Max Harding's barefoot arrival

Max Harding, a twenty-year-old Californian, returned barefoot from a run in the woods to a large barn in rural Pennsylvania where he was working on his startup Hivemind Research.

Hivemind Research's division of labor

Harding's cofounder Skyler Ji said Harding captures camera attention and spreads their philosophy while Ji runs operations. Hivemind Research aims to build digital brains in the form of social media.

“Max brings some of the grander things”

Launchpad brings together sixty-six founders

Sixty-six mostly young, mostly imaginative startup founders participated in a two-week incubator workshop called Launchpad, hosted by Stan, a platform for independent creators to advertise and sell services.

Selection based on social media reach

Stan cofounder Vitalii Dodonov said thirty participating teams were chosen from seven hundred applicants primarily for their existing social media followings and their ability to grow them.

Distribution matters more than building

Dodonov told Business Insider that in today's startup culture, it is not the building that gets you to revenue, it is the distribution.

“It's not the building that gets you to revenue, it's the distribution”

Daily metrics heavily weight social media

Competing teams were required to meet many daily metrics including ten sales calls, but social media videos were among the most heavily weighted.

Founders film constantly at meals

Everywhere at the event, people were talking about their companies into phones attached to tripods. Their products ranged from an AI facial scanner that tracks acne to an AI app connecting parents with babysitters.

Even outfits were choreographed for cameras

Multi-person film crews trailed Stan cofounders Vitalii Dodonov and John Hu at all times. On camera crew advice, Hu wore cream while Dodonov wore charcoal to emphasize the yin and yang paradigm between them.

Reality TV format with firepit eliminations

The event was billed as a reality-TV-style game show-slash-incubator in the vein of hits like Love Island and Squid Game, with founder teams subject to firepit eliminations and competitive drama.

No romance, just all-nighters

Jacob Snarr, a twenty-four-year-old from Philadelphia, laughed that there was no sex at the event. Startup founders routinely pulled all-nighters to hit their metrics instead.

“There's no sex. Nobody here is thinking about that.”

Rey Mendoza's exhaustion and elimination

Rey Mendoza, forty-one and one of the oldest founders, had already been eliminated. He showed his sleep tracker for six days and had not slept more than six hours a night.

“Here, you're just fucking building, like twenty-four seven”

Stan spent three million dollars on the event

Stan spent a combined three million dollars renting a luxury four-hundred-acre villa two hours north of New York City for two weeks, booking camera crews, and hosting founders from as far as Spain and Denmark.

Testing whether personality drives success

Dodonov said the return on investment is to see if the playbook works, the playbook being that building a successful company requires promoting yourself on social media above all else.

Personality as differentiator in saturated market

John Hu said anyone could use AI tools to start three or four businesses today, but they likely would not be profitable. Founders' personalities and manufactured drama are what separate winners from the noise.

Hu's brutal firepit roast as teaching moment

In the first challenge, John Hu tore into teams' social media videos in front of everyone, telling one team no one would watch their content because of quality. He said this mimicked real-life startup struggle.

“Guys, would anyone ever watch this? No. The answer is no, because of the quality, you never have a shot.”