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The Startup Ideas Podcast

The Startup Ideas Podcast

Written by: Greg Isenberg
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 Get your creative juices flowing with The Startup Ideas Podcast. Published twice a week, we bring you free startup ideas to inspire your next venture. Hosted by Greg Isenberg, CEO of Late Checkout and former advisor to Reddit and TikTok. Subscribe so you don't miss out. For more startup ideas, we created a database of 30+ startup ideas you can take at https://gregisenberg.com/30startupideas© The Startup Ideas Podcast Economics Leadership Management & Leadership
Episodes
  • Perplexity Computer makes me $$

    Perplexity Computer makes me $$
    Feb 27 2026
    I take Perplexity Computer for its first real spin and test five use cases that founders can use right now to make money and move faster. I connect my Gmail live, let the AI send cold outreach on my behalf, set up daily competitive intelligence monitoring, research 50 VCs for a mock Series A, and kick off a full investment memo on Shopify, all in a single session. By the end, I walk away genuinely impressed and convinced the $200/month Max plan can pay for itself with one closed deal. Timestamps 00:00 – Intro 00:35 – What We're Testing Today 02:35 – Use Case 1: Warm Outbound at Scale 15:31 – Use Case 2: Automated Competitive Intel 25:11 – Use Case 3: Investor Pipeline Research (50 VCs) 26:58 – Use Case 4: Turn a Podcast Into a Content Machine 31:39 – Use Case 5: Live Market Diligence (Shopify Investment Memo) 34:17 – Bonus: Additional Use Cases Worth Trying 36:06 – Closing Thoughts and Takeaways Key Points Perplexity Computer runs multiple research tasks in parallel using sub-agents, skills, and tools — functioning like a virtual analyst working across the open internet. The cold outreach workflow found real email addresses, researched each prospect's recent activity, and drafted hyper-personalized emails that reference specific details — then sent them through a connected Gmail account. Setting up recurring competitive intelligence monitoring (daily reports, weekly sponsor tracking) is where the tool shifts from a one-off assistant to a persistent agent running on autopilot. The VC pipeline research use case demonstrates how founders who lack a warm network can still build a structured, targeted investor list with fund sizes, thesis alignment, and partner contacts. At $200/month on the Max plan, the cost pays for itself if even one sponsorship deal or investor meeting closes from the outreach. The platform already supports connectors for Gmail, Google Drive, Slack, HubSpot, Ahrefs, Reddit, and more — making it a serious contender for centralized founder workflows. The #1 tool to find startup ideas/trends - https://www.ideabrowser.com LCA helps Fortune 500s and fast-growing startups build their future - from Warner Music to Fortnite to Dropbox. We turn 'what if' into reality with AI, apps, and next-gen products https://latecheckout.agency/ The Vibe Marketer - Resources for people into vibe marketing/marketing with AI: https://www.thevibemarketer.com/ FIND ME ON SOCIAL X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenberg Instagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisenberg/
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    38 mins
  • How I Use Obsidian + Claude Code to Run My Life

    How I Use Obsidian + Claude Code to Run My Life
    Feb 23 2026
    I sit down with my dear friend Vin (Internet Vin) for a deep, hands-on walkthrough of how he uses Obsidian and Claude Code together as a thinking partner, idea generator, and personal operating system. Vin demonstrates live how Claude Code can read, reference, and surface patterns across an entire Obsidian vault of interlinked markdown files — turning years of personal notes into actionable insights, project ideas, and even custom commands. This episode covers everything from the basic setup to advanced workflows like tracing how ideas evolve over time, generating contextual startup ideas, and delegating tasks to autonomous agents. If you are serious about getting the most out of LLMs, this is the episode that shows you how your own writing becomes the fuel. Timestamps 00:00 – Intro 02:10 – What Is Claude Code? 06:45 – What Is Obsidian? 10:28 – Obsidian CLI: Giving Claude Code Access to Your Vault 14:53 – Thinking Tools: Ghost, Challenge, Emerge, Drift, Ideas, Trace 22:51 – The Role of Reflection in Building a Powerful Vault 25:15 – How This Relates to OpenClaw (Autonomous Agents) 29:13 – Live Demo: /Connect — Bridging Two Domains 31:25 – Meeting Notes & External Info 33:23 – Why Vin Keeps a Strict Separation: Human-Written vs. Agent-Written 35:42 – How Claude Code uses Obsidian 41:46 – Live Demo: /Ideas — Generating Actionable Ideas from Your Vault 47:10 – The /Graduate Command 50:29 – Why Obsidian Is the Missing Link for AI Companies 54:53 – The Alpha: Why 99.99% of People Won't Do This 57:38 – Closing Thoughts & Where to Follow Vin Key Points Claude Code is a command-line agent that can control your computer through natural language — and its power multiplies when you feed it rich, persistent context files instead of re-explaining projects every session. Obsidian is uniquely valuable because it sits on top of interlinked markdown files; the new Obsidian CLI lets Claude Code see both the files and the relationships between them. Vin built custom slash commands (/trace, /connect, /ideas, /ghost, /drift, /challenge) that let him use Claude Code as a thinking partner — surfacing latent patterns, contradictions, and ideas he would never see on his own. Writing and daily reflection are the engine of the entire system: the more you write, the more context the agent has, and the more it can do for you. Vin maintains a strict rule that only he writes into the Obsidian vault — the agent reads and generates outputs separately, so pattern detection always reflects his own thinking. Markdown files are the real oxygen of LLMs; if you are serious about building a personal OS with AI, a centralized note-taking tool built on markdown is foundational The #1 tool to find startup ideas/trends - https://www.ideabrowser.com LCA helps Fortune 500s and fast-growing startups build their future - from Warner Music to Fortnite to Dropbox. We turn 'what if' into reality with AI, apps, and next-gen products https://latecheckout.agency/ The Vibe Marketer - Resources for people into vibe marketing/marketing with AI: https://www.thevibemarketer.com/ FIND ME ON SOCIAL X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenberg Instagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisenberg/ FIND VIN ON SOCIAL X: https://x.com/internetvin Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@otherstuffpod Personal Website: https://internetvin.com/Index
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    59 mins
  • Making $$$ with OpenClaw

    Making $$$ with OpenClaw
    Feb 18 2026
    I sit down with Nick Vasilescu, founder of Orgo, to break down exactly how people are turning OpenClaw — the open-source computer use agent — into a real revenue stream. Nick walks me through live demos of deploying OpenClaw for business clients, shows how sub-agents and parallelization multiply output, and shares his design-thinking framework for identifying and automating high-value workflows. We even build a TikTok trend-hunting agent from scratch during the episode to prove how fast you can go from idea to working prototype. Timestamps 00:00 – Intro 02:50 – Getting Set Up with OpenClaw 05:02 – Finding the Wedge: Automating Real Business Outcomes 07:39 – The Upwork Hack: Finding Paid Automation Jobs 09:41 – Andreessen Horowitz on Computer Use Agents 11:01 – Setting Up a Client Workspace in Minutes 12:41 – Design Thinking: Mapping Value vs. Effort 15:23 – Using OpenClaw to Prioritize Automations 17:57 – Building Automation Pipelines with Claude Code 19:33 – Sub-Agents vs. Tasks vs. Skills 23:22 – Automation Possibilities are huge 24:54 – Live Build: TikTok Trend Hunter from Idea Browser 32:09 – Start with an MVP Skill, Then Iterate 32:41 – Architecture of the TikTok Agent Script 36:59 – The Arbitrage Opportunity: Most Businesses Still Need Help 40:30 – Agents Are the New SaaS 42:42 – Demoing TikTok Trend Hunter 44:11 – Building Assets & the Abundance AI Will Bring 47:58 – Closing Advice: Get Your Hands Dirty Links Mentioned: Orgo: https://startup-ideas-pod.link/orgo Key Points OpenClaw is more than a personal assistant — it is a deployable business tool that can automate end-to-end workflows for paying clients. The fastest path to revenue is finding automation jobs on Upwork (RPA, desktop automation, workflow building) and fulfilling them with OpenClaw and Claude Code. Sub-agents allow your main OpenClaw instance to delegate specialized tasks, keeping the orchestrator free and multiplying throughput through parallelization. A design-thinking approach — mapping automation opportunities by value vs. effort — is essential before building anything. Verticalizing computer use agents for a specific industry (manufacturing, real estate, distributorships) is the major startup opportunity Andreessen Horowitz is calling out. Always start by building a lightweight MVP skill, test it, debug, and iterate before scaling. The #1 tool to find startup ideas/trends - https://www.ideabrowser.com LCA helps Fortune 500s and fast-growing startups build their future - from Warner Music to Fortnite to Dropbox. We turn 'what if' into reality with AI, apps, and next-gen products https://latecheckout.agency/ The Vibe Marketer - Resources for people into vibe marketing/marketing with AI: https://www.thevibemarketer.com/ FIND ME ON SOCIAL X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenberg Instagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisenberg/ FIND NICK ON SOCIAL Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@nickvasiles Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nickvasilescu/ Personal Website: https://www.nickvasilescu.com
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    52 mins
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