Starting a startup is, by default, a super hard journey. But it gets even harder - and maybe more interesting - when you're building in deeptech, building a hardware startup, and at the cutting edge of scientific possibility.
Today, we get into all of that hard stuff with Eric Wollberg, Co-founder and CEO of Prophetic. It's a team of technologists, engineers, and scientists building a device to help people induce and control lucid dreams. They're building the Halo, a wearable headband to measure brain activity and use targeted ultrasound (in combination with a multimodal AI model called Morpheus-1) for neurostimulation. There are other fun acronyms, like dlPFC, tFUS, fNIRS, and the more common EEG, but the point: he and his team are building out of sci-fi.
We talk not only about how Prophetic and lucid dreams work, but we also get into...
- Eric's analysis and forecasting for other brain-computer interface companies like Neuralink
- How consumers might use and mis-use devices like these, and what they mean for society
- Our mutual challenges in raising venture capital, and the storytelling mistakes + corrections we both made along the way
- Hiring highly scientific and technical talent
- & so much more
Oh, and for clarity's sake, a lucid dream: a dream in which you're aware that you're dreaming and, in some cases, even control said dream.
"When you're starting a company, it's like you're driving a jet straight down to the earth."
"Dreams were the genesis of storytelling."
"You have to have a real sober assessment of the state of the tech tree."
"Why is Ozempic flying off the shelves and not gym memberships?"
This is Three Course Founders, Episode 008: Strapping in, with Eric Wollberg of Prophetic.
A special thank you to Sagaponack in Flatiron in NYC – they were gracious hosts, the staff was awesome, and the chefs kept us fed with delicious Asian Mediterranean seafood.
My mission with this show is to have deeper conversations with people trying to change the way the earth spins -- to follow my own curiosity, and help me and you better understand how the world works and how to move with more intention. I'm Sherveen Mashayekhi, founder and CEO of venture-backed Free Agency, and I'm an angel investor & startup super-nerd.
Follow: https://x.com/sherveen
Follow Eric: https://x.com/EricWollberg
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If you're a startup founder, aspiring in deeptech or hardtech, fascinated by next-level storytelling or team-building, curious about the role and mechanics of a technical co-founder, strapping into the emotional rollercoaster of VC funding, intrigued by dreams and BCI devices, then this episode is for you. We don't just discuss the surface level, but get into the deeper stuff that helps us all iterate toward a future worth dreaming about.
Inspired by Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, and all of the bad startup podcasts out there.
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