Richard Wang on Clad Labs' 'Chad IDE': subsidizing AI coding tools with affiliate ads and gambling integrations

Okay, so we have the founder of Clad Labs in the Reream waiting room. Let's bring him into the TVP Ultradome.

What's going on?

Look at the shirt. You look fantastic.

Incredible. Incredible.

You know, you're you're winning me over already. Uh, break it down for us. Introduce yourself. Tell us what you're building. Good to meet you.

How's it going, guys? Yeah. Uh, I'm Richard, the CEO of Clad Labs. We're building Chad IDE, the world's first brain rot IDE.

Okay. Why?

So, so great. [laughter] So, so, so, uh, we, we exchanged some comments and wanted you to come on the show. I think you get the TVPN award for the best rage bait of uh at the product level of the year. Uh and I thought your response to the essay that I did was amazing. You were like cool essay. Unfortunately, [laughter] it doesn't unfortunately it doesn't apply to us.

Yeah. So why doesn't it apply? What are you actually building? Like why brain rot? Is it just for fun or is there something meaningful here? Do you think this turns into a real business? Like what's the plan?

Yeah. The general thesis is that we're able to subsidize the generation of code with affiliates

and provide these state-of-the-art models for much much cheaper mostly for free actually to most developers.

Mhm. And and so that's why you're putting you're you're you're putting so you're acting as a funnel to you know any affiliate that so it could just be ads but you picked specifically the most controversial ones the gambling and the and the and the subway surfers like the stuff that feels more brainy. Um because that would get a a reaction. Was that the plan?

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean there's a I mean I think Jord touched on this earlier. There is a difference between the marketing and the product. Sure.

We actually started out with um affiliates on these very normal sites and then a lot of our users actually requested saying hey we actually like school on rain bet. We actually go to stake during our generation time like okay we'll integrate that feature and then we'll use that as our marketing campaign.

Okay it's incredible. I mean, you know, the debate was, are you making something people want? Is this in keeping with the Y Combinator thesis and the values of the of the organization? Um, my

Yeah, I guess. So, so break down what's actually happening like like you have the you have the IDE and then you have this other column which you can basically fill with anything. You could fill with an ad, you could fill it with videos or rainbed or whatever. What are some of the most common ways that developers are using the product today and what do you think really scales and becomes um the most popular?

Yeah, the greatest thing about AI native is that it completely changes the ad unit, right? So, we have these AI native ads that are in context and it's really great for code generation. Here, let me give you an example. So, I say I code a website. Code me a website. Right now, cloud code has this multi-stage planning, right? It says, well, what what do you want to code? Like, how do you want to use a backend? If I say well maybe I want to use a like soup base say yes superbase that's a soupbased conversion right there. So the ad is actually in the context in the application layer. So we have multiple ad placements but I think the most exciting one is how does ads scale at AI native.

Yeah we we had a what was the name of the company that we had on? There's another company that's doing this and and actually integrating the ad so that you see an ad, you're like, "Yes, I want this functionality." You press a button and the AI actually implements the uh product for you and then you're just and and and I can just see that converting at a at a really high level and companies being willing to pay

quite a lot to get in front of people like at the right time.

I mean, yeah, it makes a ton of sense to me uh on on that level. uh a little bit less on the stake gambling while you're waiting. Uh that feels like that would actually reduce developer productivity. Do you have any plans to actually assess whether or not this is a good decision? Because most developers are not solo entrepreneurs. They're employed by someone. And if I'm running an organization, do I really want my most valuable, you know, resource, my most valuable human capital, uh, tuning out every other second while they're waiting for, uh, you know, the generation to come.

One of those engineers might say, "Well, I would because I'm betting on Rainbet with my personal dollars. You're paying less for the IDE, I'm saving the company money." Yes. John.

Yes. But yeah. [laughter] Yes. But but but but do do you think that it would be better to show educational videos then something like that?

Oh, we have that as well. Yeah. So, we have uh educational videos, learn about the code that you're actually writing. Okay.

But I think our thesis is basically that we follow the YC advice, talk to your user, and the user wanted the the gambling integration. So, we made it for them and as at some point the user doesn't want it anymore, we'll take it away. Right? So it's all about I think for B toc is being close to the user iterating close with the user and

okay

serving what they want.

Have you been banned at any companies uh yet? [laughter]

Actually the opposite we had quite a few companies reach out to us and say hey we actually really want you to integrate our notion our Jira board like the whole like productivity workflow into the generation time and we're like we really we're serving consumer right now but I mean there's a there's infinite possibilities here to scale at like various business levels. Okay.

Uh, how's the traction been to date?

It's been great. Yeah, I think I have to thank you guys for that as well, helping us go viral. So, we have a great weight listed.

11,000 people on the wait list.

Successfully baited.

Has anyone has anyone used it yet? Have you built it? Is it Is it Is it in the wild? Is it Is it a BS code fork? Is that

What were kind What were the metrics that you shared at at demo day?

Yeah, so the metrics I shared at demo day were 11K on the wait list, 30k in revenue from ads. We have people using right now in beta and we're gonna give out codes today at demo day. So, anybody who comes up to us in demo day, we're giving you a code. Okay. Um, it's going really great.

Amazing. Find Tyler. I know he's probably in the same room. Let's get Let's get Tyler uh on uh on Clad Labs or Chad IDE. Uh we should hit the gong.

Yeah, we should.

Uh and uh

uh how's the round going?

It's going great. Yeah, we filled half the round was have a lot of allocation to um to give out to people who are interested.

Awesome. All right. Well, great to meet you, Richard. Uh thanks for coming on and breaking it down.

Appreciate it. We'll talk to you soon. Have a good one.

Uh let me tell you about Figma. Think bigger, build faster. Figma helps design development teams build great products together. Uh you can get started for free. We have uh our next guest coming into the uh into the uh the Ultra Dome. This next company is Absurd.

Really? Oh, wait. It is absurd. That's the name of the company. Uh, they will be joining in just a minute here. We might need to pop back to the timeline while we wait for them to seat sit down. Jordan, you can take a you can take a a view here. This is a live view into the into YC. So, uh, if we if we jump ahead of the schedule, we can always, uh,