Moonshots with Lizelle
a podcast by Lizelle van Vuuren
Quick Look
Words of Wisdom
What’s next?
Introducing Moonshots with Lizelle, a podcast
AI eats the world
New Music
Words of Wisdom
"What stands in the way becomes the way " - Ryan Holiday in Discipline is Destiny
Every time we try to figure out a way around a difficult situation it almost always turns out that the way around is through.
What’s Next?
I stepped down as CGO at OwnTrail in December and returned to advising. The team made great progress and I felt my day-to-day contributions were complete. I'm excited to announce OwnTrail was accepted to Techstars Anywhere. It was a privilege to work on a unique startup led by a female and non-binary founder with a 4-day workweek.
So, what’s next?
I am exploring ways to contribute to the improvement of entrepreneurship and access to resources and capital for more people. I am particularly interested in the impact of AI and no-code tools on the speed of taking ideas to market. I am open to working with platforms, accelerators, and startups in this space.
Additionally, I am considering two of my own ideas and seeking opportunities to contribute to other innovative technology startups. I’m actively taking meetings o don’t hesitate to hit me up.
I am also planning to dust off my podcast chops to share the stories and strategies of fellow founders, builders, and creators in building sustainable companies out of their wildest ideas.
Moonshots have been on my mind forever and I miss learning in public the way I use to when I interviewed thousands of people while building Women Who Startup.
A new podcast is coming…
Introducing, Moonshots with Lizelle, a podcast where I’ll explore the world of startups, entrepreneurship, and innovation. In each episode, I will speak with a founder, leader, investor, or builder who’s taking on significant challenges and pushing the boundaries of what's possible. From taking on established industries to disrupting the status quo, these inspiring individuals are driving the future of business and technology. Join me as we learn from their journeys to discover what it takes to go deep into yourself to build something exceptional beyond yourself.
I will keep you updated on new podcast episodes right here in my newsletter. You will be the first to listen to the teaser and see the interview guest list.
AI eats the world
As some of you might have taken note of, AI is exploding and 2 applications I’ve been enthralled with is ChatGPT and Midjourney.
The San Francisco based startup, OpenAI created ChatGPT which has millions of people losing their collective minds - as we should - about the power and speed that AI can lend to our every day work and productivity. ChatGPT is a natural language interpreter and chat bot that gives you an instant feedback loop when you ask it anything. And I mean anything.
Here are some things ChatGPT can help you do in seconds;
Write your bio
Create a resume
Draft a job description for a new hire
Write a story
Write a book
Answer a question about anything under the sun (and more)
Check your code
Create a new drink recipe
Help you on your research paper
Do math (but check your work, it’s not brilliant at math yet, oddly)
Write HTML based on your description
Help you with color theory
Write a Twitter thread
Write a newsletter
ChatGPT is pretty revolutionary and it’s only the very beginning. GPT-4 is scheduled to launch later this year in 2023 and said to be 10 times more powerful and accurate.
AI is not going to take your job. The person learning how to write prompts to AI that gets their work expedited by 10 times might however.
Try ChatGPT, it’s currently in beta and still free.
Now meet Midjourney.
Midjourney is an independent research lab that produces a proprietary artificial intelligence program under the same name that creates images from textual descriptions, similar to OpenAI's DALL-E and Stable Diffusion.
Basically, Midjourney is like ChatGPT but instead of spitting out words as a result, Midjourney produces images by AI from your natural language prompts. I started to play with this at the very beginning of December and for someone with a wild imagination and a million ideas a minute, this is a dream.
I created a thread on Twitter where I came up with some wild consumer product brand collaborations by using Midjourney. The ideas are wild. Here’s the thread of all the ideas I’ve come up with so far.
Here’s a preview of 4 of those ideas:
If Atoms shoes and Santa Clause collaborated on a shoe
If Room & Board and Porsche collaborated on creating furniture
If Ikea partnered up with Patagonia to make fun new, outdoor inspired furniture
If Crocs and Tiffany & Co. collaborated on shoes
I created all these and hundreds more from writing into their Discord and having AI spit out a unique image every time. There are zero limits remaining to our imagination. In any fields and in any job tools like these are going to change the way we think, create, invent, solve problems, come up with new ideas and so much more.
You too can go try Midjourney, you get about 10 prompts for free and you can choose from a subscription model if you’re really into it. And here is their Quick Start Guide. There’s plenty on YouTube to help you get started as well.
What are you working on?
Leave a comment and let’s get into it. I’m always building community and would love to know how we can help each other connect and grow. Magic happens when you’re connected to opportunity.
New Music
There’s one universal language I know we all speak and it’s music.
New little bop called Flowers from Miley Cyrus has me dancing in my house in a suite. I do that anyways but this gave me another good excuse to do it again.
Thanks for reading.
As always — Keep Climbing.
Until next time,
Lizelle
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