How Phoebe Gates Built an AI Startup With 500K Users in 6 Months скачать в хорошем качестве

How Phoebe Gates Built an AI Startup With 500K Users in 6 Months

Phoebe Gates went from failed prototypes in her Stanford dorm room to building one of the fastest growing fashion-tech startups in the world. In this interview, the co-founder of AI shopping app Phia shares how she and her co-founder Sophia Kianni scaled from 200 early users to half a million downloads, raised $9M from investors like Kleiner Perkins, Kris Jenner, and Sara Blakely, and turned their vision into a personal AI shopping assistant trusted by a new generation of consumers. From building in public and hacking growth with feedback loops to pitching high-profile investors and navigating privilege, Phoebe breaks down the exact strategies that fueled her rapid rise as a young founder. What you’ll learn from this interview: • How Phoebe went from 50+ failed ideas to finding product-market fit in fashion-tech • The grassroots tactics she used to get her first 200 users • Why feedback loops and “pizza nights” became their biggest growth hack • How she pitched and secured investors like Kleiner Perkins, Kris Jenner, and Sara Blakely • The mindset shift that helped her see failure as experimentation • Why building in public became an unfair advantage for distribution and community • How to leverage AI and automation as a young founder to scale faster By the end of this interview, you’ll walk away with a playbook for finding your idea, validating it with real users, and scaling it into a fast-growth business—so you can apply the same principles to your own entrepreneurial journey. SAVE 50% ON OMNISEND FOR 3 MONTHS Get 50% off your first 3 months of email and SMS marketing with Omnisend with the code FOUNDR50. Just head to https://your.omnisend.com/foundr to get started. HOW WE CAN HELP YOU SCALE YOUR BUSINESS FASTER Learn directly from 7, 8 & 9-figure founders inside Foundr+ Start your $1 trial → https://www.foundr.com/startdollartrial PREFER A CUSTOM ROADMAP AND 1-ON-1 COACHING? → Starting from scratch? Apply here → https://foundr.com/pages/coaching-sta... → Already have a store? Apply here → https://foundr.com/pages/coaching-gro... CONNECT WITH NATHAN CHAN Instagram →   / nathanchan   LinkedIn →   / nathanhchan   CONNECT WITH PHOEBE GATES Website → https://phia.com/ Instagram →   / phoebegates   LinkedIn →   / phoebe-gates-82a60b296   00:00 – How Phoebe Gates Built a $9M Fashion Tech Startup in 6 Months 01:16 – Carving Out Her Own Identity Beyond the Gates Name 03:25 – From Failed Prototypes to Building Sphere at Stanford 06:09 – Early Experiments: Smart Tampons, Subscription Boxes & Lessons Learned 07:41 – Testing 50+ Ideas Before Landing on Sphere 10:01 – Pizza & Wine Nights: The Brutal Feedback Loops That Drove Growth 13:30 – Building the First MVP With Just a Few Hundred Dollars 15:21 – Cold DM’ing 20,000 People to Get 200 Installs 17:18 – Landing Partnerships With eBay, Poshmark & The RealReal 20:24 – Raising From Kleiner Perkins, Kris Jenner & Sara Blakely 25:15 – Building in Public & Why Personal Brand is a Founder’s Superpower 28:22 – Clever Marketing Hacks: Collabs, Founder-Led Content & Distribution 37:01 – How Phoebe Uses AI as a Founder’s Cheat Code 42:12 – The Art of Cold Outreach: Turning Emails Into Open Doors 46:12 – The Dark Night of Onboarding & Hardest Startup Lessons 48:35 – The Principle Driving Sphere: Never Underestimate Scrappy Talent 49:36 – What’s Next for Sphere & Phoebe’s Advice for Young Founders FOLLOW FOUNDR FOR MORE BUSINESS GROWTH STRATEGIES YouTube → https://bit.ly/2uyvzdt Website → https://www.foundr.com Instagram →   / foundr   Facebook →   / foundr   Twitter →   / foundr   LinkedIn →   / foundr   Podcast → https://www.foundr.com/podcast