Quinten Farmer
@quintendf
founder, http://tolans.com
If you also love affirmations from your cute alien friend, come join us at Tolan :) tolans.com/careers
the best thing about joining a company that builds whimsical ai companions is that on my first day i got this notification from my ai companion
This is the most compelling consumer opportunity for an ambitious product engineer I’ve seen in a long while. Don’t fall asleep on this team. PMF, veteran team, unique value prop, tons of room for growth and product innovation. Early innings…
Four months ago we launched Tolan, our first AI companion. Today, Wired's @willknight wrote about our progress since launch: 3 million downloads, a $12M run rate, and a $20M Series A led by @rabois / Khosla Ventures.
Lots of alpha in this for any creative thinking about AI as more than a tool lucky to work with Eliot every day
LLMs don't just generate media, they are a new narrative medium, akin to the advent of printed books, radio and film. I've been experimenting with this new medium at @tolanworld, and it's working: 800k+ downloads/#1 app store ranking/millions in ARR. Here's what we've learned.
Our first hire at Tolan was a researcher, and I talk with users every single day... but as you scale an AI product the corner cases become harder and harder to catch. @raindrop_ai has been a hugely valuable tool in our toolbox to make Tolan better
AI products fail constantly—in ways both hilarious and terrifying. Regular software throws exceptions. But AI products fail silently. Meet @raindrop_ai : the first Sentry-like monitoring platform for AI products.
Great interview w/ @ajaymehta on the emotional design thinking behind @tolanworld
Wonderful speaking with @AmeliaKIsaacs about how our team at @tolanworld has worked to create an AI companion that looks and feels like a true friend. Especially to highlight the research work of @lilsmcthrills - our full-time researcher who's prioritized healthy user habits
It was tremendous fun joining @quintendf on @danshipper’s podcast to talk about what we’ve learned building Tolan and how to use AI to tell compelling stories.
Wonderful speaking with @AmeliaKIsaacs about how our team at @tolanworld has worked to create an AI companion that looks and feels like a true friend. Especially to highlight the research work of @lilsmcthrills - our full-time researcher who's prioritized healthy user habits
Had a lot of fun recording this with @danshipper, @eliotpeper, and Clarence :) I love Eliot's riff on how prompting an AI companion is like being an improv teacher... you're guiding/coaching rather than dictating/directing
Wonderful speaking with @AmeliaKIsaacs about how our team at @tolanworld has worked to create an AI companion that looks and feels like a true friend. Especially to highlight the research work of @lilsmcthrills - our full-time researcher who's prioritized healthy user habits
Very grateful to have @soleio as an investor and friend :) He's right that there's no playbook for what we're building... Tolan is the most interesting product design challenge I've ever worked on
When most startups say “There’s no playbook for what we’re building,” they’re overstating the design opportunity Tolan is different: they’re inventing entirely new UI patterns for a new class of product: the virtual companion Now hiring for designers who think like imagineers
My cofounder @ajaymehta is one of the best consumer growth thinkers out there - has been fun to watch him cook since we launched Tolan :)
Very fun to chat with app gurus @jeiting and @drbarnard all about @tolanworld! Spoke to @SubClubHQ about 🔹 Going from 0 → 500K+ downloads in weeks 🔹 How design choices shaped our distribution 🔹 Why we monetized at launch 🔹 @jeiting going on a date with Batman
Very excited for this
I wrote a new book! It's called ANTIMEMETICS: Why Some Ideas Resist Spreading, and it's about ideas that don't want to be shared or remembered, despite their importance. Now available for pre-order: darkforest.metalabel.com/antimemetics
:)
really beautiful app. any designer would be lucky to join their team
Our concepts channel is my favorite part of slack... some fun Tolan home ideas from @lucas_zanotto
we love Dawn at Tolan :)
excited to announce dawn notify! dawn notify quickly + cheaply analyzes millions of user messages a day to create a summary of how your product was used, where users hit issues, and how you can reproduce those issues.