possible and then getting the

feedback like that's what actually ma

matters right you know me I I totally

agree and like and for me it's like I

you my my co we learned how to code

because it was the only way to get stuff

in front of customers right like and

it's like if this stuff existed then

it's like I don't know if I would have

gone as deep as I have if you know

understanding how software works now you

know building whatever have you because

is especially if you're like a product

person or an entrepreneur it's like like

of course like great CS making sure the

software is going to be reliable

performance all that matters right but

it's actually like the rote task of

writing that is often inciler to the

higher order task that you that actually

really matters that determines whether

any of this code is even going to be

used by anyone ever it's like does this

thing solve your problem you know a

prospective customer yes you know I mean

and as soon if the fast you can get

answers on that oh my God amazing right

like that's that's I think the hardest

part about building products or services

or startups or whatever is just it is

you know it can take a very long time to

actually get real data and insights on

from customers you know and like if

something is great or not you know and

this is this accelerates that you know I

don't know order magnitude more you know

and and a fraction to the cost I love it

man I love it all you is bat and you got

like do some ship posting on tw Twitter

and then you know to get the customers

and then that's all you need I loved

your meme with the Jeff Bezos

overlooking the yeah

I retweeted that from our company

account he like God this that is a dank

meme so so what can people find B and

also what can people fall fall H you

yeah yeah yeah yeah so for bolt we have

the simplest domain in the world it's

bolt. new you can just go there and we I

think our Twitter link and stuff is on

that page but on Twitter we are at bolt.

new and not the period but b t d o t NW

so like bolt. new spelled out and then

my Twitter is I think I'm Eric Simons 40

so like yeah that's where you find me

and I tweet yeah I tweet every day or

two or something I don't

know but I post stuff that I find

interesting like when we're releasing

stuff and so yeah hope you follow me

there awesome Eric I really appreciate

your conversation and hope to see great

things for both coming soon yeah awesome

yeah thank you for having me appreciate

it

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