Startup Innovation: How startups power new products with Claude

Introduction 00:05

  • The session features six startup founders who have quickly found product-market fit using Claude across industries like agentic coding, design, and music generation.
  • Many startups mentioned have reached millions of users within 12 months.
  • Attendees are encouraged to stay until the end for a special opportunity to access Claude 4.

Tempo Labs: Collaboration for Designers and PMs 00:56

  • Tempo is building an IDE called Cursor designed for Product Managers (PMs) and designers, resembling Figma more than VS Code.
  • The tool allows PMs and designers to collaborate with Claude, generating the first drafts or even complete pull requests (PRs), enabling non-engineers to directly contribute to code.
  • Tempo's interface divides work into three tabs: PRD (Product Requirements Document), design, and code.
  • Demonstration shows real-time collaborative editing, visual rearrangement (like Figma), and instant cloud-based code execution via Docker containers.
  • Designers now open 10-15% of front-end PRs directly, handling pixel-perfect changes without engineers, and contribute to about 60% of the code in many PRs.
  • Tempo is about to launch support for Claude 4, further inviting collaboration on code across non-traditional roles.

Zencoders: Automating Routine Work and Scaling Agents 06:20

  • Only a small fraction (2-5%) of ideas in large software companies are executed due to extensive routine work.
  • Belief that up to 90% of routine software tasks can be automated to accelerate innovation.
  • Introduction of AI coding assistants like Claude 3.5 enabled new use cases and significant usage growth (10x–100x increases).
  • Technical leaps include model support for tools, large context windows, and improved software engineering abilities.
  • Verification, enabled by computer use, is identified as the next crucial unlock for scaling autonomous AI coding.
  • Zencoders launched Zen agents: custom agents for entire software development lifecycle (SDLC) tasks, from PRDs to code, verification, and reviews.
  • Agents can be shared across organizations, with open contribution via a GitHub repo to enhance organizational creativity.

Gamma: Transforming Deck Generation with AI and Web Search 11:02

  • Gamma’s mission is to help users easily create presentations, documents, websites, and other formats using AI.
  • Significant metric improvements occurred when upgrading from Sonnet 3.5 to Sonnet 3.7, including an 8% increase in user satisfaction for deck generation.
  • The major boost came from web search integration, allowing the model to use real-time web data natively.
  • Demo shows accurate conference decks generated with web search compared to factually incorrect ones without it.
  • Gamma allows users to generate full documents or sites from single-sentence prompts, with the output reflecting up-to-date, correct information.
  • Gamma is hiring across engineering, product, and design roles.

Bito: Scaling Code Review with AI 14:42

  • Bito is building a leading AI-powered code review platform that integrates with GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket, supporting over 50 languages.
  • The surge in code generation (predicted 10x growth) necessitates scalable, high-quality code review.
  • Bito's focus is human-like, high-signal review—producing actionable, critical suggestions while minimizing noise.
  • Live demo shows Bito summarizing PRs, flagging key suggestions (e.g., missing resources, thread safety, and class cast exceptions), and offering one-click code fixes.
  • In-depth example: Bito traces a class cast exception not readily detectable by humans, demonstrating deep reasoning capabilities powered by Sonnet.
  • Bito's code review agent can be used directly within IDEs to review local changes.
  • Impact metrics: PRs close 10x faster (from 50 hours to 5 hours) in companies using Bito, with 80%+ of feedback automated by AI and delivered in minutes.

Refusion: Generative AI for Music Creation 19:45

  • Refusion is a generative music startup building frontier music models and user experiences for music creation and exploration.
  • The company’s core model (a diffusion transformer) is trained for quality, diversity, speed, and control.
  • Claude powers Refusion’s Ghost Writer agent for crafting and refining song lyrics, focusing on diversity, humor, taste, and fit with music genres.
  • Ghost Writer has been used tens of millions of times.
  • Demo highlights include fast lyric writing, genre-aware output, and deep editing workflows: remixing, section extension, vocal swapping, and audio-based prompts.
  • Users can prompt for genre, mood, or even specific intro formats (e.g., spoken word) to refine music outputs.
  • The product offers a creative, iterative process for artists, with Claude outperforming other models in lyric quality.

Create: AI-Powered Software App Builder 24:57

  • Create is an AI agent-based platform allowing users to build full-fledged web and mobile apps using natural language prompts, without coding.
  • Claude is a key model for powering code generation in Create’s agents.
  • Recent launch of a mobile app builder enables non-technical users to build and deploy iOS apps through simple prompts.
  • Live demo illustrates the process: a prompt specifies an app (e.g., family memory app), and the agent assembles frontend, backend, database schemas, and integrations autonomously.
  • Created apps can be published and submitted to the app store in a single click.
  • Diverse use cases include memory aids, scholarship application tools, basketball coaching apps, and personal finance assistants.
  • The explosion of new app creators is expanding who can build software, directly enabled by Claude-powered agents.