Last Week’s Struggles and Lessons (Week Ending 11/3/24)

Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs and sharing what I learned from them

Mission: Create a library of wisdom from notable entrepreneurs that current entrepreneurs can leverage to increase their chances of success

What I struggled with:

  • No major struggles this week, just frustration. I couldn’t allocate as much time to this project as I wanted to. I had commitments to other projects that I had to make my priority this week.

What I learned:

  • Google’s Gemini large-language models (LLMs) don’t provide in-depth responses when you feed them multiple books via retrieval augmented generation (RAG). When they’re fed a single book, the responses are much better. Feeding too much “raw” information at once is counterproductive.
  • I described the problem I’m solving in a way that “feels” more accurate to me and that resonated well with investors when I pitched using it: “Entrepreneurs with photographic memories who read a ton have a superpower. I didn’t win the genetic lottery for photographic memory. I’m trying to solve that problem.” See this post for more details. I wonder how many other entrepreneurs have the same problem and are aware of it?
  • My excitement about this project has jumped since my developer friend began helping me. Having someone with contrasting skills to talk with and work through hurdles with has made a noticeable difference.
  • I haven’t addressed what to do with the highlights I make in a book. I want to figure out how to feed them into an LLM.
  • I need to retain what I’ve highlighted. Maybe create something that helps me review highlights. Or maybe pump my highlights into an app built for that purpose.
  • Prompting is a big deal, and I have a lot to learn about creating better prompts.  

Those are my struggles and learnings from the week!