AI, Zeitgeist and Algorithmic Warfare | Justin Banusing - E711

"The CEO, the artist, the brand manager, they're ultimately craftspeople at the end of the day, who are the stewards of their brand. And their biggest challenge isn't necessarily doing the thing, because if you are a great builder or craftsperson, you already have something great. Nowadays, the biggest problem is getting it seen and getting it spread across the world." - Justin Banusing, Co-founder and CEO of Clouted

"I like to think that my heart is best sustained by love and sustained by care for people. And I think that's why the first version of Clouted, well, we did go viral. We raised a couple of rounds. It just didn't really feel right compared to what we're doing now." - Justin Banusing, Co-founder and CEO of Clouted

"And now we just raised our seed round and operate across Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, and Manila. And we're figuring things out, but I think we're getting there." - Justin Banusing, Co-founder and CEO of Clouted

Justin Banusing, Co-founder and CEO of Clouted, joins Jeremy Au to discuss his founder journey from collegiate esports to building an AI virality engine. Justin shares how his first startup experience in the gaming space led to burnout and a period of self-reflection traveling the world, exploring venture capital, and DJing. He explains the pivot of Clouted from an AI gaming companion to a platform solving the distribution problem for creators and brands in the era of algorithmic warfare. They also discuss the challenges of sharecropping on other platforms' intellectual property, the importance of founder passion, and the economics behind AI startups.

00:00:00 The Algorithmic Warfare Era: A brief introduction to the difficulties of content distribution today.

00:00:45 Justin's Introduction and Clouted Overview: Justin introduces himself as the CEO and co-founder of Clouted, an AI virality engine.

00:01:13 The Collegiate Esports Journey and Lessons: Reflecting on his first startup, The Gathering, and the shifting paradigms of college gaming.

00:07:16 Sharecropping on Gaming Publisher IP: The risks of building enterprise value on top of another company's media property or platform.

00:10:58 A Sabbatical for Self-Reflection and DJing: Justin discusses traveling the world, DJing, and becoming a more complete adult after a messy startup exit.

00:17:58 Clouted V1 - The AI Gaming Companion: Launching an AI companion for gamers, achieving early virality, and raising funds.

00:23:59 Economics and Pulling the Plug on V1: Realizing the unit economics of an always-on AI companion were unviable and making the difficult decision to pivot.

00:28:48 Pivoting to Music and Event Marketing: Discovering the distribution problem while marketing an electronic music event.

00:32:03 Solving Distribution for Creators: Exploring algorithmic warfare and how Clouted functions as an AI media buyer pooling clip farms.

00:37:25 The Bravery to Reset and Pivot: Overcoming signaling risks and having the courage to shut down a product to find true product-market fit.

Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EYn2tbVa78&list=PLl9u6ECOP8_7scb97PE3whKu4yJVizIOd

Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0mf4h1hmM96LNMb5RUNucS

Keywords: AI Virality Engine, Creator Economy, Algorithmic Warfare, Startup Pivot, Esports and Gaming, Founder Journey, Media Buying, Clouted, Product-Market Fit