Greg Isenberg
The most interesting thing about Greg Isenberg is not what he builds. It is how he builds it.
Isenberg runs Late Checkout, a holding company that incubates and invests in startups. He also hosts The Startup Ideas Podcast. But his real contribution to the MFM universe is a set of frameworks for compressing the startup process into something a single person can execute with AI tools.
He spends 10 hours a week testing new AI tools. Not casually browsing, but systematically evaluating them. He claims proficiency in about 10 tools at any given time. Watch: 5 AI Tools I’d Use to Make $1M (35:30) The result is a kind of living curriculum for solo entrepreneurs.
Background
Isenberg grew up without connections or family money. This shapes his orientation toward business ideas. He has a soft spot for the zero-to-one phase, the scrappy beginning where most people get stuck. His advice tends toward the practical and immediate rather than the theoretical.
His design agency at Late Checkout works with companies like Character.ai and Jasper AI. This gives him a front-row seat to how the best AI products are being built. He sits in meetings and asks these teams to teach him everything about their tools.
Core Philosophy
Isenberg believes most people overestimate risk and underestimate opportunity. He attributes this observation to Jeff Bezos, but it runs through everything he teaches.
His core insight on startup ideation:
Step one is you want to build an idea based on a trend because it is easier.
This sounds obvious. But most aspiring founders do the opposite. They start with a problem they personally experience and work backward. Isenberg argues you should start with momentum already in the market, then find your angle.
The Six-Step AI Startup Framework
In his most tactical episode, Isenberg laid out a complete workflow for building a million-dollar startup using AI. Watch: How to build a $1M+ startup using AI (Full episode)
The steps:
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Find a trend-based idea - Use IdeaBrowser.com, a tool he built that generates daily startup ideas based on search and social trends. Each idea includes a founder-fit score.
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Sketch the UI - Use tldraw to draw a rough mockup. Even crude sketches dramatically improve what AI coding tools produce.
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Scope the MVP - Feed the idea to Manis, an AI agent platform he describes as “supercharged ChatGPT,” to get a detailed product spec.
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Vibe code the prototype - Use bolt.new or Lovable to turn prompts into working web applications. No traditional coding required.
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Vibe market with automation - Use Lindy AI to build lead generation workflows. Content triggers engagement tracking triggers lead enrichment triggers personalized outreach. All automated.
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Iterate with an AI product manager - Use the same tools to refine based on user feedback.
He claims this approach saves his companies over five million dollars per year. Watch: How to build a $1M+ startup using AI (42:00)
Vibe Coding
The term “vibe coding” captures something important about where software development is heading. Isenberg defines it as using natural language prompts to generate functional software.
The tools he recommends most often:
- bolt.new - Turn prompts into web apps
- Lovable - Similar capabilities, different interface
- Cursor - AI-assisted code editing for those who want more control
The trick, he says, is visual prompting. Sketch your interface first, then include the image in your prompt. The AI will understand your intent far better than words alone can convey.
Meta-Prompting
Isenberg offers one piece of advice that sounds counterintuitive until you try it:
Ask the LLM what prompt you should use. You will never be able to out-prompt the software that sees all the prompts.
Instead of crafting elaborate prompts yourself, ask the AI: “What prompt should I use to get the best result for X?” The model has seen millions of prompts. It knows what works.
Tools He Recommends
Isenberg functions as a curator of AI tools. His recommendations tend toward the specific and immediately useful:
| Tool | Purpose |
|---|---|
| IdeaBrowser.com | Daily AI-generated startup ideas with trend data |
| Perplexity Comet | AI-first browser for research and recruiting |
| Wispr Flow | Voice-to-text at 220 WPM vs 45 WPM typing |
| bolt.new | Vibe coding for web applications |
| Manis | AI agent for product scoping |
| Lindy AI | Sales and marketing automation |
| tldraw | Simple sketching for UI mockups |
| TryShortcut.ai | AI-first spreadsheet for financial analysis |
| Reel.Farm | Automated TikTok slideshow creation |
On AI browsers, he makes a prediction: once you use one, you will not go back. Just as most people now use ChatGPT over Google for 95% of queries. Watch: 5 AI Tools I’d Use to Make $1M (07:05)
Business Ideas He Has Pitched
Isenberg treats the podcast as a laboratory for business ideas. Some of the more notable ones:
LLM Boost / AI SEO Agency - A quiz that scores how businesses rank in AI search results (ChatGPT, Claude, Grok), with paid optimization services.
AI Tax Guy - A ChatGPT app for filing quarterly taxes with auto-filled forms and deduction detection.
AI Healthcare Concierge - Find specialists by insurance network with booking capabilities. Affiliate model with Zocdoc.
AI Grandma - A life advisor chatbot branded as a warm 85-year-old giving old-school advice.
K-1 Agent - A tool to automatically find and organize K-1 tax forms from email.
On the ChatGPT App Store
When OpenAI announced its app store, Isenberg called it potentially one of the bigger wealth creation moments in AI. Watch: 5 App Ideas for ChatGPT’s New App Store
His key insight was about discovery. The original GPT Store failed because no one wants to browse app stores. What makes contextual discovery different:
No one wants to download apps. No one wants to go to a GPT store, set stuff up, download apps. What makes this so much better is it is contextual.
Apps surface based on what you are doing, not on what you search for. This changes everything about distribution.
Impact on Other Hosts
Shaan Puri has described the experience of talking to Isenberg about AI as genuinely unsettling. Not because the information was negative, but because it made clear how fast things are moving. Watch: 5 Startups That Looked Dumb Until They Were Worth Billions (37:36)
That fear, Shaan said, came from recognizing that if you are not staying current with these tools, you will be left behind.
Related Entities
- Late Checkout - Isenberg’s holding company and design agency
- IdeaBrowser.com - His AI-powered startup idea generator
- The Startup Ideas Podcast - His podcast focused on business ideas
- Sam Parr - MFM co-host, frequent collaborator
- Shaan Puri - MFM co-host