Looking at that list, the top three companies are essentially about building apps without writing code. The next one is about helping developers write code. Perplexity is the only real outlier, and even that not by much. I am by no means an AI pessimist, but I can't help think where are all the awesome companies in other sectors that this technology is supposed to unlock.
I understand that many industries will take years to adopt. Fine. But about sub-sectors in tech—gaming, design, data? What is happening beyond "make software development easier"? Is it because ChatGPT like apps are enough for most people?
I co-mentor with a large online school for an AI accelerator course. We get about 600 participants each month, paying about $500-600 for a 14 day course. I only co-mentor for 2 days - the days we teach fundamentals of software development and then show how to code with Replit, Bolt, Lovable, Emergent, etc.
One of the most common questions is "can I build on xyz and shift to abc because I do not want to pay?" And another is "can I host the code myself?"
Customers know they do not need to stay with any of these code builders. The platforms know it too. They spend tons of $ to get customers, who use the credits and then leave.
Each of the players are just eating each others customers and showing growth. Perplexity has acquired who knows how many customers in India through their 12 month free Pro offer via Airtel (a telecom provider): https://www.perplexity.ai/help-center/en/articles/11842322-p...
Setting aside the veracity of the $100m claim: Manus is a spin out of a spin out, building on ~10 years of previous work. The “fastest company to 100m arr” has become a meme so it doesn’t deserve much scrutiny but it seems a somewhat tenuous claim in this case.
The thing about ARR numbers is that in most cases they didn't really recur, especially for an 8-month-old company. Also, I don't really care about these numbers anymore unless they share how much they spent on marketing.
IMHO at least some spending on AI are FOMO driven. Companies think how they can adopt AI faster than competitors in a fear being left behind and loose the race. They don’t yet know if ROI of AI adoption is above zero. Even if adopting AI is the only right decision some of AI users may go out of business having overspend on AI and either way AI customer base will decrease.
Interesting perspective, but, as with most writing, it seems to say more about the author of the article than the actual subject. Yes, I do get that that butthole is a way to capture attention of the reader and even with knowledge it does not help that you really, really want to see it ( with one exception ) for the analogy to work. Even if it is just a device ( and it does not appear to be ), it feels forced.
Since it's an AI company, and not actually doing anything by hand, it wouldn't surprise me if they came up with the name "manus" because it has "anus" in it, and then designed the hand logo due to the Latin meaning of the name. [this is a sarcasm, in case that was not clear]
If these customers have set an automated system to pay you $200 every single minute, that’s correct. If they haven’t and it was just a one off sale, you are missing the “recurring” part in ARR.
Looking at that list, the top three companies are essentially about building apps without writing code. The next one is about helping developers write code. Perplexity is the only real outlier, and even that not by much. I am by no means an AI pessimist, but I can't help think where are all the awesome companies in other sectors that this technology is supposed to unlock.
I understand that many industries will take years to adopt. Fine. But about sub-sectors in tech—gaming, design, data? What is happening beyond "make software development easier"? Is it because ChatGPT like apps are enough for most people?
I co-mentor with a large online school for an AI accelerator course. We get about 600 participants each month, paying about $500-600 for a 14 day course. I only co-mentor for 2 days - the days we teach fundamentals of software development and then show how to code with Replit, Bolt, Lovable, Emergent, etc.
One of the most common questions is "can I build on xyz and shift to abc because I do not want to pay?" And another is "can I host the code myself?"
Customers know they do not need to stay with any of these code builders. The platforms know it too. They spend tons of $ to get customers, who use the credits and then leave.
Manus is running $5000 credit for 2000 people. A simple search shows so many offers: https://x.com/search?q=ManusAI%20credits&src=typed_query
Each of the players are just eating each others customers and showing growth. Perplexity has acquired who knows how many customers in India through their 12 month free Pro offer via Airtel (a telecom provider): https://www.perplexity.ai/help-center/en/articles/11842322-p...
Setting aside the veracity of the $100m claim: Manus is a spin out of a spin out, building on ~10 years of previous work. The “fastest company to 100m arr” has become a meme so it doesn’t deserve much scrutiny but it seems a somewhat tenuous claim in this case.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manus_(AI_agent)
After 10 years of hard work, it was an "instant" success.
The thing about ARR numbers is that in most cases they didn't really recur, especially for an 8-month-old company. Also, I don't really care about these numbers anymore unless they share how much they spent on marketing.
IMHO at least some spending on AI are FOMO driven. Companies think how they can adopt AI faster than competitors in a fear being left behind and loose the race. They don’t yet know if ROI of AI adoption is above zero. Even if adopting AI is the only right decision some of AI users may go out of business having overspend on AI and either way AI customer base will decrease.
Yes if they are losing on unit economics can they make it up on scale (facetious saying but there may be truth to it for some AI startups)
Can't spell Manus without anus.
What is it with AI companies and buttholes? https://velvetshark.com/ai-company-logos-that-look-like-butt...
I can not unsee it now!
Btw, this reminds me the red hot logo, which is a ass hole too.
That was a really good read.
Interesting perspective, but, as with most writing, it seems to say more about the author of the article than the actual subject. Yes, I do get that that butthole is a way to capture attention of the reader and even with knowledge it does not help that you really, really want to see it ( with one exception ) for the analogy to work. Even if it is just a device ( and it does not appear to be ), it feels forced.
Yikes.
With a bit of education one would know that manus is Latin for hand. That's where "manual" comes from.
And their logo is, lo and behold ... a hand!
Since it's an AI company, and not actually doing anything by hand, it wouldn't surprise me if they came up with the name "manus" because it has "anus" in it, and then designed the hand logo due to the Latin meaning of the name. [this is a sarcasm, in case that was not clear]
So it is the Ancient Romans who were obsessed with butts. Got it.
There are more English words that end in -ass than Latin words that end in -anus, so who's really obsessed?
but where has that hand BEEN? And we are back at -anus again.
Nobody I know tried manus let alone heard of it.
This just doesn't smell right overall.
A service precariously sitting on top of a LLM that can change any minute now. This surely is future proof.
Last minute I sold 200 €/$£/¥ worth of product. At this rate and because online sales is 24/7, I am hitting 200*60*24*365 = 105.120.000 ARR. tada!
If these customers have set an automated system to pay you $200 every single minute, that’s correct. If they haven’t and it was just a one off sale, you are missing the “recurring” part in ARR.
So what do they do?
Probably just another AI website generator, like v0 and lovable. Probably no difference.
How much ARR openrouter has?
I would wager much more.
Is this the capacity most people are using Manus in? I'd imagine it's the higher level stuff.
So full of humility.