The Koerner Office - Business Ideas and Deep Dives with Chris Koerner 6 Businesses You Can Start With Almost No Money⏐Ep. #290
90 snips
Apr 10, 2026 
Michael Girdley, serial idea-focused entrepreneur behind ventures like Bedrock and Fixed Labs, shares rapid-fire startup concepts. He explores AI persona marketplaces, interactive mentor replicas (talk to Steve Jobs), reviving local investigative journalism, an app that enforces focus, and why AI audits are a low-cost business to start. Energetic, idea-packed conversation with concrete product riffs.
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AI Agents As The Next Operating System
- OpenAI/Claude (referred to as OpenClaw) will become an operating system for AI agents that feel like employees.
- Michael Girdley predicts people will buy deployable personas (marketing manager, sales rep) from marketplaces and run them like software or licensed products.
Interactive Expert Replicas Replace Passive Courses
- Replica personas of famous experts could replace passive courses by offering interactive mentorship (Steve Jobs, Einstein, Tom Brady).
- Charge monthly (e.g., $99) for conversational mentorship trained on a person's writings and public content for personalized coaching.
Local Journalism Can Return With AI Scale
- Local investigative journalism can return by focusing on deep, relationship-based reporting tailored to a city, not just press-release reprints.
- AI can scale research so one journalist produces many more deep stories per week, making local paywalls viable.