Daniel Carroll, Founder of MakeWell.ai: Living with Autism, The Importance of ‘Going Deep,’ The Future of AI & More

daniel_4_09-18-2024_104736: Because I desperately just wanted to belong. . it was something that caused me a lot of struggle growing up through my teens and my early twenties, and including into my thirties. I couldn't quite figure out how to become the last 10 percent human. I saw everybody around me being successful. I was successful, but I never felt fully happy and I never felt like I fully belonged.

, and when I started working with AI, I was, , using the underlying technology, to help assess some of the anxiety problems And it was suggested that I should screen myself for autism.

abby_4_09-18-2024_104737: How are you doing today, Daniel? How's your day so far?

daniel_4_09-18-2024_104736: Today's been a good day. , since we're recording in the morning time, I've pretty much just played with the fish and shrimp this morning and uh, mentally prepared to divulge my past to you.

abby_4_09-18-2024_104737: I love it. So what is playing with shrimp and fish entail? Like, is that a very [00:01:00] active exercise on your end or how are you engaging with fish and shrimp?

daniel_4_09-18-2024_104736: Yeah. So I've got, , a few different collections. And one of my collections is aquatic environments. There's, uh,, 10 fish tanks inside my house. It started, uh,, because I got my Kids a fish tank for Christmas a couple of years ago, and then I became more and more interested in it But each tank has a different shrimp and different fish some of the tanks like the ones back here in the back I'm actively breeding different species of fish and shrimp and some of them are just more like display for me to see all my little friends in the morning.

, but It's a collection. So, to feed each one of the tanks takes me maybe, uh, if I don't say hi, which I don't actually talk to them, but if I don't stick around and enjoy it, if I've got something to do, it only takes me 10 minutes, but like this morning, I probably stretched it out into 30 and, really checked in on everybody to make sure that, uh, the breeding is going well and uh, all of the environments are clean.

abby_4_09-18-2024_104737: [00:02:00] Good. I work from home alone and it would be nice to have a little sense of community around me. I would feel , not so kind of myopic and one of one if I had a community of breeding fish around me. So maybe I'll, I mean, I probably won't give it a try.

I'm not going to lie, but I like the sentiment of having some friends to keep you company.

daniel_4_09-18-2024_104736: Well I breed them, so that the hobby doesn't cost me anything. If you're to have all of the tanks and everything, it ends up getting kind of expensive. But if you find a fish that, uh, fish stores like, you just breed a few hundred of them, drop them off every few weeks.

When you go, you get free food, free supplies for your stuff cause they'll trade you.

abby_4_09-18-2024_104737: Oh, that's so interesting , hobbies can be very expensive. A lot of my friends with hobbies, my dad's a fly fisherman. Wow. Fishing equipment is so expensive. Skiing, photography. So I like that you've kind of hacked it. And I feel like that's so on brand for you because I know that.

You've had a history with money, and you're very big on saving money, and I relate directly to [00:03:00] that, . I covet money. I have a really hard time spending money, even when I have it. I save it like I have none.

I'd love to get a little bit more into your money mindset and maybe where that came from.

My family over my childhood, , , back and forth between lower middle class and truly impoverished. And, uh, So I know what it was like to have absolutely nothing. and I know what How much work you have to put in sometimes in order to get some of the things that you need. So I try not to spend too frivolously. Uh, , my wife would probably disagree with me. , but, yeah, I, I, I, I definitely have always had a knack for, being an entrepreneur and working hard to try to support the interests that I had or, get through in life. I think that that started very, very young in life.

abby_4_09-18-2024_104737: Yeah. Okay. So let's start very, very young in life. If it's okay with you, I'd love to dive a little bit into your backstory, which you've alluded to a [00:04:00] little bit, but yeah, tell me more about Daniel growing up and how that's kind of laid the foundations for who you are and what you do today.

daniel_4_09-18-2024_104736: Yeah.

childhood was, you know, easy at first when I was an only child and my parents were together and, the whole world was bright and shiny. Uh,, but then, you know, life happens. From the earliest days that I can remember, there was anxiety that I had inside. I knew that I was a smart kid , everybody else, , told me that I was a smart kid.

It was a lot of pressure. No matter what I tried to do to fit into the friend group or, participate on the team. I found myself not able to really fit into the group. I don't remember what day it was, but I remember exactly where I was in the moment in my childhood when I decided to be funny and I wasn't funny and I'm funny now. [00:05:00] Uh, and not just because I've memorized a bunch of jokes. That's the way it was originally. I memorized a bunch of jokes, but I really started studying what the kids were saying and why the other kids were finding that, that comedy. Because I desperately just wanted to belong. And I just desperately wanted to make the people around me happy. it caused me a lot of struggle growing up through my teens and my early twenties, and including into my thirties. I couldn't quite figure out how to become the last 10 percent human. I saw everybody around me being successful. I was successful, but I never felt fully happy and I never felt like I fully belonged.

I would, I would have friends, but. But then I would find out that I wasn't invited to a lot of the things. And I would have friends that would be really interested in interacting. we never developed meaningful long term relationships, but there would be a couple here [00:06:00] and there. that I would develop really deep relationships with, and those were usually based on some kind of a mutually, shared interest, uh, interest in aquariums, interests in, automations and processes showing my nerd face here. Uh, there's a, there's a lot of. struggles that I had and I thought that I should be happy, but I just wasn't. I couldn't figure out how to, like I said, become the last 10 or 15 percent human. And this is something that I went to therapy, while I was in the army. And then after I got out of the army, , in my civilian life. and when I started working with AI, uh, and we can get in a little bit later, , about what I've built with AI, but I was, , using the underlying technology, to help assess some of the anxiety problems And it was suggested that I should screen myself for autism. something that I'd considered once before and asked my [00:07:00] therapist about it.

And she said, no, you make eye contact. And, , there's all of these other things that you exhibit that aren't, rain man. So, so you can't be, , I, I did the screening. Um, , I also found a content creator on YouTube that shared a lot of his, , very intimate experiences about being autistic and the more that I learned, I realized all of this stuff that I experience that makes it hard is because I'm trying to fit into this world, as one of them. And I'm one of me. I'm not, I don't have to fall in love like they do in the movies. I don't have to laugh at the same things like they do on TV or like other people, other normal people do. I can just be uniquely me and, and that became really freeing. So at first it was a lot of struggle. I dedicated 25 percent [00:08:00] probably of my mental power in every single person to person conversation on monitoring my facial expressions and my posture because I wanted to make sure that I was perceived in a certain way. and once I learned to relax, I was really able to, to unlock, almost superpowers of concentration and productivity.

abby_4_09-18-2024_104737: yeah, I mean, that's an incredible story. And I think it makes, I can understand how de energizing that could be. I'm fortunate to be a very social person and I love connecting with people and I don't really, maybe sometimes I should give it more thought, but I don't really give a lot of thought to how I present.

I just I can focus my faculties on my ideas and when I'm communicating and how I'm engaging with the person, but I'm not thinking about eye contact. I'm not thinking about my posturing. I'm not thinking about, am I saying the right thing? I'm not really second guessing myself. [00:09:00] And I think.

If those were the things I was focusing on in that conversation, rather than meaningfully connecting with somebody on a given topic, I would feel like I'm missing the last 10 percent of my humanness as well. You're focusing not on the things that make you human, but the things that you think are going to present well to other people.

daniel_4_09-18-2024_104736: right, absolutely. And, and when you dedicate so much time to thinking that,, how can you keep your train of thought in other places? I'm like The mental freedom that I experienced once I just, , took off the mask is the, the kind of industry term for, stop trying to pretend that you are. something that you're not, and, uh, and just, just go do it.

It's why people like Elon Musk are able to accomplish so much, not that all of the other things that aren't his, uh, ASD. don't contribute, but if he were [00:10:00] to try to filter all of his wacky ideas that he shares on X and conform to a bunch of rules that someone made up in silence a hundred years ago, like, why can't I stare? It's like There's, , there's a friend of mine, her child, , who is probably on the spectrum, uh,, asked her why. can't I stare because she was looking at somebody in a social setting that had what she perceived to be crazy here and her mom said, stop staring. And she was like, why? And she's like, because it's not polite.

And she was like, what do you mean? It's not polite. I'm just looking. Why should they care what I'm looking at? And this was a little girl. And those types of things. are what cause the anxiety for autistic people. Because, um, we don't want to make people uncomfortable, but, we don't, we don't mind staring.

abby_4_09-18-2024_104737: It is so funny, all these social conventions that exist. , who do they exist for? it, they [00:11:00] exist largely for neurotypical people. I think it reinforces a way of operating again, like for me, it's a privilege that I don't have to think about how I present when I'm with people.

So the system reinforces my ways of working. So why challenge it? I think that's why it's so important. We, we hear from folks like you, with the first time we spoke, , you mentioned, , One of the things you don't, um,, harp on as much is eye contact. Like now you've liberated yourself a little bit.

You're not as steadfast about making sure you're making crazy eye contact. And that's actually something that stuck with me a little bit , as a woman, I've also been told, don't editorialize, don't say like, again, when your energy is going to.

refraining from certain activity, it pulls you away from what you're trying to do in the first place.

daniel_4_09-18-2024_104736: And a lot of times it sends you down the wrong path. NVIDIA released an update a couple of years ago. , , and you could download this, NVIDIA studio software. And , if you ran your webcam through it, it would use [00:12:00] some AI algorithm to reanimate your eyes so that your eyes always stared directly at the camera. And

I went, yay, they're going to see me looking at them now. And they're going to feel. while, and when, I turn away from you in normal conversation, it's so I can hear you better. It's so that I'm not distracting myself with meaningless visual input because I'm hearing your words. So turn off.

Me focusing on that hair that is across your eyeglasses in a way that you might want to do something or

abby_4_09-18-2024_104737: It's distracting. Yeah. Yeah.

daniel_4_09-18-2024_104736: that, yeah, at first I turned on that NVIDIA thing and I did it for all the meetings and I did this for months and it wasn't until I was on a Google meet with my wife and was in Europe at the time and she was [00:13:00] like, why are you staring at me? right at the webcam. It makes me feel like you're not looking at me. And I was like, what do you mean?

It makes you feel like I'm not looking at you. She said, because whenever I'm on a meeting, I see when they're looking at the camera and when they're looking at me,

so in this context, the contact was wrong , and not to mention the time that went into setting that stuff up.

abby_4_09-18-2024_104737: what a full circle moment. And I love this concept of living masked or unmasked. , I can see how that can be so liberating to just operate in ways that allow you to be and engage in in your authentic way.

so thank you so much for sharing that. You mentioned a couple times that you were in the army and I think that's really interesting. Can you tell us a little bit more about what you did in the army and maybe how that has impacted some of the work you do now?

daniel_4_09-18-2024_104736: Yeah, I joined the army because I wanted out of my parents house. I got tired of them telling me [00:14:00] what to do, so I figured the fastest way that I could gain my complete independence would be to join the military. Though, that's not exactly what happened. I, I, didn't think that went through. I joined as a helicopter mechanic. And I did that job only a minority of the time that I was in. I did a lot of work in IT and administration while I was in the army. I was able to find ways to kind of lock myself into a position, find ways to excel, and get tasked out for other things than, so that I didn't, uh, have to do the helicopter mechanic job that I didn't particularly like. Uh, it wasn't very rewarding for me. the environment also wasn't, the best.

A lot of times, especially I was a helicopter mechanic on a Chinook. Uh,, so you don't take them inside for maintenance a lot of the times because they're, they're big. , so that means you're doing the maintenance outside in the a hundred degree heat or the [00:15:00] 20 degree freezing temperatures or in the rain. I quickly found my way into a position, , it was still in, in, in aircraft maintenance and aviation maintenance, but, I was in charge of a system that monitored aircraft vibrations, uh, of all of the different moving parts. And I would develop charts that trended the vibration information for all of the different moving parts. , anything that rotates, has a resonant vibration. I listened to the of transmissions, drive shafts and all that stuff for all the different helicopters and found out what right sounded like, and then that would allow me to identify what wrong sounded like. And. Then I would go out and find out what wrong was, and then I would document it. So when it sounds like this, it's because this type of a bolt is loose or this type of a thing is cracked. And that information was used, throughout the next [00:16:00] seven years that I did that job. And that program still goes on to fundamentally change the way that we do maintenance on. aircraft in the army.

abby_4_09-18-2024_104737: Got it. So this is where maybe we're getting a little bit more into your software skills and we're kind of like ushering into your, the, the work you do now, , before we advance further in your journey, quick question. Was college ever something that you contemplated growing up?

daniel_4_09-18-2024_104736: I thought about it. I knew growing up that college was the thing that I was supposed to do as soon as I finished high school. At most, you could take a year off, but you had to do college right after high school or you'll become a degenerate. or you'll have to get one of those hard jobs that never ends up paying anything.

That's, This is what I knew. because of culture and upbringing. I also knew that we couldn't afford college cause it was expensive and I didn't behave in [00:17:00] school. and I stopped going to school. , I was expelled and I dropped out, , two different states. So I knew that there was no scholarship, for me. but I did end up going to school. I did 10 years in the army and I used college benefits, to learn web design and marketing. I did that because as I was getting out of the army, I, I was like, okay, I, I gotta figure out something else. I like computers. I'm not sure I really want to go work in tech support or anything like that. I really love photography. That was my hobby at the time. So why don't we just learn how to be a successful photographer why did that lead me down the path of web development marketing? You ask, because I can practice becoming a better photographer.

When I looked at the successful photographers in the, in the ecosystem that were out there, they had websites. And they had these big campaigns that made people aware of their works, uh, and that surrounded the work [00:18:00] that they did. So, that's, that was the idea there. While I was in college, I kind of fell in love with working with small businesses to, uh, develop resources and processes for them to help, their businesses grow, so for the next 10 years, I operated my own, , marketing agency where I built websites, I ran social media, ran physical campaigns, , towards the end of that, did a lot of marketing automation, dabbling a little bit of AI, in there, at the end until I made that full pivot to focusing exclusively on AI.

abby_4_09-18-2024_104737: Very interesting. I, you've told me this story before. I love this kind of reverse engineering of. I learned how to build websites because I loved photography. Uh, and I wanted to promote the other business. It does sound like your life is very much characterized and follows suit of your Deep passions I know one of the [00:19:00] big things you like to tell people is to go deep and to pursue those passions and fuel that insatiable curiosity you might have for something.

Can you speak a little bit more to that because it does feel like a huge operating principle in your life.

daniel_4_09-18-2024_104736: Yeah. I was actually wearing my go deep shirt yesterday. a lot of people I have found underestimate the complexity of everyday topics. Most things aren't that complicated on the surface. If you want to have a casual interaction with anything, You don't have to go that deep, but if you want to have a meaningful opinion on something, or if you want to become an expert on something, or if you want to be good at something. you have to really go deep. And there's a, there's another podcast that I participated in called the autistic culture podcast. And the title of that episode is go deep. it all actually [00:20:00] is a conversation about this fish tank and how there's an endangered species of shrimp living in that tank. And

It's hard to grow plants. That's not what that tank is, but it's hard to grow plants in those types of tanks. And it's hard to make a pretty fish tank with these types of shrimp. I did it because I went deep. I did it because I was willing to go in to figure out what is required to showing off for other founders that

abby_4_09-18-2024_104737: I'm in shorts too. Wow.

daniel_4_09-18-2024_104736: you, who else has got a giant CO2 tank with, um, SCUBA regulator attached to it, feeding, uh, CO2 constantly to their fish tanks so that So that the pH is balanced perfectly so that the environment is maintained exactly like they can With their what everybody else does when they've got these shrimp.

They're [00:21:00] ugly fish tanks these glass boxes with this weird thing in the back I wanted a pretty thing that I could look at with these shrimp and the guy that sold me them Said no, you can't do it. Let me cancel your order so that you don't waste this money Um, and I said, no, I'm, uh, I'd like to do it and, and they're still in there.

abby_4_09-18-2024_104737: I love that. This reminds me of, I had spoken recently about, I love when people tell me I can't do something. It actually makes me want to do it even more so I can completely, completely relate to that. But yeah, just to the point of, you know, I feel like just in general in society right now, we had during the pandemic, this word languishing came up and a lot of people, I think even still, they're kind of struggling to find what activates them, what makes them feel really alive.

And I have always found that me personally, and my husband as well, we are our happiest when we are. [00:22:00] Indulging our passions, even if they're not the most logical, , for example, we love going to the movies and it is expensive to go to the movies. You can stream everything at home for much cheaper and we'll go to the movies and you'll spend 16 on a movie ticket and then another 16 for mediocre popcorn and not enough soda.

But we're so, uh, Committed to the process of going because it's not just seeing the movie, it's talking about it after and then it's listening to all the podcasts that deconstruct it and it participating in the subculture around it. And anytime I'm watching movies and I'm reading, I'm, and I'm just really indulging those passions that might not seem the most logical or conducive to certain things I want to achieve in life.

I'm a happier person.

daniel_4_09-18-2024_104736: One of the things that I was thinking about, about, um, your psychological reaction to, , this. process of going to the movies and being able [00:23:00] to have a, a reoccurring experience that you can look forward to and that you have some stability in. I absolutely, can relate to that. On the neuro spicy side of it, one of the things, the reasons why we have collections, is because of the way it activates a certain area of our brain. I actually a really interesting study. So, you know, The goodbye that most people do when you're getting, when you, you've gotten together at a social situation.

This is something all the autistic people that are listening are going, Oh, right now, because we all hate the neurotypical goodbye. It starts something like this. It's a, let's say it's 11 o'clock. We're going to start saying goodbye. We've, we've, we've had the conversation in private that we're about to leave this, thing and we start the goodbye process at 11 to an autistic person.

That means that we should be walking out the door by about 11 Oh one., but my wife is happily still. Sat back down and [00:24:00] chatting at 1130. and it's because especially if it's family, um, it, you're going through this ritual, even you, you're not just saying goodbye, but you're closer. You're bringing the conversation more pointed. I've, I've looked at it a little bit and I do understand why you enjoy it. , but because we're supposed to be leaving all that, not leaving. frustrates us. But you know what does light up that area of our brain? Looking at our collections. we see, uh, it's usually stuff that we've put a whole lot of work into and we see, like, I don't like the individual fish. I like the whole ecosystem. And when I spend time feeding the fish in the morning that we were talking about earlier, it's because I feel the same when I see the satisfactory execution of the ecosystems that I've built. I get the same kind of feeling inside that people get when they're saying the happy goodbye, not the sad [00:25:00] goodbye, but the goodbye. Like we're going to see you at work tomorrow and we all just had a good night. And I'm just, you know, I had a good night too, but if it's time to say goodbye, let's go.

abby_4_09-18-2024_104737: Yeah. Absolutely. Again, it's, it's kind of going back to the logical thing is we said we're leaving. Why aren't we leaving? But then there's all these social conventions that get in the way. And I think a theme that's coming up is a lot of those social conventions are just not, they don't make sense.

Especially to somebody on the autism spectrum disorder, uh, Daniel, you've talked to me, you know, bringing this conversation around back to startups. You've talked to me how there's elements of startup culture that just do not make sense. And I would love for you to speak to that because I agree.

I think there is a lot of elements of pageantry and decorum in startup culture that Quite frankly, doesn't make sense. I think they're very inaccessible. but I would love to hear it from you. What doesn't make sense in startup culture to you? [00:26:00]

daniel_4_09-18-2024_104736: by their definition are new. emerging companies. , a founder or, uh, a group of co founders have come together to demonstrate their expertise to the world. And I think because we've got so many previous Google, I think they cut their thing. Um, we've got so many of these, Facebook, Google prior employees that go on to make these billion dollar unicorns. And that's what the narrative is. That's what the, the narrative expectation seems to be. What I expected coming into startup culture when I built my first startup, uh, was that, I could show my smart idea to somebody in a position of power, and they would say, Hey, look at what this really smart guy did. I see where he's going. Let me give him money to help that. I fell for the fairy tale because my very first experience trying to ask an external entity for money, like trying to do fundraising, [00:27:00] I asked one person. And got a yes, and they cut a 250, 000 check for me within a month of me asking.

That was my first fundraising experience. I had already built a first of its kind cryptocurrency application, and I directly approached the Company that was, that built the primary, underlying blockchain. so it was very, and, and they had a grant program where they were eliciting applications.

And because I knew one of the senior developers, cause I was very early in building this product and had worked directly with the developers at that organization. I knew about this grant process ahead of time. but then coming back. This time I knew I need to build my MVP, prove my concept. And then I'll go show it to [00:28:00] somebody and boom, there's money. And that's not what happened. I realized that a, I had this whole big vocabulary to learn so that I didn't look like an idiot. I needed to start learning what all these new acronyms were, either phrases or acronyms that I needed to become familiar with if I wanted anybody to take me seriously. . , so I think that there was a barrier there and whenever I would approach some, I approached some larger places for money and I would get asked questions like how many people are using this? And I said, well, explain that this is the MVP tech demonstration. Come back once you've got 10, 000 monthly recurring revenue.

And I was like, Whoa, that's why I'm asking you for money is to help me get there. so I had to learn that there were a bunch of different, uh, levels. , there were a bunch of different stages. There were a bunch of different categories of de risking that we were supposed to be doing at different stages.

And it made a whole lot more sense to me. Why? [00:29:00] And why you needed to have different knowledge and why you needed to have different metrics. And I realized that the industry points people in my position frequently back to this friends and family round, which I had a particularly rough time. there's nobody in my family that qualifies. That I could legally ask for money. My friends and family that knew what I was building and some that offered support, um, a the support that my family is capable of offering is insignificant. And it would be illegal for me to take it from them because they're, you know, there, there, there's rules that protect people from, what unregistered securities

abby_4_09-18-2024_104737: Yeah. What is it to be a, to to invest? You need to have a million in net worth? And it can't be tied up in property. And then you have to be making like 250, 000 a year. Yeah. There's some [00:30:00] criteria there. You might be more familiar with it

daniel_4_09-18-2024_104736: yeah,

that's very close. , I think it can be tied up in property, but you cannot include your primary residence, which eliminates.

abby_4_09-18-2024_104737: Yeah. The

vast majority of people.

This is something we, transparently talked about this before. And it's funny when I came up with the idea for this podcast, this was one of the first examples I gave to my co founder when I was kind of spitballing the idea with him, I said, Brian, startups have an accessibility problem. And I said, think about the idea of a friends and family round. Like so many people we know have started their companies with money from their friends and family. And even if it's not technically, government sanctioned friends and family round, they're still You know, there's people whose parents, let them live with them when they started their startups because they were in between jobs.

I'm not going to lie. I was one of those. I lived with my mom for seven months I moved back from the Bay Area until I got a secondary stream of income while I was [00:31:00] building RevScience.

daniel_4_09-18-2024_104736: I was gonna say, uh, I was gonna disclose, uh, uh, a position of privilege here and this particular startup, experience. Uh, my wife is active duty military. And she's fairly senior in rank and in a medical position. So her income alone allows us the flexibility to live only on her income if we have to. so I had the, the fortunate ability to be able to focus full time on what I built and spend our savings. to get it to where we got,

abby_4_09-18-2024_104737: yeah, exactly. these are the, these are the stories that don't get told. And I think our country. Is really obsessed with this idea of meritocracy and even using the word bootstrapping when it comes to your startup. Bootstrapping means you're running it without raising money. A lot of people who are bootstrapping, myself included, had a lot of help.

And I think it's really important to acknowledge this is where the accessibility of startups comes into play. If you don't have help, you [00:32:00] don't have generational wealth. If you don't have a lot of proverbial cards stacked in your favor, your likelihood for But getting off the ground is a lot lower. And I think the idea of a friends and family round is one of the best encapsulations of this because Brian and I joked, after I mentioned this to him, he goes, yeah, now that I think of it, my friends and family, they're asking me for money.

I'm not going to go ask them for money. They want money from me. So I think. It's really important to think about these things when we're looking at some of these crazy founders who have exited and had, these great heroes journeys, maybe they came from a starting point that was a little bit different than the starting point that is, more ubiquitous

daniel_4_09-18-2024_104736: I think another thing that is a problem is when I think the vast majority of people are not even aware that opportunities exist that they could be taking advantage of. There have been a couple of times where I have. Explained to some of [00:33:00] my friends that are not in startup culture.

Cause most of my friends are not in startup culture. I don't come from Silicon Valley or anything like that. I'm one of the only people that has been part of a startup in my social circle. So a lot of them ask, they either don't know how much something costs or when they hear about how much something costs, they wonder, well, where, how are you going to pay for that? , and when you discuss the concept of fundraising, I get something back, yeah, but a bank's not going to give money unless you've been in business for this amount of time. And I was like, right, that's a bank's not going to give you money unless you've got revenue and you've been in business for this amount of time.

That's not what I'm talking about. And they don't have any idea besides like shark tank. That's what I get. You mean like shark tank? And I'm like, yeah, except not staged and actually real. And it takes way longer than an evening

abby_4_09-18-2024_104737: Yeah,

daniel_4_09-18-2024_104736: way, way longer.

abby_4_09-18-2024_104737: yeah, absolutely. I know. I think one of the funniest misconceptions I like [00:34:00] to hear from people who aren't in startups is they think that people get into startups for the money. I mean, yes, eventually, you know, ideally, there's an exit on the other side of it. But if you're in this for the money, You're going to fail.

daniel_4_09-18-2024_104736: Yeah, if you're just trying to get rich, I think that there are a lot smarter ways that you could strategically make decisions in order to achieve that goal. And launching a startup is probably not I mean, it's up there on the list for how you could, but if you're wanting certainty, this is not a very good way to do it because the best ideas are completely unheard by the majority of the world and never get funded.

And some of the most silly things receive the most outrageous amounts of money.

abby_4_09-18-2024_104737: Yeah, So speaking to, okay, so we've established you probably didn't make Makewell just [00:35:00] for the money. So let's, so let's get into Makewell's origin story. How did you get into it? Why did you get into it? And yeah, what can our audience expect from Makewell moving forward?

daniel_4_09-18-2024_104736: Well, I guess what I should do is introduce what make well is, uh, make well as an app that's available on Android or iPhone, and it is an AI powered digital health companion. The reason that I built it. So a couple of years ago, my father had a stroke and, uh, my father was poor unemployed because he was in his mid sixties and had previously been hurt on the job, , had no insurance. And, , it took a couple of days for somebody to find him. So it wasn't one of those strokes that they do surgery and fix. It's one of those kinds of strokes that you figure out how bad it is after they save the person's life and try to recover. I had the capability of going [00:36:00] down, , and, um, serving as the, , primary point of contact, the, uh, the power of attorney medically for him and making those decisions for him.

Cause he wasn't, cognitively capable of making healthcare decisions for himself and is not married, had no significant other. so I went down and I realized that some very big decisions were, that I was going to be responsible for. And I needed all the data. I needed to dive deep. I had spent the preceding year, mastering prompt engineering.

In other words, getting really, really, really good at making AI give me exactly the information that I want exactly the way that I want it to be presented. and I mentioned that my wife is a healthcare provider, though for the military, so she doesn't have any stroke patients that she's ever encountered.

Cause they're all real young guys, but she didn't remember enough to be able to tell me what I needed to know to be able to start getting in there. And I trained myself as a stroke recovery expert and understood enough about the, what was going on to be able to make [00:37:00] meaningful, proper decisions for my dad and was able to help him through, , the recovery that, , he would not have been afforded by our healthcare system since he was poor and uninsured. When I saw that he was able to live a fairly independent life in his own home, had mobility where he's walking around, talking, able to joke with other people and do chores for the neighbor. and what was expected is that he was going to need to move into a nursing home and be monitored every day for the rest of his life, because it would be unsafe for him to, you Remain unsupervised. I knew that I had made that meaningful difference only because of some really special circumstances, skill that I'd gained with AI and the relationship that I had with my wife, who was a healthcare provider. That was some circumstances that most people didn't have. And that I had the opportunity to try [00:38:00] to take the tools that I'd and package them up in a way that would be useful for a large amount of people. So, I created a team of AI healthcare agents that are able to work collaboratively on a range of cognitive and administrative healthcare tasks. I did so by Working with health care professionals, my wife and a panel that I have since recruited to assist me in this process.

And they've recreate essentially different key players in the health care space, using AI. Right now it serves as a excellent replacement for WebMD. like instead of you searching for a key word, , whatever it is that you decide to search and then finding articles that have that word in it, I recreate the cognitive process that doctors use when when they interview you about your signs and symptoms to help understand what it is that ails you. because of the circumstances that my dad experienced and what I [00:39:00] experienced helping out with that, I really just decided that this is the most meaningful thing that I could do. It has been hard. I have received a lot less recognition but that's just because I've had to distract myself for so long on learning the startup culture stuff and trying to figure out how to fundraise. I tried to keep control for way too long. I waited way too long to hire a CEO so that I could let someone else, guide the future of the company and, and lead its operation day to day and allow me to focus on building the important tech and, extending the products to what it really could be.

abby_4_09-18-2024_104737: Yeah, absolutely. I think that's so key because the whole courting of, investors and kind of growth in general, just getting the word out about your product, it, it will cannibalize other efforts in your business. And it is so hard because I know that In the industry right now, people love founder stories.

They [00:40:00] love founder led growth, but if you're a technical founder, I mean, we have this problem right now. Brian is so strapped for time working on product. And especially when you don't have a team of engineers where is the time to then go out and talk about what you're building?

daniel_4_09-18-2024_104736: fundraising means that you're probably not building and if you're not building, then why should people invest in

you?

And it and and the other thing that's hard is it's hard to figure out who to trust There's a lot of people that really seem like experts and that have very clear definitive, guidance on how you should do this As long as you give them five percent equity And there's a lot of people that if you did You would go far because they would do that service for you, or it would help you grow in that way, but how do you know who to trust especially if you've done like I did and you quietly in the [00:41:00] background with only your money, or with, with very little outside capital, you're able to build, uh, Something that now you're going to release. You have to trust somebody. it's, it is hard. It's hard to, because you can't do this alone. , you should focus on the thing that you're best at. and surround yourself with people who are the best at those other required things that you need. Don't try to be the marketer and the developer and the CEO and the fundraiser because you're going to suck at all of them.

abby_4_09-18-2024_104737: Yeah.

daniel_4_09-18-2024_104736: Pick one that you're best at and find the people that are the best at the others.

abby_4_09-18-2024_104737: So to your point earlier, go deep, but be intentional about where you're going deep because you can't go deep on everything. And then how good of a job are you doing on any of those things?

daniel_4_09-18-2024_104736: Well, I always try to go deep on everything that I do. So if I'm, if I'm doing the marketing and I'm doing the developing and I'm [00:42:00] doing this, then I'm probably not sleeping.

abby_4_09-18-2024_104737: Yeah.

daniel_4_09-18-2024_104736: don't go deep on too many things.

abby_4_09-18-2024_104737: I love it. Well, wonderful, Daniel, you've been so, so generous and forthcoming with everything you shared today. Before we get into, I want to get into, uh where folks can find make well, where they can learn more about you. But before we pivot to that, is there anything else you'd like to leave our audiences with today?

Any kind of words of wisdom or things you'd want them to walk away with having listened to this conversation?

daniel_4_09-18-2024_104736: I've heard a lot of talk recently about the AI bubble is about to pop and because the financial reports this and that and, I've spent a lot of time interacting with the technology on a really deep level and know that we are already capable of automating most fairly complex administrative tasks. It has to be done on a computer, which is most of our jobs. It [00:43:00] already can done if somebody spends enough time clearly defining that role and task And very soon that requirement of clearly clearly defining a role and a task and building a process that makes this, we're not going to need to do it. We're very close to the technology being to the point to where founders are going to be able to purchase technological co founders or marketing co founders and have PhD level work be done. That is going to fundamentally change the world as we know it. We're going through the very last technological revolution that human beings are going to be primarily responsible for. now's the time to make your mark because the transition I know the far future is going to be bright. I don't think that it's going to be Terminator and all doom and [00:44:00] gloom. We're going to have this utopia that we'll just be able to pursue knowledge and exist in, because I have faith that good will prevail eventually. But there's going to be a whole lot of chaos before we get there. And now is the time I think I sweat wasting time because of how fast everything is advancing right now. I feel like your time for making a mark and for doing something independently is, running out. , so if you don't want to just be along for the ride, maybe now is the time to jump,

abby_4_09-18-2024_104737: Well, thank you. So I, I think some people could look at that as harrowing, but I actually look at it as inspiring. yeah. If you want to make meaningful impact, stop putting it off because maybe that opportunity is going to be diminished with time.

daniel_4_09-18-2024_104736: And I, I am worried about what lot of people will do when all they have is, themselves to find [00:45:00] meaning and purpose. I think a lot of people, I see a lot of people slip into depression when they lose their jobs. Or when their kids grow up and move out of the house. And I think that, uh, another thing that I might leave you with is find a, find a passion.

There's a lot of people that don't, that, that, that, that they live every minute of every day for just the grind and they don't have any genuine passions and, and find something to love, find something to build for because hopefully if I'm right, that's that's what you'll have mostly time for in the future is what what you're passionate about because all of this toiling We're gonna solve with computers and robots

abby_4_09-18-2024_104737: Yeah. Completely. Yeah. That resonates for sure. Okay. Daniel. Well, if folks want to learn more about Makewell, get involved, where can they seek you out? Seek the company out, plug, plug away.

daniel_4_09-18-2024_104736: you can find me on LinkedIn. Daniel M. Carol. Uh, you can find make well at make [00:46:00] well. ai. Or if you have an Android phone or an Apple phone, which should be most people, you can just go right into your app store and type in make well. and you will find it there.

abby_4_09-18-2024_104737: Awesome. So it's available to download now on the Apple and Android Google Play stores. Fabulous. Well, thank you so much, Daniel. You've left our audience with so much wisdom today. , I've taken away personally many things from this conversation, so I can't thank you enough.

daniel_4_09-18-2024_104736: Thank you.

Thank you for listening to the marginal podcast. This podcast is brought to you by the team at Reb science, with theme music by Siddhartha. You can find full episode show notes@marginalpodcast.com and follow us at marginal podcast on Instagram. Don't forget to rate, review and subscribe to the podcast.

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