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title: '$4M in 4 Weeks: How This AI Alien Companion App Took Off (Best of the Pod)'
description: >-
  LLMs are a new medium for storytelling. That’s according to the creators of
  Portola, the company behind Tolan: an embodied AI companion that lives on its
  own planet and chats to you with a distinct personality. In 2025, Portola's
  founder and CEO Quinten Farmer and Head of Story Eliot Peper joined Dan
  Shipper to explain how they’re building this new medium from scratch. Their
  aim is to help users go from overwhelmed to grounded through conversations
  with Tolan that feel personal and spontaneous, not scripted. On this week’s AI
  & I, Dan revisits his conversation with Quinten and Eliot. They discuss why
  response time is everything for voice-based AI interfaces, how Portola designs
  AI personalities users will click with, and why character-driven AI could
  become a new computing interface. If you found this episode interesting,
  please like, subscribe, comment, and share! To hear more from Dan Shipper:
  Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X:
  https://twitter.com/danshipper Go to https://attio.com/every and get 15% off
  your first year. Timestamps: 00:01:30 - Introduction 00:04:07 - Talking to the
  Portola CEO's Tolan, Clarence 00:09:11 - How Portola went from building
  software for kids to AI companions 00:23:40 - Why response time is everything
  for voice-based AI interfaces 00:29:54 - Tolans don't use scripted
  prompts—they're taught to improvise 00:37:23 - How to know which AI
  personalities your users will click with 00:42:27 - Developing the character
  traits of an AI companion 00:49:48 - What does it mean to build technology
  that makes us flourish 01:01:10 - How Portola evaluates whether Tolans are
  resonating with users 01:11:01 - Inside Portola's viral growth strategy
canonical: >-
  https://liquidgold.cc/channel/everyinc/explore/video/4m-in-4-weeks-how-this-ai-alien-companion-app-took-9b5de97e5d75
markdown: >-
  https://liquidgold.cc/channel/everyinc/video/4m-in-4-weeks-how-this-ai-alien-companion-app-took-9b5de97e5d75.md
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updated: '2026-10-23T22:21:20.071Z'
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---


# $4M in 4 Weeks: How This AI Alien Companion App Took Off (Best of the Pod)

LLMs are a new medium for storytelling. That’s according to the creators of Portola, the company behind Tolan: an embodied AI companion that lives on its own planet and chats to you with a distinct personality. In 2025, Portola's founder and CEO Quinten Farmer and Head of Story Eliot Peper joined Dan Shipper to explain how they’re building this new medium from scratch. Their aim is to help users go from overwhelmed to grounded through conversations with Tolan that feel personal and spontaneous, not scripted. On this week’s AI & I, Dan revisits his conversation with Quinten and Eliot. They discuss why response time is everything for voice-based AI interfaces, how Portola designs AI personalities users will click with, and why character-driven AI could become a new computing interface. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Go to https://attio.com/every and get 15% off your first year. Timestamps: 00:01:30 - Introduction 00:04:07 - Talking to the Portola CEO's Tolan, Clarence 00:09:11 - How Portola went from building software for kids to AI companions 00:23:40 - Why response time is everything for voice-based AI interfaces 00:29:54 - Tolans don't use scripted prompts—they're taught to improvise 00:37:23 - How to know which AI personalities your users will click with 00:42:27 - Developing the character traits of an AI companion 00:49:48 - What does it mean to build technology that makes us flourish 01:01:10 - How Portola evaluates whether Tolans are resonating with users 01:11:01 - Inside Portola's viral growth strategy

Canonical: https://liquidgold.cc/channel/everyinc/explore/video/4m-in-4-weeks-how-this-ai-alien-companion-app-took-9b5de97e5d75 · Channel: [Every](https://liquidgold.cc/channel/everyinc.md)

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