Episode 809 | What I Learned Diving into A.I. for 100 Days (with Craig Hewitt) - Startups For the Rest of Us Recap

Podcast: Startups For the Rest of Us

Published: 2025-12-02

Duration: 40 min

Guests: Craig Hewitt

Summary

Craig Hewitt shares insights from his 100-day deep dive into AI, discussing various tools and their applications for founders. He emphasizes the potential of AI agents and introduces his new ventures leveraging these technologies.

What Happened

Craig Hewitt, founder of Castos, shares his experience diving into AI for 100 days through a YouTube series. He explores various AI tools, like Manus and Claude Code, and discusses their applications, such as improving customer support and automating tasks. Hewitt challenges the utility of ChatGPT, suggesting better alternatives like Manus for founders looking to leverage AI in business.

The episode delves into the impact of AI on marketing and content discovery, highlighting tools like Ahrefs that utilize AI to enhance brand visibility. Hewitt emphasizes that AI is not yet fully autonomous, often requiring human intervention for the best results. He also discusses the implications of AI on employment, noting that it can reduce the need for large teams while benefiting founders by saving time.

Hewitt shares his thoughts on AI agents and automations, explaining how they can be integrated into business processes to increase efficiency. He describes agents as tools that combine language models, memory, and access to various resources to perform complex tasks. Examples include customer support agents that have significantly reduced workload at Castos.

In exploring his AI journey, Hewitt reflects on the challenges of maintaining motivation and creativity over 100 days, especially when many AI projects seemed trivial. He reveals that this journey led him to ideate new product offerings under the Castos umbrella.

Hewitt outlines three potential product ideas, including an AI-driven LinkedIn content creator called LinkBerry. This tool aims to simplify content generation for professionals who find it cumbersome. He is also considering a more sophisticated SEO content writing tool and a suite of marketing agents.

The conversation touches on the strategic decision to expand Castos by developing additional products, aiming to increase growth beyond its current plateau. Hewitt stresses the importance of aligning new products with existing customer bases and ensuring they can be monetized effectively.

Hewitt concludes by reflecting on the excitement and apprehension of starting new ventures. He acknowledges the need for innovation to maintain interest and drive growth, considering AI both an opportunity and a challenge in this endeavor.

Key Insights

• Manus is an AI tool preferred over ChatGPT for business applications, offering founders more effective solutions for improving customer support and automating tasks.
• AI tools like Ahrefs are transforming marketing by enhancing brand visibility through improved content discovery, although they still require human oversight for optimal results.
• AI agents, combining language models and memory, are integrated into business processes to increase efficiency, such as reducing workload in customer support at Castos.
• LinkBerry is a proposed AI-driven tool designed to simplify LinkedIn content creation for professionals, part of a strategic move to expand Castos with new product offerings.