Rented Intelligence

About the book

Two founders have 3.2 months of runway. Their product runs on an AI model they do not own.

They are On-the-Line, a fictitious company with no funding and an AI agent that answers the phone for local service businesses. Their first customer pays $149 a month, and after the phone and AI bills $50 of it is theirs. Then the provider changes its prices, and the $50 is $14.

Each chapter gives you the next thing a founder needs: a runway number, five customer interviews, a contract, a forecast, a hiring brief. It is shown filled in for On-the-Line, so you can fill in yours.

Who it is for

The young, first-time founder with little money, no network and no track record.

Each chapter ends in a one-page report, short enough to read in thirty seconds.

Start with nothing. Build on a model you do not own.

About the author

Shree Mandadi is a serial entrepreneur and mentor, and Founder and Principal at Continuous Engineering, with thirty years in engineering, twenty of them in healthcare-adjacent work. He leads a small San Diego-based practice that audits, advises and implements AI adoption for organizations moving from pilot to production.

Parts of this book were written with Anthropic's Claude, and its images were generated with AI image tools.

Discussion

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• The chapters
  A chapter that worked for your venture, or one that did not.
• Your venture
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