LaunchLemonade Founder Cien Solon On Building The Canva For AI Agents

[00:00:05] There's a lot of talk about AI agents right now. If you're a non-techie, it might be difficult or challenging or maybe overwhelming to think of where to get started. But what if building an AI agent was as simple as creating a presentation or a social media post or something on Canva? What could that mean for the way that we work?

[00:00:27] Well, in today's episode, I'm joined by the CEO and founder of a company called LaunchLemonade, a platform that is often described as the Canva for AI agents. And once you hear her explain it, I think that comparison makes a lot of sense. Because here's the thing, for years, AI has felt something that was just reserved for engineers, techies, data scientists and companies with very deep pockets.

[00:00:54] But my guest today is part of a new wave of founders that are challenging that assumption. She's building tools that put the power of AI directly into the hands of business users. The people who actually understand the problems that they're trying to solve. And when you hear her talk about replacing the question of, hey, who do we hire with what agent can we build? You start to see how this shift could reshape teams, workflows and even entire business models.

[00:01:23] But the most important thing that she'll share today is the human expert within the organisation. They are at the heart of everything. That is crucial. So today we'll get into what's really driving the demand for AI and AI agents right now. How it's not hype or curiosity. It's more about the real pressure that people feel right now to stay relevant, to protect their income and try to create new value.

[00:01:49] And she will also share how that pressure is translating into a new kind of economy. One where builders are turning AI agents into revenue generating assets. All while others are still watching from the sidelines trying to make sense of it all. So we'll talk about the journey behind launch Lemonade from bootstrapping with almost no budget to building a fast growing platform used by thousands. And why staying lean has shaped how she thinks about scaling in the AI era.

[00:02:19] And there's a lot of honesty and modesty to her perspective too. So if you've been wondering whether AI is something you need to learn, adopt or even build. This episode should offer a clear view into where things are heading. But the bigger question is, are you observing, operating or building? And where do you want to be next? And with that scene perfectly set, let me introduce you to my guest.

[00:02:47] So thank you for joining me on the podcast today. Can you tell everyone listening a little about who you are and what you do? My name is Shen. I'm the founder and CEO of Launch Lemonade. It's the camera for AI agents. It's we, you know, we've been hearing about AI agents for the past couple of years, but no one's really talking about how do we make these agents give us the return of investment that will actually help our businesses grow in a secure and governed way. And we're tackling that.

[00:03:17] And I've got to admit, you had me at the canva of AI agents. So for anyone hearing that phrase for the first time now, what does it actually mean in terms of what a business can build and deploy today? Because as you said, there's a lot of confusion. There's a lot of hype. And I just love how you've simplified it here. But tell me more about that. Yeah, what I love about Canva. So I have been using, you know, their competitors before Canva.

[00:03:42] So I was a big user of, you know, the popular brands, Adobe and all of that. But Canva simplified the process to get us an output that was great to be able to make business out of what we produce, whether it was presentations, proposals, social media, collateral. They made it super simple.

[00:04:06] But in order for Canva to work, you would have had to understand what you wanted to produce and then just make that faster. And they also have creative tools. That's what launch company is trying to do. But for AI agents, businesses right now are having to buy or find tools that they think could solve their problems. But in reality, it was the engineer who, you know, thought of that solution.

[00:04:33] It wasn't them or it wasn't experts that could actually solve their business problems. What we're trying to do at Launch Lemonade is allowing the expert, the actual business to figure out what do we actually need to drive growth and revenue in our business and then translate that into an agent without having to code. So you just understand the gap in your business, map out the process that you need in order to address that gap.

[00:04:59] And then in plain English and by clicking buttons, you build an agent to address that gap or solve that problem. I absolutely love what you're doing here. And I think it will be the music to the ears of so many business leaders listening that want to create their own bespoke solution for something. And this mission that you're on to make AI agent creation accessible to everyone, not just the techies here, is phenomenal. So what were the biggest barriers that traditionally stopped businesses from using AI?

[00:05:29] And tell me a bit more about how you're removing some of those obstacles with this. Yeah, so I actually started building AI solutions with a big team way before ChatGPT. I think the first project that I had started in 2017 and it was using the earliest versions of this technology. It was a chatbot. And then I graduated to building kind of like more complex AI solutions with machine learning, but with a big engineering team. I used to manage an engineering team of 30.

[00:05:56] But we were developing unsexy AI from building credit models, fraud models, identity models. So things that were kind of complex, but it really helped like that industry to make faster decisions and improve the business just using data and AI. The barrier from small businesses being able to take advantage of that technology at that time was cost and the tech, the technical know-how.

[00:06:26] But now, generative AI has removed those barriers. Cost is no longer a problem and the technicality, like the complexity, is no longer a barrier as well. Now, the barrier became the mindset and the understanding that actually it is cheaper and easier to do these things now. So, yes, that is the existing barrier. And I've been seeing that barrier for the past three years.

[00:06:52] And it's still around, but more and more people are willing to experiment for sure. Yeah, I can almost feel thousands of faces around the world and heads nodding in agreement. So much of what you said there will resonate with them because a lot of companies are still experimenting with AI, but without clear outcomes as well.

[00:07:13] So how are your users turning AI agents into something that actually drives revenue, makes a measurable difference, whether that's lead qualification, customer support, or sales conversions? Tell me more about that ROI and the measurable difference that you're helping businesses create. Yeah, I believe that the people or the set of people that understand what their problems are are the business.

[00:07:41] They're not the ones who are building the solutions. So it's a business who understand the problem and it should be the business who should figure out, okay, how do we solve this problem? An agent literally would be, so in the, before AI agents, when we had a business problem and we had a gap, we were like, let's hire someone. But then most businesses would say, well, we don't know how, we can't afford to hire someone. So we're just going to kind of like let that problem grow.

[00:08:08] And then hopefully we'll figure out how to make money and then, and then hire someone. That was, that was the old, old way. Now, businesses who can't afford the overhead costs can think, okay, let's figure out the gap. Let's understand what this problem is and how to fix, to solve this problem. And then we'll build an AI agent to execute that solution. So that's how, you know, it's still the same process. It's still thinking, how can I grow my team to address this problem?

[00:08:37] But instead of how to grow my team and I can't afford people right now, how can I solve this with AI agents at the minute? So the return of investment really relies on the people who understand the business, not some sort of solution that would magically understand your business right away and solve that problem for you. So it still starts with the expert. I just love that. And I can also see why you've grown so quickly as well. I mean, some quick stats here.

[00:09:05] I think you've grown to over 7,000 users and 20,000 AI agents with very little marketing. So kudos to you and congratulations for what you've achieved here. But what is it you think that is resonating so strongly with businesses right now? And what does that say about the demand for no-code AI tools? What are you seeing here? Yeah, I currently, maybe I live in an echo chamber, but I don't know anyone who's not using a no-code tool right now.

[00:09:34] Maybe I live in an echo chamber. Even my mom has tried exploring a no-code solution. She talks, you know, she's a, she's, she stirred 60 a couple years ago and she talks to me about AI quite a bit in our, in our conversations. So I think a lot more people are being exposed to it. I'm sure not everyone is. I saw a statistic that actually only 0.04% are building on, on, on AI solutions.

[00:10:02] And the rest are just using chat GPT or not using at all. Yeah. So I think that it isn't that there is a demand for AI agents. I think there is a demand for monetization. There's a demand to make money. There's a demand to make sure that we're still relevant. That is a real demand. How can I make sure that I'll still make money? How can I make sure that my livelihood is protected? How can I make sure that I don't lose my job?

[00:10:30] This is the real demand. So because the buzzword is AI agent and because enterprise businesses, what's the 500s are making every, you know, a lot of people are redundant. And they're vocally saying that it is because of their AI investments. Then that's what, where the demand and the anxiety and the rush to build this coming from because no one wants to lose their job.

[00:10:58] No one wants, everyone wants to keep making money. So I think that's the root of it. That's the real, that's the real demand. And before you join me on the podcast today, I was doing a little research on you and you talk a lot about how AI agents are actually revenue generating team members. And again, that's going to tick the boxes of so many business leaders listening around the world. But what does that look like in practice?

[00:11:25] How do businesses balance automation with maintaining a human touch in customer interactions? I would imagine it's quite a tricky balance. So how do you get that right? So our platform believes in the expert. It's the expert who knows how to solve problems, not some sort of magical AI agent that got built randomly.

[00:11:48] So with that belief, we turn that agent that was built by an expert into a monetizing AI agent. So we allow our users on the platform to white label what they built and sell it on to their own clients. It's literally a revenue generating agent. It's incredibly cool. I absolutely love that.

[00:12:11] And as the founder of a fast growing AI startup, I've got to ask from a personal point of view, what have been some of the biggest challenges that you've personally faced building Launch Lemonade? And how have these experiences maybe shaped the way that you think about scaling a business in the AI era too? Tell me more about that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, when someone tells me fast growing, I always say we're not.

[00:12:35] You know, like we have seen businesses like Glovable and Base 44, Cursor. You know, like when someone asks me what is, you know, like what is it like to build a hype, you know, like a fast growing business? I'm like, I think I'm okay. I think I think I'm just average, average growth business. Like I have been very intentional about my fundraise.

[00:13:01] You know, these guys have raised billions and billions of pounds or dollars to build a big team. I still have a really lean team. And I've only I've only raised for a pre-seed round. Yes, I've been revenue generating for the past two years. But like, but I also acknowledge that. Most businesses take a longer time to get to where I'm at. I also acknowledge that.

[00:13:30] And I think it's because of my background and experience in working for hyperscaling startups. Some of the startups that I've worked with are double unicorns. You know, they're very big companies. And I'm also, you know, I had a breadth of experience from marketing to product development. And and my and I took my learnings from there.

[00:13:57] Like, how do you how do you scale lean and how do you build a product people will want to use? And I think I want to say that's it. And also, I'm very lucky. I've been very lucky. Well, you're incredibly modest, too. There's a lot more than the look that's gone into your success and also incredibly modest about that success as well. But as you look ahead, how do you see the the no code agent economy evolving over the next few years? Where do we go from here?

[00:14:26] And for any business leaders listening, what should they be doing now if they really want to take advantage of this shift rather than risk falling behind or playing catch up later? What should they be thinking about now? Yeah, I think there are three types of people in this world. One, the observer. They're like, OK, I'm going to wait till this thing is perfect and then maybe I'll really use it. And then, you know, like if it can start cleaning my laundry and my dishes and then also become my assistant that does everything for me, then I'll start investing in it. That's the observer.

[00:14:56] Then you've got the operator. Like, I'm going to be really good at prompting. I'm going to start building systems that will allow me to be more efficient at work. And then you've got the builder. Actually, I'm going to turn these systems into products and start selling them so I can start monetizing. And I'm going to take equity in this thing. Those are the three types of people that I see now. So notwithstanding, you might have some people as well outside of that. Maybe there's a fourth. I hate this thing. I'm never going to use it. Maybe that's the fourth type.

[00:15:25] But with those three types, if you're an observer, you're falling behind. You need to start understanding how these things work. And you have to become an operator to just understand, you know, like where this thing is headed, how far we've come in terms of the technology, and how other businesses are thinking about building entire strategies out of it, restructuring entire teams because of it.

[00:15:53] And if you're a builder, keep building and learn how to market and sell. Those are the two skills that are hardest right now. Everyone can build. It's so easy to deploy something, but it's still hard to sell and market something. And I imagine there's a lot of light bulb moments going off around the world for people listening to us, wherever they are, whatever they're doing. And maybe they want to maybe bring something to life there. And maybe we can help them a little bit and inspire them a little bit.

[00:16:21] Do you have any use cases that you can share that maybe will just help people understand what we're talking about here, how businesses are using it, how people are using it? And what they could be doing as well. Any big use cases that just spring to mind that you could just share with me? Yeah. I mean, I have a few. One of them is a professor from the University of Houston.

[00:16:45] He actually joined the platform a year and a half ago. Maybe. Yeah. We were just starting then. He joined a competition that we did. We were like, so the competition was build something out of this and then post what you built on TikTok. And he went and explained what he built. He didn't win, but he then eventually booked on a few calls with me. So he wanted to become an AI consultant. He was still a professor then.

[00:17:12] And then he became like really obsessed with building and understanding the technology. So this university, a professor in the University of Houston, he built an entire business from just understanding how this technology works. Like he started with just learning how to prompt when he joined Launch Laminade. And now he runs an entire business model. So he sells classes. He sells products.

[00:17:38] And he's building products for himself and has gone full time on becoming an AI consultant. And he was a professor in social sciences and completely kind of segued, although still connecting, segued to becoming an AI consultant and building a business. And we've got people who are executive assistants. We've got people who are marketeers who became AI experts.

[00:18:06] So they've been building the platform for over a year. And now talking about what they've built, they are now experts in their fields and get to speak for banks. Like they get sponsored and paid to speak about AI and about what they built and also monetizing as well. Yeah, we've got a few cases like that. Some people who joined me two years ago are now like building their own platforms. It's quite incredible.

[00:18:32] So for anyone listening, the website I think is launchlemonade.app. For anyone that's keying that in as they're listening to our conversation, what are they going to find when they arrive there? How do they get up and running, etc.? Just walk me through what they can expect. Yes. So two years, for two years, I bootstrapped the company. There were no funding. I had no budget. I literally had, I think, $100 when we started the company.

[00:18:59] And so today is the 27th of March. So if you're watching this before the 11th of April, 2026, you'll land on a version of our platform that is the version that I've been building for the past two years, which I bootstrapped. If you're watching this after the 11th of April, 2026, and you sign up to launchlemonade, you're going to land on the new version of launchlemonade, which is our version two.

[00:19:27] It's a more powerful platform that will allow you to easily use a personal assistant that is AI-powered. You can easily build AI agents that will actually solve your problems. You can find AI agents that we've pre-built for you so you can easily optimize it. And you can choose from over 42 language models from the latest chat GPTs, Claude's, Gemini's to power those AI agents.

[00:19:57] We're also making the platform even more secure than we've built as well. We will make sure that you or your team wouldn't have to worry about inputting sensitive data and PIA data. So we're protecting your account. Incredibly cool. So it's an exciting few weeks ahead. I would imagine an exciting year ahead. So I'll include a link to launchlemonade.app. I'll also include a link to your LinkedIn as well.

[00:20:27] But anywhere else you'd like me to point everyone listening? Yes, I have a newsletter called Human and the Machine. You can find me at humanandthemachine.substack.com. And yeah, just check out all our platforms. We're on every social media channel. Fantastic. Well, I'll include links to everything that you've mentioned there. And I would urge everyone listening to check you out and the phenomenal work you're doing.

[00:20:53] I mean, we're talking here in March 2026, 7,000 users and 20,000 plus AI agents. I'd love to connect with you again towards the end of the year because I suspect that figure is going to be much, much higher. So everyone listening, remember where you heard it first. Please get involved. Let me know what you create. Let me know your experiences. But more than anything, Shane, just thank you for bringing all this to life. And talking about it in a language that everyone can understand, the only limit is people's imagination. So use your expertise.

[00:21:23] Experiment with the technology. See what you can create. But thank you for sharing that with me today. Thank you so much, Neil. Thanks for having me here. One of the many things that stayed with me after our conversation today is just how much that conversation around AI has shifted from technology to mindset. And the barriers that once held businesses back, cost and complexity, these things are fading. And in their place, we're left with a different challenge, understanding the exact problem that we're trying to solve here.

[00:21:52] And my guest perspective, I think, really cut through a lot of the noise because the real advantage is not about just having access to AI. Everybody's now got access to it. It's knowing how to apply it in a way that drives revenue or removes friction in a business. And that puts the focus back on human expertise, on the people who understand their domain and their ability to translate that knowledge into something that an AI agent can execute.

[00:22:20] That is the big takeaway there. And yes, there is a wider tension here as AI becomes easier to build with the barrier to entry drops. But the challenge of standing out, selling and creating something people will pay for could become harder. But it also raises interesting questions about what skills matter, what will matter most in the next few years, especially for founders, operators and anyone thinking about building in this space.

[00:22:47] And maybe another takeaway here is that this is not a moment to sit back and wait for AI to mature. It's actually a moment to experiment, to learn and decide how you want to participate in this shift. So where do you see yourself in this emerging agent economy? Are you observing, operating or building? And what's the first step you're going to take to progress onto the next stage? As always, techtalksnetwork.com.

[00:23:15] There's over 4,000 interviews over there. There'll also be a blog post associated with this episode with links to everything that we talked about. And you can even leave me an audio message. Whether you're using Launch Lemonade, building something on your own, I'd love to hear what experiences you're having. What are you creating? Because it's all very well seeing examples from a keynote on a stage in front of 8,000 people at a tech conference. But for me here on this podcast, I want to hear the stories that are being of what people are building right now.

[00:23:45] What are I? What improvements are they seeing? So if that sounds like you, please send me a message. I'd love to hear from you. But that's it for today. So thank you to Shen for sharing her inspiring story. And also big thank you to each and every one of you for listening. I'll speak with you all again very soon. Bye for now.