ElevenLabs was a commercial version of 15.ai. It's crazy, because 15.ai could have had the venture-scale outcomes if he'd fundraised and turned it into a SaaS product. He was in the right place, right time, with tremendous attention, but missed the opportunity.
The other "labs" followed the trend. The {number}labs / {number}.ai domains all quickly got squatted.
I was in the same space and watched it happening. I launched FakeYou about the same time as 15.ai, but 15 had the backing of 4chan and a better model. I still made it to 7M MAU and a million in revenue despite that.
Just last year, Fish Audio picked up where 15.ai / FakeYou / UberDuck / Weights.gg left off and made it to $20M ARR, which is a lesson about abandoning under-served markets when you still have tremendous gravity.
This world of cheap (vc) money, huge private equity sells and high revenue early in the products development phase is so distant to me(geographically and even more so, mentally), I need some help deciding what to do with my project and I'd really appreciate if you could DM me
Fwiw, ElevenLabs doesn't make any sense as a firm, considering its TTS offerings are extremely overpriced by an absurdly large factor. A large user would be far better off using local models.
Hitchhiker: You heard of this thing, the 8-Minute Abs?
Ted: Yeah, sure, 8-Minute Abs. Yeah, the exercise video.
Hitchhiker: Yeah, this is going to blow that right out of the water. Listen to this: 7... Minute... Abs.
Ted: Right. Yes. OK, all right. I see where you're going.
Hitchhiker: Think about it. You walk into a video store, you see 8-Minute Abs sittin' there, there's 7-Minute Abs right beside it. Which one are you gonna pick, man?
Ted: I would go for the 7.
Hitchhiker: Bingo, man, bingo. 7-Minute Abs. And we guarantee just as good a workout as the 8-minute folk.
Ted: You guarantee it? That's - how do you do that?
Hitchhiker: If you're not happy with the first 7 minutes, we're gonna send you the extra minute free. You see? That's it. That's our motto. That's where we're comin' from. That's from "A" to "B".
Ted: That's right. That's - that's good. That's good. Unless, of course, somebody comes up with 6-Minute Abs. Then you're in trouble, huh?
[Hitchhiker convulses]
Hitchhiker: No! No, no, not 6! I said 7. Nobody's comin' up with 6. Who works out in 6 minutes? You won't even get your heart goin, not even a mouse on a wheel.
Ted: That - good point.
Hitchhiker: 7's the key number here. Think about it. 7-Elevens. 7 dwarves. 7, man, that's the number. 7 chipmunks twirlin' on a branch, eatin' lots of sunflowers on my uncle's ranch. You know that old children's tale from the sea. It's like you're dreamin' about Gorgonzola cheese when it's clearly Brie time, baby. Step into my office.
I was trying to remember the actor/comedian who delivered this pitch. It was Harland Williams. I most remember him as the Pennsylvania state trooper from Dumb & Dumber.
https://www.twelvelabs.io/blog/introducing-the-multimodal-ai...
> Twelve Labs and ElevenLabs are co-hosting the 23Labs Hackathon
Best comment so far
Tried to register sixsevenlabs, too late unfortunately...
All of them copied 15.ai
ElevenLabs was a commercial version of 15.ai. It's crazy, because 15.ai could have had the venture-scale outcomes if he'd fundraised and turned it into a SaaS product. He was in the right place, right time, with tremendous attention, but missed the opportunity.
The other "labs" followed the trend. The {number}labs / {number}.ai domains all quickly got squatted.
I was in the same space and watched it happening. I launched FakeYou about the same time as 15.ai, but 15 had the backing of 4chan and a better model. I still made it to 7M MAU and a million in revenue despite that.
Just last year, Fish Audio picked up where 15.ai / FakeYou / UberDuck / Weights.gg left off and made it to $20M ARR, which is a lesson about abandoning under-served markets when you still have tremendous gravity.
I got 99 labs but bringing value to society ain't one
This world of cheap (vc) money, huge private equity sells and high revenue early in the products development phase is so distant to me(geographically and even more so, mentally), I need some help deciding what to do with my project and I'd really appreciate if you could DM me
You were a year behind 15.ai with FakeYou. I know, because I was six months ahead of you and didn't execute in time. Momentum is everything.
damn, what a rollercoaster you had there, man
SixSevenLabs btw seems really cringe, see https://www.67lab.ai/catalog/clawnexus
Ironically (or maybe unironically?) I just started working with a friends company called fifteenlabs lol. Still pretty new.
What I’m seeing is there are 29 available startup names just waiting…
After that we’ll have to expand to 3 digits, which will open the possibility of naming your company after hip area codes.
Yeah! 50 labs is still available. I know what I’m getting myself for my 50th birthday!
kennywinkerlabs
Fwiw, ElevenLabs doesn't make any sense as a firm, considering its TTS offerings are extremely overpriced by an absurdly large factor. A large user would be far better off using local models.
I used to work for a startup called 1026 Labs!
I see someone is implementing FizzBuzz in “startup funding rounds”.
Three score and ten labs
Three score and seven labs /s
Hitchhiker: You heard of this thing, the 8-Minute Abs?
Ted: Yeah, sure, 8-Minute Abs. Yeah, the exercise video.
Hitchhiker: Yeah, this is going to blow that right out of the water. Listen to this: 7... Minute... Abs.
Ted: Right. Yes. OK, all right. I see where you're going.
Hitchhiker: Think about it. You walk into a video store, you see 8-Minute Abs sittin' there, there's 7-Minute Abs right beside it. Which one are you gonna pick, man?
Ted: I would go for the 7.
Hitchhiker: Bingo, man, bingo. 7-Minute Abs. And we guarantee just as good a workout as the 8-minute folk.
Ted: You guarantee it? That's - how do you do that?
Hitchhiker: If you're not happy with the first 7 minutes, we're gonna send you the extra minute free. You see? That's it. That's our motto. That's where we're comin' from. That's from "A" to "B".
Ted: That's right. That's - that's good. That's good. Unless, of course, somebody comes up with 6-Minute Abs. Then you're in trouble, huh?
[Hitchhiker convulses]
Hitchhiker: No! No, no, not 6! I said 7. Nobody's comin' up with 6. Who works out in 6 minutes? You won't even get your heart goin, not even a mouse on a wheel.
Ted: That - good point.
Hitchhiker: 7's the key number here. Think about it. 7-Elevens. 7 dwarves. 7, man, that's the number. 7 chipmunks twirlin' on a branch, eatin' lots of sunflowers on my uncle's ranch. You know that old children's tale from the sea. It's like you're dreamin' about Gorgonzola cheese when it's clearly Brie time, baby. Step into my office.
Ted: Why?
Hitchhiker: 'Cause you're fuckin' fired!
I was trying to remember the actor/comedian who delivered this pitch. It was Harland Williams. I most remember him as the Pennsylvania state trooper from Dumb & Dumber.
Finally, a periodic table of labs
Hugged I think, no archives (org/today).
buying up all domains right now, thanks for making me rich
HN Hug of death
Yup. The site doesn't load.
I did myself try a few increments above 11 once, but this takes it to the next level. Quality stuff.
All those cool domain names are gone now - the power of the hn frontpage!
There's always some kind of popular dumb naming scheme. I remember when it was prefixing "Zen-" to your startup. Some things never change
Remembr when it was missng lettrs out of wrds
miss.ng lett.rs
Zen-Eleven labs.
eZenElevenLabsify.io
gotta wonder if any inspired by Ocean's Eleven, Ocean's 12, Ocean's 13
I think the inspiration was the Arabic numerals.
No it was the word eleven and the word labs.