Ajay Mehta's Tolan lets users build a customizable alien 'guide' powered by AI. The app is two years old, most subscribers pay $25/month for Tolan Plus, and Shaan estimates it is past $10M in revenue or run rate.
“So with, uh, the app that I'm working on now with, with an awesome team of folks, Tolin, we have over 100,000 paying subscribers to our iOS app.”
Before Tolan, Ajay Mehta launched Birthdate Candles as a side project after leaving his job. Each candle is personalized with a reading for the buyer's birth date. It went viral, took over his life for about three years, and sold over a million candles.
“Yeah, yeah, I did a startup called Birthdate Co. We started with a product called Birthdate Candles. It honestly started as a side project where there are these candles that are personalized to you based on your birthday. They have a reading and a that's custom to you based on the day you were born. Launched it as a side project. It was one of those, like, I had left my job and thought it would be fun to launch something like this with a partner. And, you know, basically it went viral and it kind of took over my life for like 3 years. But it was awesome. We sold over a million candles.”
Tolan made voice its core interaction from early on, and more than 70% of messages on the platform are spoken. Ajay Mehta guesses ChatGPT is 90–95% text and argues small framing choices change how people relate to the character.
“So it's not just texting, it's mostly voice. And I think, you know, I mean, we're, we're like 70+% voice in terms of, like, the quantity of messages happening on the platform. And, you know, that's totally not the case with ChatGPT, right? ChatGPT has got to be 90, 95 plus percent text, I would, I would assume.”