Getting into the market is easy. Staying in it is hard.

<p>In this episode, Drew sits down with Harold Hughes, founder and CEO of Divi and an angel investor, to talk about how to build a company in the age of AI. Harold shares why starting is easier than ever but staying in the market is harder, why a prototype beats a pitch deck, and a simple trick for getting honest feedback from friends: tell them you are thinking of investing. Drew tells the story of how posting about Charlotte Startup House in public, and going to a lunch he did not want to attend, led to finding the house. They also get into why content and education build trust, why design and taste matter when anyone can build with AI, and why information should work like a library, not a vault.</p><p><br></p><p>Takeaways</p><p>1. AI makes it easy to start a company, but harder to stay in the market, because a competitor can start tomorrow.</p><p>2. If you want investor money, show up with a working prototype. A pitch deck alone no longer works.</p><p>3. Execution is no longer the bottleneck. Finding a real customer pain point is.</p><p>4. The most common reason startups fail is no market demand, so talk to more humans than you think you need to.</p><p>5. To get honest feedback, tell friends you are thinking of investing in the idea instead of telling them you are building it.</p><p>6. Treat your company like a content studio. Education and entertainment build trust.</p><p>7. Your social capital is your biggest currency, so show up online as a round character with your work and your personal interests.</p><p>8. Everything you want is on the other side of discomfort, and the cringe of posting and talking to people is a barrier to entry for your competitors.</p><p>9. Products built with AI often look like it, so design and taste are what make people remember you.</p><p>10. Treat information like a library, not a vault. They can copy the recipe, but they cannot copy the chef.</p><p><br></p><p>Chapters</p><p>00:00 Cold open: &quot;Easy to get into market, hard to stay in&quot;</p><p>00:29 Intro to the show and guest</p><p>01:55 Harold&#39;s story: corporate, Bandwagon, and Divi</p><p>05:15 What Divi does for angel investors</p><p>06:22 Building a company in the age of AI</p><p>09:24 Pitch decks, bootstrapping, and building alone</p><p>11:11 Talk to real humans, and the &quot;invest in it&quot; trick</p><p>15:01 Why likes do not equal sales</p><p>17:38 Getting customers in a noisy market</p><p>20:51 Luck surface area and zagging</p><p>23:27 Everything you wa