--- schema: 1 type: video title: >- Meet the Slowest Startup Incubator in the World—Pumping Out Billion-dollar Companies description: >- Silicon Valley loves billion-dollar moonshots and AI darlings. Sam Gerstenzang and Dan Friedman are doing something different—they're starting medical spas and funeral homes. On this episode of AI & I, Dan Shipper sat down with Gerstenzang and Friedman, partners at Boulton and Watt, which they call the "world's slowest startup incubator." Their model: Come up with an idea, achieve five or 10 million dollars in revenue themselves, then hand it off to a CEO who can take it to the next stage. They've used this playbook to build Moxie, a Series C company that helps nurses open their own medical spas, now with 600-plus customers and a 200-person team globally. Their second company, Meadow Memorials, is a contemporary funeral home with no physical real estate. It has become the largest provider of funeral services in California. Both businesses launched right around the arrival of ChatGPT—and neither was built with AI in mind. So how are they thinking about AI inside companies where the core work isn't going to change? In this conversation, Gerstenzang and Friedman share how they built an AI agent called Matthew Bolton to power their customer discovery process, why synthetic customer calls completely failed for them, and why they believe you shouldn't give anyone credit for using AI. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt. It's usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Intent is what comes after your IDE. Try it yourself: augmentcode.com/intent Head to granola.ai/every to get 3 months free. Ready to build a site that looks hand-coded—without hiring a developer? Launch your site for free at www.Framer.com, and use code DAN to get your first month of Pro on the house. Timestamps 00:00:00 — Introduction and how Sam and Dan's paths first crossed 00:01:40 — What it means to be “the world's slowest incubator” 00:04:50 — Why Bolton and Watt runs companies to several million in revenue before handing off to a CEO 00:07:30 — How specialization across the founding journey creates advantages 00:10:40 — Building AI-durable businesses versus AI-native ones 00:16:10 — How an AI agent transformed their customer discovery process 00:19:30 — Where synthetic customer calls completely fail 00:29:30 — Deploying AI inside established companies 00:32:30 — Why newer projects see huge gains from AI while mature companies see 10 percent 00:37:00 — A preview of what's next for Bolton and Watt canonical: >- https://liquidgold.cc/channel/everyinc/explore/video/meet-the-slowest-startup-incubator-in-the-world-pum-511e32b18d8e markdown: >- https://liquidgold.cc/channel/everyinc/video/meet-the-slowest-startup-incubator-in-the-world-pum-511e32b18d8e.md llms: null parent: 'https://liquidgold.cc/channel/everyinc.md' channel: everyinc updated: '2026-10-24T01:04:11.884Z' language: null children: [] videoId: u0lmqLmfPoo durationSeconds: 2728 publishedAt: '2026-03-04T16:09:10.000Z' searchChunks: - ordinal: 0 text: null startSeconds: 116 endSeconds: 291 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/u0lmqLmfPoo?t=116' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 1 text: null startSeconds: 116 endSeconds: 291 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/u0lmqLmfPoo?t=116' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 2 text: null startSeconds: 116 endSeconds: 291 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/u0lmqLmfPoo?t=116' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 3 text: null startSeconds: 116 endSeconds: 291 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/u0lmqLmfPoo?t=116' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 4 text: null startSeconds: 464 endSeconds: 640 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/u0lmqLmfPoo?t=464' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 5 text: null startSeconds: 464 endSeconds: 640 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/u0lmqLmfPoo?t=464' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 6 text: null startSeconds: 651 endSeconds: 732 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/u0lmqLmfPoo?t=651' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 7 text: null startSeconds: 742 endSeconds: 872 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/u0lmqLmfPoo?t=742' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 8 text: null startSeconds: 883 endSeconds: 970 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/u0lmqLmfPoo?t=883' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 9 text: null startSeconds: 982 endSeconds: 1174 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/u0lmqLmfPoo?t=982' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 10 text: null startSeconds: 1184 endSeconds: 1264 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/u0lmqLmfPoo?t=1184' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 11 text: null startSeconds: 1275 endSeconds: 1400 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/u0lmqLmfPoo?t=1275' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 12 text: null startSeconds: 1411 endSeconds: 1492 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/u0lmqLmfPoo?t=1411' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 13 text: null startSeconds: 1502 endSeconds: 1623 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/u0lmqLmfPoo?t=1502' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 14 text: null startSeconds: 1633 endSeconds: 1773 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/u0lmqLmfPoo?t=1633' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 15 text: null startSeconds: 1786 endSeconds: 1954 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/u0lmqLmfPoo?t=1786' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 16 text: null startSeconds: 1965 endSeconds: 2229 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/u0lmqLmfPoo?t=1965' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 17 text: null startSeconds: 1965 endSeconds: 2229 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/u0lmqLmfPoo?t=1965' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 18 text: null startSeconds: 1965 endSeconds: 2229 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/u0lmqLmfPoo?t=1965' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 19 text: null startSeconds: 2240 endSeconds: 2329 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/u0lmqLmfPoo?t=2240' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 20 text: null startSeconds: 2340 endSeconds: 2439 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/u0lmqLmfPoo?t=2340' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 21 text: null startSeconds: 2451 endSeconds: 2563 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/u0lmqLmfPoo?t=2451' heldReason: rights --- # Meet the Slowest Startup Incubator in the World—Pumping Out Billion-dollar Companies Silicon Valley loves billion-dollar moonshots and AI darlings. Sam Gerstenzang and Dan Friedman are doing something different—they're starting medical spas and funeral homes. On this episode of AI & I, Dan Shipper sat down with Gerstenzang and Friedman, partners at Boulton and Watt, which they call the "world's slowest startup incubator." Their model: Come up with an idea, achieve five or 10 million dollars in revenue themselves, then hand it off to a CEO who can take it to the next stage. They've used this playbook to build Moxie, a Series C company that helps nurses open their own medical spas, now with 600-plus customers and a 200-person team globally. Their second company, Meadow Memorials, is a contemporary funeral home with no physical real estate. It has become the largest provider of funeral services in California. Both businesses launched right around the arrival of ChatGPT—and neither was built with AI in mind. So how are they thinking about AI inside companies where the core work isn't going to change? In this conversation, Gerstenzang and Friedman share how they built an AI agent called Matthew Bolton to power their customer discovery process, why synthetic customer calls completely failed for them, and why they believe you shouldn't give anyone credit for using AI. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt. It's usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Intent is what comes after your IDE. Try it yourself: augmentcode.com/intent Head to granola.ai/every to get 3 months free. Ready to build a site that looks hand-coded—without hiring a developer? Launch your site for free at www.Framer.com, and use code DAN to get your first month of Pro on the house. Timestamps 00:00:00 — Introduction and how Sam and Dan's paths first crossed 00:01:40 — What it means to be “the world's slowest incubator” 00:04:50 — Why Bolton and Watt runs companies to several million in revenue before handing off to a CEO 00:07:30 — How specialization across the founding journey creates advantages 00:10:40 — Building AI-durable businesses versus AI-native ones 00:16:10 — How an AI agent transformed their customer discovery process 00:19:30 — Where synthetic customer calls completely fail 00:29:30 — Deploying AI inside established companies 00:32:30 — Why newer projects see huge gains from AI while mature companies see 10 percent 00:37:00 — A preview of what's next for Bolton and Watt Canonical: https://liquidgold.cc/channel/everyinc/explore/video/meet-the-slowest-startup-incubator-in-the-world-pum-511e32b18d8e · Channel: [Every](https://liquidgold.cc/channel/everyinc.md) > Search chunk text is held until public-source provenance is verified. ## Document chunks > Missing: no stored document chunks are available.