The Things I Find
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The Humanoid Robot with 18.4M Views 🤖

The Humanoid Robot with 18.4M Views 🤖

Martin Scorsese models for Kith & Giorgio Armani. And more.

Nicholas Carpo
September 10, 2024

Welcome to The Things I Find! Every week, I’ll be writing about 3 things I found on the internet (+1 recommended to me by a friend). We’ll cover everything from startups to creators to big moments in culture. And I’ll share my honest thoughts about how they’re telling their product story.

This newsletter is designed to help founders, owners, and leaders learn from teams who are building their audiences in unique ways. So whatever brought you here, I hope you have fun.

— Nico Carpo

TOP STORY

👜 The Robot That Went Viral for Carrying a Bag

NEO Beta lends a helping hand in a no-context teaser video | 1X Technologies

OpenAI-backed robotics company 1X just dropped a teaser for their new humanoid robot, Neo Beta. In the video, we see a robot dressed in mesh. They hand a woman a bag, then pose with them for a picture.

Why it matters: While other companies tend to flaunt their robots’ capabilities or specs, 1X seems to be selling Neo Beta as a home companion — rather than a subservient tool.

Are people buying into it? Not so much. Most people are skeptical, saying it’s a guy in a morph suit. Others are questioning what the robot can actually do. But there is some optimism as Christian Keil, VP of Astranis, expresses his excitement.

🔨 Breaking Things Down: Publishing purposefully vague and uncanny videos is a great way to generate intrigue for your brand. And while it’s not my favorite launch method, this video style is well-optimized to kickstart organic (albeit polarizing) conversations on social platforms.

1X could’ve reduced the skepticism by sharing more intimate moments with the robot making coffee on their main account.

Still the 18.4M views on 1X’s teaser is nothing to scoff at. They received copious amounts of press and social coverage. And I’d guess even more investor interest.

Looking Forward: It’ll be an uphill battle to convince people to welcome humanoid robots in their homes. So I’m excited to see how this space evolves in terms of their launches.

BUILDING HYPE

📽️ How This Entrepreneur Signed Martin Scorsese

Martin Scorsese (left) and Ronnie Fieg (right) model for Kith & Giorgio Armani’s first collaboration | Kith

This past week, the unlikely duo of Kith & Giorgio Armani launched a menswear campaign — featuring legendary filmmaker Martin Scorcese, actors LaKeith Stanfield and Pierce Brosnan, and the Kith founder himself Ronnie Fieg.

Quick Backstory: This is the first time that Mr. Armani has ever collaborated with another brand or designer in the 49 years since the fashion house was founded.

How did he do it? Fieg approached it like an entrepreneur:

Fieg made strategic moves to rebrand Kith from its roots as a sneakerhead mecca to an international luxury menswear brand. Building a great product.
He knew his best chance would be a suit project, so Kith released suits for four years before reaching out to Armani. Finding product-market fit.
Once invited to present, Fieg created a book in which he shared his vision for the collaboration and showed this to Armani in-person in Milan. Making a memorable launch.

Armani told GQ, “This collaboration offers a different perspective on [Armani] classics, reaching a new audience.”.

🔨 Breaking Things Down: This campaign is a masterclass in driving hype across different channels.

In a world where attention is limited, Kith & Armani are giving people a reason to remember the collection by spacing out the video releases. Rather than dropping everything at once, the brands made a splash with the initial announcement with Scorcese, followed up with videos featuring each muse and pop-ups for the rest of the month.

Why? Because Fieg knows that people are more likely to buy once they’ve built up an affinity with you over time.

BUILDING COMMUNITY

🍎 The Designer Creating Free Apple Products

An original iPhone StandBy dock by Scott Yu-Jan (SYJ) | YouTube

Interaction designer Scott Yu-Jan collaborated with Canadian DJ Overwerk to launch a dedicated dock for iPhone StandBy Mode.

Based on the iOS 17 feature that gives iPhones a full-screen clock experience with customizable widgets and apps, the accessory features wireless AirPod-charging and a phone ejection button.

Instead of selling the product, Scott launched the 3D Print file for builders to access for free. And the internet responded as users shared their completed prints across social platforms, earning Scott additional distribution with zero lift.

“Six stars out of five.” says YouTube user @Hugatry.

🔨 Breaking Things Down: Fans love active experiences. By giving viewers a chance to build their own dock, Scott engages with his audience in a much more intimate way. He’s building a community that will advocate for his work.

If you’re building a product, build in public and keep your audience engaged with new features. Involve users in the testing phase and bring the experience off digital when building physical prototypes.

In the same way that you’re more likely to remember a song from a concert than a song randomly queued up from suggestions, your product will be more memorable if you can engage your followers in a meaningful way through genuine collaboration.

👀 Other Things I Found

Japanese hip-hop artist Yuki Chiba (fka KOHH) releases his first folk song directed by STILLZ.
Illustrator Karlotta Freier shares her process behind Hermès’ Lunar New Year campaign.
Apple announces the iPhone 16, AirPods 4 and more at their Apple Event livestream.
UX Designer Phoebe Yu explains why Swiss web design works so well.

🤝 Put Me On

Suggestions from y’all on what I should read, watch, and listen to:

This past week, Grace Gerwe put me on this beautiful landing page from prophetic.com. Never would have guessed they were building a neurotech device based on the branding. Cool website though.