Amigo

At the beginning of this year, John Xing and I were walking from office-to-office in NYC pitching investors...hoping someone would take a bet on us. Now, Amigo is on the big screen in Times Square 🗽 What a difference one year can make. Huge thank you to our friends at Ramp for the love 🙏

Thanks Janelle Gee for sharing your LinkedIn Rewind. Fun to see what it came up with! Here's my 2024 LinkedIn Rewind, by Coauthor.studio: Research continues to validate what positive psychology has shown: sustainable productivity comes from integrating wellbeing into how we work. In 2024, I witnessed this principle transform how professionals approach their work through evidence-based strategies. Through corporate training programs, leadership coaching, and weekly SMS productivity tips, I helped organizations discover that most people are more productive (and energized) when they prioritize wellbeing: proper rest, mindfulness practice, regular breaks, and movement throughout their day. This year was particularly inspiring as fellow MAPP graduates and positive psychology practitioners published groundbreaking work advancing positive psychology: - Jodi Wellman showing how mortality awareness shapes meaningful work in "You Only Die Once" - Stephanie Harrison revealing evidence-based paths to happiness in "The New Happy" - Stella Grizont transforming workplace culture with "The Work Happiness Method" - Ruth Pearce leveraging character strengths in "be hopeful, be strong, be brave, be curious" Posts that particularly resonated with our community: "Greater productivity comes from deliberate changes that lead to significant improvements in your performance and well-being" On launching weekly SMS productivity tips https://lnkd.in/gxjSQjhh "If you are interested in positive psychology, hope, human flourishing, and happiness...you will not want to miss it!" On Arlen Solodkin, MAPP, MSW bringing together positive psychology leaders at The Hope Circuit Summit https://lnkd.in/gG4TvFub After moving from NJ to Florida in 2021, I continue working with global clients through productivity workshops, psychological safety training, and leadership coaching. Looking ahead: I remain committed to helping professionals enhance both productivity and wellbeing through evidence-based strategies. Small changes, consistently applied, create remarkable results. Up next in 2025? AI Coach Sharon 2.0 makes coaching accessible to all levels within an organization. Thanks to Amigo and the great minds of Ali Khokhar. John Xing, and Richard Wang, Coach Sharon 2.0 uses AI to deliver coaching according to ICF guidelines, while also providing anonymous insights to companies to help them succeed. Want to receive weekly research-backed productivity tips? Text PRODUCTIVE to 646-846-5200. No sales pitches - just strategies to help you succeed. 😉 #positivepsychology #controlchaos #amigo #coaching #AIcoaching -- Get your 2024 LinkedIn Rewind at https://lnkd.in/gK5REYX8

Here's a new list of 34 startups with tiny teams (<25 people) backed by top tier funds, who are now HIRING: 1) /dev/agents - operating system for AI agents (Bay Area) 2) Counsel Health - virtual medical consultations (US remote/NYC) 3) Fastino - enterprise language models (Bay Area/US remote) 4) vlayer Labs - zero-knowledge data verification (Warsaw/Europe remote) 5) Amigo - b2b AI clones (NYC) 6) juna.ai - AI industrial process control (Berlin) 7) Sapien - autonomous financial analyst (Bay Area) 8) Kalder - card-linked cashback rewards (NYC) 9) Browserbase - headless browser management (Bay Area) 10) Verax AI - AI model production monitoring (Tel Aviv) 11) Stuut - automated accounts receivable (NYC) 12) Lumen Orbit (YC S24) - data centers in space (Redmond WA) 13) NeuBird.ai - AI IT operations (Bay Area) 14) Baselayer - business identity verification (NYC) 15) Matter Intelligence - advanced sensor imaging (Bay Area) 16) Neon - d2c platform for games (NYC/Bay Area/London/Amsterdam) 17) Sphere - cross-border payment solution (Global remote) 18) Agentio - creator content advertising (NYC) 19) Argil (YC S24) - AI video generation (Paris) 20) OpenYield - bond trading marketplace (NYC/Remote) 21) Yuma AI (YC W23) - AI customer service for e-commerce (US remote/France remote/Barcelona/Paris) 22) Simplismart - deep learning automation (Bangalore) 23) Vooma - AI order processing (Bay Area/Chicago) 24) Truewind - automated accounting workflows (Bay Area) 25) Realta Fusion - linear fusion reactor (Madison WI) 26) HappyRobot - voice AI for logistics (Bay Area) 27) Seen Health - elder healthcare (Los Angeles/Alhambra) 28) SkySQL - managed database service (US remote/India remote/Bulgaria) 29) MirrorTab - hologram security isolation (Bay Area/remote) 30) Brellium - automated chart review (NYC) 31) Modulo Bio - treatments for neurodegenerative diseases (San Diego) 32) Mach9 - 3D geospatial processing (Bay Area) 33) ContraForce - security incident automation (Austin/London/Sydney) 34) Adfin - automated invoice management (London/Romania) Adding direct links to their career pages in the comments 👋 follow me for more lists like this every week: Ben Lang ✨ thank you to Harmonic (startup database) for helping me source the list

🌴 Took the Amigo team offline for 96 hours. No Slack, no notifications - and one hard-won passport from a stubborn consulate 😮💨. Since the beginning of this year, we've been sprinting full throttle. Last week, we finally hit pause to celebrate SO many milestones we hit in 2024, and to plan out an intense 2025. Between late-night poker and chess tournaments, we crafted a sharper vision and a product roadmap that makes our ambitions tangible. First team offsite ✅ Now back to executing on our 10x YoY growth plans 💪

Last month I presented on stage at the Annual ADHD Conference hosted by CHADD (Children and Adults with ADHD) and had audience members gasp during our live demo... The brilliant Roger DeWitt and I had the privilege to talk about the impact of AI in Coaching and Therapy. It was incredible how many people resonated with our vision for the future: - It's better for 10,000 coaches and therapists to build 10,000 AI coaches and AI therapists, which then support 1 billion people - VERSUS 1 company that builds a single AI coach / therapist that then tries to support 1 billion people. It's critical to our mission at Amigo that we keep the rich diversity of human experience and perspectives while ensuring that human experts are participating in this new economy Also - showing a live demo of the product (even on shaky hotel WiFi) is absolutely the secret to a successful session!

It's been incredible seeing the responses from the service professionals I've been showing Amigo to - here are some direct quotes from the last 24 hours 🔥: - “I just had shivers down my back...this is insane to see live" - “My clients have been telling me: ‘I wish I could clone you’ for years. I can’t believe I finally found you guys” - “I love what you’re doing - I love your speed, your product, and just everything about this” - “By the way…your design is amazing” - “The way you train an Amigo is brilliant" - "I did not think this was going to be possible for a few more years - I'm actually shocked" 👀 We are about to add more space to my calendar (which is currently completely booked until Jan) - if you are a service professional looking to scale your business, DM me!

Within 4 hours of launching Amigo into the world, one of our competitors started flooding our customers' DMs, offering 1 year-free to switch to them. I love it. All of our customers messaged me letting me know that our competitor's product literally cannot do what ours can. The time we spent building our technical architecture from the ground up is paying off dividends already. Game on 💪 a little friendly competition always gets me amped up.

Feeling extra thankful this year for the brilliant team making Amigo a reality. We had an amazing launch because of them: Yi Hong who was our first Eng hire and solo-built the entire backend infrastructure that supports MENTOR, our proprietary cognitive architecture Richard Wang who was our first GTM hire and is the reason that every customer LOVES working with us Ezeugo Anukem who rebuilt our entire Training Room at an insane speed (this man is FAST) Ashley S. Liu who joined just two weeks before launch but hit the ground sprinting and instantly made an enormous impact Caly Yang who is joining us next week and is one of the most thoughtful engineers I know so I'm super excited for him to join us Cory Crowley who single-handedly built one of the most important features: voice-to-voice calling, which our users have loved Insane to think that only 10 months ago it was just John Xing and I working on Amigo, and are now joined by some of the world's smartest people. We are hiring aggressively to meet the intense demand we've experienced since launch! If you're an engineer looking for your next challenge, please reach out :)

🚀 5 days ago Amigo came out of stealth and we announced our $6.3M in funding...the numbers are wild: • 100+ demos booked in the first 48 hours • 200K views on the launch post • 1,250 likes and 300 comments • 4K website visits Turns out what we're building resonates...with A LOT of people. Before launch day, I knew the kind of numbers we needed to hit to go viral. Here's the launch playbook we used to make it happen. --- The day before launch, we created a Partiful and added 150+ friends to get them amped up. We texted everyone as soon as we launched to engage with our posts - and kept texting them to keep the energy high throughout launch day. We got 200+ likes in the first 30 mins. --- Within the first hour of launch, we rallied our early customers to repost, engage, and share how their experience with Amigo has been. Note: you can't script this for them - they need to genuinely share how they feel about your product & company. --- We kept our demo-booking process incredibly simple. Instead of a long form or waitlist, I put my personal calendar right on the site. Two clicks and you're talking directly with me. No sales handoffs, no fancy processes. My calendar is now stacked for the next month. --- Wild to think this is just week 1. For all the coaches and consultants who've been DM'ing about scaling their practice - I just opened more slots on my calendar!