Call Summary: Business Development and Strategic Partnership Discussion

Overview

Wilson Fong reached out to Gary after a postponed project to discuss multiple business opportunities and provide mentorship. The conversation covered Wilson's current ventures (Signal Pattern, Nile database, semiconductor startup, Web3 foundation), Gary's applied AI community vision, and deeper philosophical discussions about character, ambition, and building meaningful partnerships.

Key Topics Discussed

Wilson's Current Business Ventures and Deal Flow

Signal Pattern Partnership

• Partnership with David Thompson: Former CEO/founder of Momentum Labs who sold his UX company to a global engineering firm 4 years ago
• Product: AI-powered strategy and development platform with 36+ specialized AI agents
• Capability: Generates comprehensive strategy docs in 7 minutes including market validation, user understanding, competitive analysis, PRDs, and pseudocode
• Wilson's Role: Business development and relationship management leveraging his extensive enterprise network
• Status: In discussions for Wilson to become a founding partner

Creative Partnerships and Network

• Vio (Visual Artist): External creative lead for XAI team, created Grok logo and extensive XAI branding
• Contino Partnership: Consumer product focused, different from Vio's complex technology storytelling expertise
• Business Model: Wilson handles relationship management, client management, and business development while partners focus on creative execution

Current Proposals and Opportunities

• Nile Database: Postgres multi-tenant database startup founded by first 2-3 employees from Confluent (8 billion dollar company), just raised $11.5 million
• Semiconductor Startup: Y Combinator 2024 graduate, raised ~$10 million, claims chip 26x more powerful than Nvidia's N100
• Mugen (Web3/Cayman Islands): Foundation services agency for 25+ crypto foundations, treasury in the billions, founder was #2 at Chainlink
• Challenge: Startup founders often have "sticker shock" at six-figure creative costs when expecting $10K budgets

Gary's Applied AI Community Vision

Core Thesis

• Target Market: Companies that are not tech-first but hungry to integrate AI for operations and growth
• Ideal Project: Multi-figure, multi-week concrete automation projects for profitable companies
• Community Structure: Two-sided marketplace connecting business owners hungry for AI integration with engineers who want to help businesses apply AI

Funding and Support

• Travis Oliphant Commitment: Verbal confirmation to pay Gary to build applied AI community in Austin area
• Philosophy: Early projects may pay almost nothing to build case studies and get momentum
• Priority: Solving real business problems and building case studies over immediate revenue
• Requirement: Strong relationships for mutual favor-type arrangements where businesses invest time for affordable AI solutions

Strategic Approach

• Bottom-Up vs Top-Down: Gary initially focused on smaller businesses, Wilson advocates for targeting top of food chain with higher budgets
• Relationship-Gated Market: Success depends on warm contacts and character-based trust
• Case Study Development: Building portfolio of successful implementations to enable productization

Character Development and Mentorship

Wilson's Direct Feedback to Gary

• Hubris Observation: "You're still very green. You're young, you're green, but you're fucking talented and you're smart. Sometimes you have a bit of hubris. You gotta watch that."
• Recent Improvement: Acknowledged Gary's character growth since summer, noting cleaner mindset and purpose
• Humility Development: "Hubris is something that never goes away until the day you die. It always wants to come out unless you really understand humility."

Gary's Personal Growth Journey

• Faith Integration: Deeper commitment to Christianity since baptism, focusing on character over achievement
• Values Shift: Moving away from attraction to people who over-promise toward valuing reliability and integrity
• Corporate Respect: New appreciation for large corporations and their responsibility to stakeholders
• Ambition with Morality: Wrestling with how to be ambitious while maintaining Christian values

Business Philosophy and Partnership Approach

Wilson's Life Philosophy

• Daily Practice: "I wake up in the morning. I make Ashley coffee. Sometimes I make her oatmeal. I'm already giving."
• Relationship Building: "All I do is fucking produce. Produce moments with care and with attention and with joy."
• Value Creation: "I like it when people pay me a lot of money to hang out with them because I want to add a shit ton of value."
• Long-term Thinking: "30,000 days is 82 years. How do you make every day valuable to you and the people around you that you love?"

Partnership Strategy

• Multiple Irons Approach: "My strategy is I'm going to have multiple irons in the fire until I see one iron turn iron into gold. And then I'm 150% on that particular iron."
• Team Dynamics: Emphasis on working with people who "will beat the problem on the head and keep beating it until they crack it"
• Pressure as Growth: "It makes me feel alive... it's like squeezing fucking pressure to try and make diamonds."

Strategic Synergies and Future Collaboration

Potential Collaboration Areas

• Signal Pattern Evangelism: Gary's community building would create natural market for AI strategy platform
• Event Strategy: Both need to attend conferences and events, potential for shared booth strategy
• Network Leverage: Wilson's enterprise connections could provide high-value AI implementation opportunities
• Technical Leadership: Gary positioned as technical implementation lead for Wilson's creative agency projects

Go-to-Market Alignment

• Conference Strategy: Signal Pattern planning 16 conferences in 2026 with comprehensive booth presence
• Systematic Approach: "We are fucking organized and we're going fucking gangbusters. And we have a whole fucking plan in place."
• ICP Development: Clear ideal customer profile, qualification framework, and approach methodology

Key Quotes

On Character and Growth

• Wilson: "People that embrace every situation with love are people that go through life in ways that resonate with me... people that embrace situations with judgment and negativity and criticism and skepticism... are people that have journeys that are less interesting to me."

On Business Partnerships

• Wilson: "I just want to come and help you. And I just want to do more fucking cool shit together. I want to make plays with people that know how to make plays and that can make plays successfully."

On Gary's Transformation

• Gary: "Since getting deeper into the faith and getting baptized... I'm feeling a lot more appreciative of a lot of things that I think I was meant to appreciate more like character. Character matters a lot more to me."

On Corporate Respect

• Gary: "I have like a new level of respect for people that... can just stick with a company through the internal politics and BS but like make an impact... Being able to provide value to these kinds of people and these companies shifted from... maybe underestimating... to like wow it'd be an honor."

Action Items / Takeaways

• Immediate Opportunity: Explore Gary's involvement in Wilson's current enterprise AI projects
• Community Building: Gary to proceed with Travis Oliphant-funded applied AI community in Austin
• Character Development: Gary to continue focusing on humility and character-based relationship building
• Strategic Alignment: Both parties interested in long-term partnership based on shared values and complementary skills
• Network Integration: Potential introduction to Signal Pattern founder David Thompson
• Conference Strategy: Explore shared event presence for community building and business development

Strategic Context

This conversation represents a pivotal moment in Gary's career trajectory, moving from startup/YC culture toward enterprise consulting and community building. Wilson's mentorship provides both business opportunities and character development guidance, emphasizing the importance of long-term relationship building over quick wins. The alignment between Gary's applied AI vision and Wilson's enterprise network creates significant potential for mutually beneficial collaboration.