This AI Alien Will Bring In $4 Million This Year in Revenue - Ep. 56 with Quinten Farmer and Eliot Peper
Digest
This podcast features Quentin and Elliot from Portola, discussing their AI companions, Tollins. The conversation begins with their initial excitement and nervousness, quickly transitioning to a demo of Tollins and the company's rapid growth. They detail their journey from B2B SaaS to creative entrepreneurship, highlighting the challenges and rewards. User feedback and iterative improvements are emphasized, particularly the importance of memory and prompt engineering. The unexpected shift in their target audience from children to young adults is discussed, along with the unique challenges of building for this demographic. Elliot, a science fiction author, shares his experience using AI as a creative tool, focusing on brainstorming and editing. The podcast explores LLMs as a new storytelling medium, comparing it to the emergence of radio and film. Key lessons learned include the importance of memory, prompt engineering, and the two-second response time constraint. The complexities of managing a "multiverse" of Tollins and the crucial role of detailed rubrics in LLM judgment are also addressed. The podcast concludes by discussing rapid growth strategies, including compelling content, immersive user experience, and viral marketing, and the shift from problem-solving to art creation in AI development, emphasizing the concept of "character-driven computing."
Outlines
Introduction: Embodied AI and Portola's Journey
The podcast introduces Portola and its AI companions, Tollins, highlighting the founders' excitement and the company's rapid growth.
Portola's Founders and Mission
Quentin and Elliot are introduced, discussing their backgrounds and Portola's mission to create a new storytelling medium using AI.
Tollin Demo and Technological Innovation
A Tollin demo showcases the technology, highlighting how new technology enables new content forms and storytelling methods.
From SaaS to Creative Entrepreneurship
The founders discuss their transition from B2B SaaS to creative storytelling, outlining the challenges and rewards of this shift.
User Feedback and Product Iteration
The discussion focuses on user feedback, the iterative process of improving Tollins, and the importance of memory and prompt engineering.
Target Audience and Building for Young Adults
The unexpected shift to a young adult target audience is discussed, along with the challenges of building a product for this demographic.
AI as a Creative Tool: An Author's Perspective
Elliot shares his experience using AI as a creative tool, emphasizing its usefulness for brainstorming and editing.
LLMs as a New Storytelling Medium
The conversation explores LLMs as a new storytelling medium, discussing the challenges and opportunities of this new paradigm.
Managing Complexity and Rapid Growth Strategies
The podcast concludes with discussions on managing the complexity of a multiverse of Tollins, rapid growth strategies, and the shift towards art creation in AI development.
Keywords
Embodied AI Companion
An AI companion with a physical or virtual presence, interacting with users in a personalized way.
LLM (Large Language Model)
An AI understanding and generating human-like text, used in various applications.
Prompt Engineering
Crafting effective prompts to elicit desired responses from LLMs.
Narrative Storytelling with AI
Using AI to generate and enhance narrative experiences.
Multiverse Storytelling
A storytelling approach with multiple interconnected narratives.
Vibe Prompting
An intuitive, less structured method of interacting with LLMs.
Capability Overhang in AI
AI capabilities exceeding average user understanding.
Rubric
Criteria or guidelines for evaluating LLM-generated content.
Character-Driven Computing
A new paradigm of human-computer interaction focused on personalized, engaging AI characters.
Q&A
What are the biggest challenges in using AI for creative storytelling?
Balancing creative freedom with constraints, ensuring engaging and consistent responses, and managing narrative complexity.
How does Portola's approach differ from others?
Portola focuses on embodied AI companions with evolving personalities and improv-style responses.
What are some unexpected lessons learned?
The importance of memory and prompt engineering, the shift in target audience, and the effectiveness of an improvisational approach.
How does Portola manage the complexity of a "multiverse" of Tollins?
Through iterative testing, prompt engineering, user feedback, and data analysis tools.
What is the future of narrative storytelling with AI?
Exploring new narrative structures and interaction models to create more engaging experiences.
What are the limitations of "vibe prompting"?
Lack of consistency and quality compared to structured rubrics and human evaluation.
How did the discussed LLM application achieve rapid growth?
Compelling content, immersive user experience, and viral marketing.
How is AI development shifting?
From problem-solving to art creation, prioritizing engaging experiences over purely utilitarian functions.
What is "character-driven computing"?
A new paradigm focusing on building relationships with AI through defined characters.
Show Notes
500K people are confiding in an AI alien—and it's on track to generate $4M this year.
It’s called a Tolan: an animated AI character that can talk to you like your best friend. The company behind it, Portola, has 4x’d their ARR in the last month from viral growth on TikTok and Instagram.
Tolan isn’t just a hyper-growth startup—they’re also exploring AI as a completely new creative tool, and storytelling medium. Their goal is to help their users go from overwhelmed to grounded, and it’s working.
Today, on AI & I, I sit down with two of the minds behind Tolans:
My good friend Quinten Farmer, Portola’s cofounder and CEO, and Eliot Peper, their head of story and a best-selling science fiction novelist. We get into:
How to build AI personalities users love. During user onboarding, the team gathers information—through a light-touch personality quiz—and then uses frameworks like the Big Five and Myers-Briggs to shape a Tolan that mirrors the user; like an older sibling might. The aim is to create someone who feels familiar enough to be safe, but different enough to be interesting.
Why AI characters are “improv actors”. Rather than scripting detailed prompts, the team trains Tolans to improvise—inspired by Keith Johnstone’s book Impro, where he talks about building strong narratives through free association and recombination.
How “memory” is critical to developing compelling characters. Tolans develop their personalities through “situations”: small narrative setups (a memory, a joke, an embarrassing moment) the Tolan reacts to, remembers, and gradually weaves into its character; accumulating into something that feels like a real lived experience.
Why response time is everything for voice AI interactions. A Tolan has at most two seconds to curate the right context about a user and deliver a reply that feels genuine—the team has found that even half a second slower can break the user’s immersive interaction with the AI.
The future of AI as a totally new creative medium. New technologies bring about new formats and new mediums. AI creates the opportunity for creatives to tell completely new kinds of stories—if they’re brave enough to try it.
“White mirror” technologies that make you feel more like yourself. Amid concerns that tech drives polarization and isolation, Tolan offers a counterexample: a tool designed to make the best of what humanity knows about being a flourishing individual available on demand. The company’s north star is helping users go from feeling overwhelmed to feeling grounded.
This is a must-watch for anyone exploring AI as a creative medium—or curious about the future of human-AI relationships.
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Timestamps:
Introduction: 00:01:30
Talking to the Portola CEO’s Tolan, Clarence: 00:04:07
How Portola went from building software for kids to AI companions: 00:09:11
Why response time is everything for voice-based AI interfaces: 00:23:40
Tolans don’t use scripted prompts—they’re taught to improvise: 00:29:54
How to know which AI personalities your users will click with: 00:37:23
Developing the character traits of an AI companion: 00:42:27
What does it mean to build technology that makes us flourish: 00:49:48
How Portola evaluates whether Tolans are resonating with users: 01:01:10
Inside Portola’s viral growth strategy: 01:11:01
Links to resources mentioned in the episode:
Quinten Farmer: @quintendf
Eliot Peper: @eliotpeper
Make your own Tolan: https://www.tolans.com/
Keith Johnston’s book about improvisation: Impro
Stephen King’s book about writing: On Writing
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