Side Note: We’re Evolving Fam

For the past year, this newsletter has been my home for sharing lessons on growth, leadership, and emotional intelligence—building in public.

That isn’t changing.

It’s about preparing myself—and hopefully others—for the most existential challenge humanity has ever faced: AI Alignment.

I worry about bringing my future kids into a world where we haven’t solved this problem. I truly do.

I don’t just want them to survive in the age of AI—I want them to thrive.

I’ll be making some changes to the newsletter branding in a good way—stay tuned for that. 👀

• Documenting everything. My wins, my losses, the hard lessons from building a startup.
• Sharing what I learn. Every week, you’ll still get distilled insights you can use in your own life.
• Building in public. I’m not just writing about growth; I’m showing the messy, beautiful process of becoming.

And the vehicle for this?

Clarity.

one that co-evolves with us,

that understands who we are, and what makes us human,

that shows us transparently what it knows about us and our values,

that maximizes our agency,

and deepens our self-understanding.

NOT an AI that replaces us.

An AI that helps us become our best self.

Here’s a hype video.

Hey don’t just take it from me—I’m the biased AF Founder building this.

We already have users, and they’re referring other users.

Another note…

I’m also growing my YouTube channel, where I’m documenting this journey in video form.

I’ve started posting a street interview just about every day, so people can follow along in real time.

Subscribe here—even if you don’t watch all my videos, your subscribing will assist our mission of helping everyone survive and thrive in the age of AI: youtube.com/@therobertta

So here’s what I’m committing to going forward: We’re building the AI we all need (on top of our own SDK):

Here’s what one woman in her 20s had to say about Clarity after 3 days:

If that resonates, join the waitlist at heyclarity.me.

But something inside me has shifted.

A Founder’s Biggest Fear

The setup:

No scripts.

No guardrails.

Just raw user reactions.

And MANY rejections.

And…

Immediately I texted my co-founder Jonathan, but we couldn’t get a live fix that fast.

The result: Ina, a 20-year-old community college student, finished onboarding in 5:45 minutes and said the words that made my week:

“This helped me prep for therapy tomorrow.”

She clicked our self-alignment score help icon without hesitation.

She called our target-self narrative “encouraging.”

She navigated non-sequentially but intuitively.

And the kicker—she said she’d pay for Clarity if it “truly knew her.”

Those are all data points that show me we’re going the right way with our design.

The data:

• Onboarding completion: under 6 minutes (faster than expected)
• Immediate feature discovery: help icons, belief visualizations
• Value proposition: therapy prep + life decision support
• Willingness to pay: confirmed for personalized insights

Ina didn’t use Clarity the way we designed it—she used it the way she needed it.

Solid learning.

Now we’re targeting 500 weekly active users by November with 75 paid conversions.

I’m working on a virality campaign to drive a wedge on a beachhead I determined we can hit (more on that in future posts).

The path is getting more clear everyday.

You can say, I have clarity on Clarity’s roadmap and traction. 😂

“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”The lesson: Users will surprise you. This week I faced a founder’s biggest fear: putting my baby in front of more strangers.

Great learnings: cross browser testing is hell.

That’s the gap between product-founder fit (what makes sense in your head) and product-market fit (what actually resonates in people’s lives).

Street interviews with our Clarity app.