Dylan Babbs: LIVE from SPC

How does a designer who loves maps end up building the marketing platform for AI?

Dylan Babbs is the CTO and cofounder of Profound, the agentic marketing platform that helps brands track and improve how they show up in AI search and LLMs. Raised in Silicon Valley, he studied information science at the University of Washington and spent several years building maps at Uber before meeting his cofounder James Cadwallader at South Park Commons NYC, where Profound got its start.

In Part 1 of this two-part conversation, recorded with Soleio before a live audience at South Park Commons in New York, Dylan Babbs explains why every business needs an inflection point, why taste is how a startup builds the world it wants to live in, and why selling enterprise software means posting on LinkedIn four times daily.

Dylan makes the case that a design-forward startup can go big on the business front too. Part 2, Fractal Speed, is a deeper sit-down on his pioneering work at Profound.

00:00 Started in This Very Office

02:30 We’re So Back, It’s So Over

07:00 AI Search and the Anti-Portfolio

10:40 12 to 15 Ideas Before Profound

15:30 You Can’t Draw a Map in Figma

22:37 Build the World You Wanna Live In

28:46 Four Hiring Principles

33:25 Go Start a Company Now

38:40 Profound Will Dominate

43:30 If You Think with ChatGPT, It’s Over

45:33 Design-Forward, Go Big or Go Home

49:50 Audience Q&A

55:15 No Startup Is Born with a Moat

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First of Kind @firstofkind

S3:E04L Dylan Babbs: LIVE from SPC

featuring Dylan Babbs https://x.com/dbabbs

hosted by Soleio https://x.com/soleio @soleio

coproduced with Room 3 https://room3nyc.com @room3nyc

recorded live at SPC: https://southparkcommons.com @southparkcommons

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