EPISODE · Mar 6, 2026 · 1H 19M
You should build a consumer AI company today (Connor Zwick, Speak)
from Biography · host Wouter Teunissen
In this episode, Wouter sits down with Connor Zwick, founder and CEO of Speak, to talk about building one of the most ambitious consumer AI companies in the world. Before Speak, Connor built an app in high school that became #1 in the App Store. But instead of taking VC money at 17, he spent years going deep on AI research. He then flew to South Korea, where 1% of GDP was spent on learning English and nobody could actually speak. That decision set the foundation for everything that followed. In this conversation, Connor shares lessons on finding product market fit, the danger of magical thinking, building with AI before anyone cared, and why the consumer AI goldrush is just getting started. If you're a founder building in AI, this one will hit hard. This episode is presented by Rho, the all-in-one banking platform for startups. Thousands of startups like Perplexity, Product Hunt, and more use Rho. You get everything you need to manage your startup's cash. Exclusively for Biography Pod listeners and viewers, you'll get a $1500 statement credit plus a ton of exclusive perks when you manage your company cash with Rho. To learn more, visit rho.co/biography This episode is also presented by AssemblyAI, the leading Speech AI platform. Their API gives developers access to production-ready models for transcription, speaker detection, summarization, and more. If you're building anything with voice or audio data, AssemblyAI is the standard. Check them out at assemblyai.com/biography And by beehiiv, the newsletter platform built for growth. If you're thinking about starting or scaling a newsletter, beehiiv is what the best operators use — including Biography. Get started at beehiiv.com Follow Wouter: @WouterTeunissen Follow Connor: @connorzwick Speak: speak.com Biography Newsletter: biography.beehiiv.com
What this episode covers
In this episode, Wouter sits down with Connor Zwick, founder and CEO of Speak, to talk about building one of the most ambitious consumer AI companies in the world. Before Speak, Connor built an app in high school that became #1 in the App Store. But instead of taking VC money at 17, he spent years going deep on AI research. He then flew to South Korea, where 1% of GDP was spent on learning English and nobody could actually speak. That decision set the foundation for everything that followed. In this conversation, Connor shares lessons on finding product market fit, the danger of magical thinking, building with AI before anyone cared, and why the consumer AI goldrush is just getting started. If you're a founder building in AI, this one will hit hard. This episode is presented by Rho, the all-in-one banking platform for startups. Thousands of startups like Perplexity, Product Hunt, and more use Rho. You get everything you need to manage your startup's cash. Exclusively for Biography Pod listeners and viewers, you'll get a $1500 statement credit plus a ton of exclusive perks when you manage your company cash with Rho. To learn more, visit rho.co/biography This episode is also presented by AssemblyAI, the leading Speech AI platform. Their API gives developers access to production-ready models for transcription, speaker detection, summarization, and more. If you're building anything with voice or audio data, AssemblyAI is the standard. Check them out at assemblyai.com/biography And by beehiiv, the newsletter platform built for growth. If you're thinking about starting or scaling a newsletter, beehiiv is what the best operators use — including Biography. Get started at beehiiv.com Follow Wouter: @WouterTeunissenFollow Connor: @connorzwickSpeak: speak.comBiography Newsletter: biography.beehiiv.com
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You should build a consumer AI company today (Connor Zwick, Speak)
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