START: Simon Shu & Justin Sato, Co-Founders, Restart: "The AI company builder"

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How many companies die as an idea because the founder can't build the first version?

That's who Simon Shu and Justin Sato have in mind with Restart, which they call the AI company builder. You describe the idea in plain language and Restart sharpens it, then builds a working web product while you watch the pages, copy, and design fill in on a live preview. It publishes to a real URL when you say so, and changes work the same way: say what should be different and watch it happen.

Most people building on it are starting their first company, and most of them aren't engineers. They're making SaaS, consumer apps, marketplaces, e-commerce, service businesses, and local businesses; even a coffee shop and a restaurant right alongside apps.

The whole thing started from one question: what will companies look like five years from now?

Advanced AI will make companies, the economy, and society work in fundamentally different ways. In that world, what changes for workers?

They should get to be creatives and visionaries, and Simon and Justin are building Restart so anyone can.

Simon brings experience from Tesla and Scale AI. Justin studied CS at Stanford after doing physics and AI safety research, and he's worked in AI engineering at several startups, including Tomo. They met over poker in SF.

Restart has already grown to around 50K users, largely through social, and the team keeps shipping and improving the product. There's a free plan with daily build credits, so you can start building today.

🎙️ Simon Shu & Justin Sato, Co-Founders, Restart on Fondo START with Guest Host: @peggy_wang, Founder & CEO, @sparkchat_so @digipals_app

01:40 Meeting at a founders-and-investors poker game in SF
02:15 The ride home where they started trading startup ideas
02:42 Building a startup always felt inevitable to both of them
03:27 Moving into Justin's Stanford dorm room
04:03 Grinding it out and raising a pre-seed round
04:20 The starting question: what will companies look like in five years?
04:55 Shipping before it's ready, and getting to ~50K users
05:18 Justin's LinkedIn post gets picked up by Indian news
05:35 The 20-iPhone content operation
06:21 "Restart is the AI company builder."
06:30 The early wedge: incorporation, payments, software
07:33 Who it's for: coffee shops, restaurants, and apps
07:58 What they love about SF
09:24 The guests flip it: what does the host think about AGI?
10:30 Simon on turning workers into creators in the AGI era
11:01 Justin on Restart's responsibility to make companies AI-native

Try it at restart.new