This AI-powered startup studio plans to launch 100,000 companies a year — really

Henrik Werdelin has spent the final 15 years serving to entrepreneurs construct huge manufacturers like Barkbox by means of his startup studio Prehype. Now, along with his new, New York-based enterprise Audos, he’s betting that AI might help him scale that course of from “tens” of startups a yr to “lots of of hundreds” of aspiring enterprise homeowners.

The timing actually feels proper. Mass layoffs throughout quite a lot of industries have left many employees reconsidering their profession paths, whereas AI instruments have markedly lowered the barrier to constructing digital services and products. On the heart of that Venn diagram is Werdelin’s newest enterprise, with its promise to assist “on a regular basis entrepreneurs create million greenback AI corporations” with out requiring technical expertise.

Werdelin’s journey from Prehype to Audos displays the broader transformation occurring in entrepreneurship proper now. At Prehype, the main target was on working with tech founders to construct conventional startups, the type which may increase tens of millions and intention for billion-dollar exits.

Now, he tells TechCrunch, “What we’re attempting to do is take all that information, all of the methodology that we’ve created over time of constructing all these huge corporations, and actually attempting to democratize it.”

The concept is that “on a regular basis entrepreneurs” could sense a shift is afoot however might not be eager to experiment with so-called AI brokers or know attain clients. Audos is more than pleased to assist them, supplying these people with AI instruments to construct refined merchandise utilizing pure language, and profiting from social media algorithms to search out them their area of interest clients.

“Fb and a variety of these platforms, they’re simply unimaginable algorithms, and so they’re unimaginable at determining [how to reach your customer] if you happen to outline a buyer group,” says Werdelin, who co-founded Audos along with his Prehype accomplice Nicholas Thorne. In truth, Audos makes use of this method to shortly take a look at whether or not a founder’s enterprise concept has sustainable buyer acquisition prices.

The method appears to be working. Audos has helped launch “low lots of” of companies since its beta launch, with its personal clients discovering the platform by means of Instagram adverts asking “Have you ever ever thought of beginning one thing, however don’t know the place to go?” Amongst them, Werdelin says, are a automobile mechanic who needs to assist individuals consider restore quotes, a person who’s promoting “after demise logistics” providers, digital golf swing coaches, and AI nutritionists. In a winking reference to billion-dollar companies, or so-called unicorns, he calls these one- and two-person groups “donkeycorns.”

All went by means of the identical course of: they clicked on Audos’s advert, its AI agent launched a dialog to determine the issues these people need to sort out and who they need to serve, and, when it was happy with the solutions, Audos obtained them in entrance of potential clients as quick as potential.

As for returns, Audos operates on a essentially completely different mannequin than conventional accelerators or enterprise capital. As an alternative of taking fairness, the corporate takes a 15% income share from the companies it helps launch. In return, founders stand up to $25,000 in funding, entry to these AI-powered enterprise improvement instruments, and assist with distribution, primarily by means of paid social media promoting.

“We’re not taking any fairness of their enterprise,” Werdelin says, partly as a result of “we don’t suppose these corporations may ever get bought. What we’re actually impressed by are the mom-and-pop retailers which might be the spine of our society.”

The income share continues indefinitely, just like platform charges charged by Apple’s App Retailer. For founders, which means giving up a good portion of their income in perpetuity — a 15% minimize that might value entrepreneurs lots of of hundreds of {dollars} over time. Some will undoubtedly see that trade-off as worthwhile; others may query whether or not the long-term prices justify the advantages.

Audos’s worth proposition raises different questions given how shortly the panorama is altering. Whereas Werdelin emphasizes serving to founders construct relationships with clients, it’s unclear how a lot of that work the AI brokers can truly deal with. There’s additionally the matter of differentiation. As Werdelin readily acknowledges, “the world is filled with these instruments” and so they’re getting higher quickly. What occurs when entrepreneurs can entry related AI capabilities with out paying a everlasting income tax?

Audos’s VCs don’t sound anxious about these eventualities. True Ventures led Audos’s $11.5 million seed spherical, with accomplice Tony Conrad explaining the attraction in a Zoom name this week. Along with having confidence in Werdelin and Thorne, says Conrad, “I feel there are simply heaps and plenty of individuals” who may eagerly embrace the chance to work with a platform like Audos.

Conrad attracts parallels to Instagram’s $1 billion exit with simply 13 workers, suggesting that AI may allow much more leverage, even when Audos — which itself employs simply 5 individuals altogether presently —  isn’t chasing unicorns. As Werdelin explains it, “What we’re after right here is the tens of millions of people that can create million-dollar companies or half-million greenback companies which might be actual and life altering.” 

Provides Werdelin individually of why he spun up Audos, “What we’re attempting to do is to determine the way you make 1,000,000 corporations that do 1,000,000 {dollars} turnover. That’s a trillion greenback turnover enterprise.”

It doesn’t sound loopy. Extending the advantages of entrepreneurship to individuals who historically haven’t had entry to startup capital or technical expertise is an more and more compelling proposition as conventional employment begins to really feel much less and fewer steady. “We consider that there must be any person who goes out and actually helps these smaller entrepreneurs which might be constructing one thing that isn’t enterprise backable,” says Werdelin. “We consider that the world is healthier with extra entrepreneurship.”

Audos’s different buyers embody Offline Enterprise and Bungalow Capital, together with quite a few high-profile angel buyers – Niklas Zennstrom and Mario Schlosser amongst them.

Pictured above, left to proper, Audos co-founders Nicholas Thorne and Henrik Werdelin.