With Clarence Keith @ Nalana: What If You Could Speak 3D Into Existence? 18VC Podcast · Episode 14 · July 16, 2026 Guests: Clarence Keith Source: https://www.18-vc.com/podcast/clarence-keith-nalana Host: Hello, folks. It was a pleasure to have our guest today, Clarence Keith, with us. Thank you so much for being with us on this episode of 18VC Recording. Would you mind briefly introducing yourself to our audience about who you are and what you're building? Clarence Keith: Yeah. I'm Clarence Keith, founder of Nalana. It's an AI-native design software, and it's essentially just allowing for anyone to create 3D, and even professionals to create 3D faster. Host: Oh, that's straightforward. Clarence Keith: Yeah. Host: We're not going to clip that out. That's his style. Clarence Keith: I bet, yeah. Host: Yeah. So tell us a little bit about what you were doing before Nalana, and what leads you into this path? Clarence Keith: What I was doing before Nalana, I was creating a lot. I've always been just creating stuff, right? Host: Yeah. Clarence Keith: Directly before Nalana was a lot of artistic work. Host: Right. Clarence Keith: I don't know if I've shown you any of the masks or shoes or statues that I've made, but I was doing a lot of projects like that. And the reason why I was doing that is just because I have this long-term vision for myself, and that is creating at the highest level. And the highest level for me is my products touch people on a global scale, right? Touching people all the way in Taiwan or Russia or anything like that. Right? Whether it's my statues or my shoes or even the experiences that I create, it's all those things globally. And so that's essentially a lot of the things that I was doing beforehand. I could talk about school and all that, but I don't really care about any of that for myself. Host: Yeah. Clarence Keith: Yeah. That's been most of the things that I've been doing for a long time. Even before the statues and the masks and shoes and everything, I believe it was music videos in Blender. And before that, it was clothes. Actually, clothes were a through line between all of those different eras, if you want to say. I'll actually say chapters, actually. But yeah, it was music videos, clothes, shoes. I've just been creating different stuff or different things over time. It's never really been a time where I haven't been doing something or creating or building. Host: It's creative is embedded in part of your genes. Clarence Keith: Yeah, 100%. Host: Yeah. You yourself is an avid user for many years of Blender, right? Clarence Keith: Yeah. Host: And then you also taught over 100 students how to use it. Clarence Keith: Yeah. Host: And throughout your time, you also helped Honda create vehicles, parts, right? Clarence Keith: Yeah. Host: And then also build the industrial 3D footwear design- Clarence Keith: Yeah Host: using Blender, right? Was there a moment that you realized that, "Guys, we got to figure out, reinvent a way for people to use Blender?" Clarence Keith: I think at the time, right before I actually started creating Nalana, I was building a bunch of different just tools in different platforms, especially with things like Cloud Code came out. I think it was actually before Cloud Code. But before different things like LLMs came out, right? I had a good fundamental knowledge of how to code, but obviously that just took it to another level. And so at the time, I was just building a bunch of different products and tools that I would even use on my own day-to-day work, or I built one, me and my girlfriend, we play Monopoly Deal. Host: Cool. Clarence Keith: It's this version of Monopoly with playing cards and stuff, and I just made a game for us to play online, Monopoly Deal, because she had to go back to her home country for the summer, and so we could still play it. That's the type of stuff that I would be making. Host: Wow. Clarence Keith: But then as I continued to use Blender, I saw that there was a... Or rather, I knew that there was a Python console within Blender itself, and I was like, I'm seeing all of these integrations and tools and stuff within a lot of different softwares. I think there was some stuff in Photoshop. There was some stuff in Illustrator. But there wasn't anything really good in the 3D space, so I'm just like, "Interesting." LLMs are really good at coding Python. Host: Yeah. Clarence Keith: So why is it nothing within that? Host: Nothing like that, right. Clarence Keith: Right. And so I really just started exploring it, and there wasn't really a moment where I was like, "This has to be easier." But I think it continued because I have all of these years within Blender and years within 3D space. Like you said, I was doing Honda projects. I was making shoes. I was doing all these different things, so I've already lived the life of a 3D artist and 3D designer in a multitude of ways. So it kind of just made sense that seeing this integration and knowing my experience, I kind of already know how this could work. And then even using tools like Cursor- knowing the exact way that this could take over and how this could really change the entire field itself. Because I think Cursor was one of the first softwares to really make coding easier- Host: Yeah Clarence Keith: for a lot of people. Host: Right. Clarence Keith: And I think Nalana will be the first software to do that as well for 3D. Not just 3D, but just creation as a whole, because 3D encompasses a lot of different areas. But I think at the same time, knowing that and stemming from my just general imagination and creativity made me understand exactly the vision that I have for this and where it could go, and the steps to get there. Host: I also want to take a little bit of time to get deeper into experience teaching a lot of students- Clarence Keith: Yeah Host: about use Blender, right? Clarence Keith: Yeah. Host: Is there any pattern you observe from seeing how a lot of beginners of Blender struggle to use the application? Clarence Keith: It's like beginners especially, one, get intimidated because for me, and I'm sure anybody else using any platform they're super familiar with, it doesn't feel intimidating for them because they're very used to the platform. Host: Yeah. Clarence Keith: They've already learned everything. They know what buttons do what. Lo and behold, they might still be learning some stuff, but it's not as intimidating as- Host: Right Clarence Keith: if somebody who's jumping into it- Host: Yeah Clarence Keith: seeing the sheer capabilities or rather sheer amount of panels and buttons and everything that you can click, and it's just like, "What am I looking at?" You know? If you look up the Blender UI or even something like a Fusion 360, right? There's just so much you can do. So that's one thing. It's intimidation. The second thing is they kind of know what they want to do, whether it's from their own class project or they just have their own imagination, so they have ideas for what they want to create. But it's like a very strong and oftentimes a very huge gap between their idea and the thing that they want to create. And obviously, that was like me too, at a certain point before I even knew Blender, before I knew all of these different platforms. I had ideas for what I wanted, but then to do so, I very much so underestimated how much like- Host: Hard it would be Clarence Keith: yeah, like insanely hard. But regardless, like that gap is apparent for a lot of beginners. And that's one of the things I think Nalana can and honestly will help with because it almost like literally eliminates that gap. So- Host: And you make it very simple with the voice interface, right? Clarence Keith: Yeah. Host: You can just speak out loud and Nalana's going to handle the rest. Clarence Keith: The thing with the voice interface, I think it was before things like WhisperFlow and things like, I think Willow is another company that does it as well. Like those are the companies that do the speech-to-text really well. But I think I have that idea for speech-to-3D because when you're in a creative process, especially if you're like working with other people in a creative process, you're doing a lot of talking and you're doing a lot of gesturing, drawing, sketching, anything like that. And I think the reason why I have the vision for speech, but not only speech, but gesture and vision- because it will align with that creative process, right? As you're talking about something, then it starts to get created- Host: Right Clarence Keith: in the platform as you're speaking it. And then if it's getting created wrong, obviously if I talk about an idea, you and I both might be visualizing two different things. Host: Right. Clarence Keith: So if it's getting created and you're liking it, but that's not actually- what I'm talking about, I'm like, "Okay, no, move it over here. Actually, this is what I'm talking about." And then it's getting picked up on in the software- Host: Right Clarence Keith: and getting created as you're talking. So yeah, the speech to Blender, or really just that's what it was called actually like a long time ago. But speech to 3D, I think is literally just fundamental to how people will be creating. I don't know how long from now. But yeah, I think it is fundamental to how people will be creating, and I think you can see it with the things like WhisperFlow and- Host: Yeah Clarence Keith: Willow. Host: It's the shortest distance from your imagination inside your heart to the reality. Clarence Keith: Oh yeah, 100%. Host: Yeah. Clarence Keith: Yeah, and I think you actually speak much faster than you can text or type, you know? Host: Yeah. You also talk about in our last conversation that you transferred twice. First from Emory to USC, and then from Marshall to IYA, right? Clarence Keith: Yeah. Host: Tell us to our audience about it. Like, what was the drive? Clarence Keith: I left Emory because I think at the time Emory did not have what I wanted. Emory is an amazing school, right? From what I know mainly, if you're going down a pre-med path or just going to the medical school, their medical school is phenomenal. Business school, I don't know how much, but to each their own. But Emory just didn't have the stuff that I wanted for myself, and USC did. And at the time, I do think there is a lot of... Everything happens for a reason. And I say that because there was a program that reached out to me, while I was at Emory and was like, "Hey, we know you didn't get in during the regular undergrad process, but you can still transfer." I was like, "Oh, interesting. Tell me more." And so they worked with me to transfer, do all the essays and stuff again before GPTs, so you had to write them all out. Host: Oh, wow. Clarence Keith: But yeah, they worked with me and then I got into USC, transferred, and I think the year after I got into USC, that program got cut. Like literally was gone. But my thing is like, I say everything happens for a reason because it was the year after I got in. Host: Yeah. Clarence Keith: One year later, I probably wouldn't be at USC. I'd probably still be at Emory. But I think going to USC Marshall, that's where I transferred in, and still not feeling like they had what I wanted. Being in all of the business classes, I think it was a lot of intro, like marketing, accounting. I'm a smart guy, so accounting and finance was like coming to me pretty good. All of the classes were coming to me pretty good, but it still just didn't have what I wanted. Like I would be in class making my music videos or making the shoes or making all these different products while being in class for account-- not accounting. I think statistics. Statistics was a class, business statistics, and I still didn't have what I wanted. So when I got into USC, that's when I learned about IYA And then I went to go tour it, I went to go talk to people there, and I'm like, "Oh, no, this is it. This has everything that I really want in a school." So then I transferred to IUA. Apparently, it's pretty hard to transfer into IUA. Host: It is. Clarence Keith: I didn't know that at the time. And I think that's another thing I... Man, I'd just be talking. I'd be going on rants. Not rants, but long monologues, let's say. So I'm about to jump to a different point. I've heard a lot of people say or talk about percentages of people who apply to transfer into IUA, but I don't usually think about percentages and everything. Host: What do you think about it? Clarence Keith: I don't think it's stupid to think about percentages, but I think you really just shouldn't think about them, to be honest, because I think a percentage, hearing like Harvard- I think it's like a 2%- Host: Yeah Clarence Keith: to get into the undergrad. Host: Yeah. Clarence Keith: That shouldn't stop you from applying, though. Whatsoever. It should never stop you from applying. And my thing is, the way that I would think about it is, if it's a 2% acceptance rate into Harvard- then you should be the part of the 2%. Who cares about this 98% of people don't get accepted, you should just be a part of the 2%. Host: Yeah. Clarence Keith: And even something like, I think they say 1% of startups actually succeed or go to unicorn status, or like 2% of YC companies. Host: You should be the 1%. Clarence Keith: You should be the 1%. Focus on being the 1% and doing what you need to do to succeed rather than- Host: Get daunted away, yeah Clarence Keith: get daunted away. And so that's how I think about it, and I think that's just me. I don't think even if I heard that it was a super low chance of getting into IUA, that I would've done it any differently. But nonetheless, I think you've got to protect your mindset when it comes to a lot of things that you do. And percentages is just one aspect of it. So I'm like, "Bro, I don't care about no percentages." Like, what? Why are we talking percentages? What? Yeah. Host: This man is just all locked in. Clarence Keith: Yeah. Host: You don't even care about anything else. Clarence Keith: There's no reason to think about why you could fail. Host: Well, that's the founder mindset we all- Clarence Keith: You've got to think about why you could succeed. Host: Yeah, exactly. Clarence Keith: Why you could win. Host: Exactly. Clarence Keith: There's no... And even that might be a little contradictory because what I just said was, I didn't even know about the possibility of failure, but it's also like, I think if you don't have a possibility of failure in your mind, the only thing left is success. I know you like that. Host: Yeah, you definitely love that. Clarence Keith: Yeah, the only thing left is success, actually. Host: Yeah. Clarence Keith: So that's definitely how I think on a day-to-day basis. I remember one time, this is a few weeks, no, it was a few months ago. I was on a call with an incubator based out here. Host: Right. Clarence Keith: And they asked me about, if Nalana were to fail, what would be the reason why it could fail? And I understand why they asked that because, yes, it's good to understand that, if you don't capture enough distribution, then it might be harder for you to succeed, or rather it could point towards failure. Another point that I think is, even if that were to happen for somebody else, that's never a point where you can deem yourself a failure. Right? I think you have to have your own metric of success and your own metric of failing, because I think about... I think this is a good analogy. I think Google. Right before Google was Google, there was a ton of competitors, some of them doing better than Google at the time. Host: Yeah. Clarence Keith: Yahoo was bigger than Google. Host: Yes. Clarence Keith: And I remember, I think it was one thing about Google's search ranking or however their algorithm was, that really pushed them above all the competitors, and then Yahoo tried to buy them out, but then they kept going and then- Host: Yeah. Clarence Keith: I mean, I don't use Yahoo, right? But it's something like that, right? Where you could look at all of these different factors that might point towards failure, but that doesn't mean you will fail. Right? You could still succeed. Even if there's so much competition, even if there's all these different things that might be working against you, which in reality might not even be. It's just doing whatever you need to do to succeed. Host: You talk about you encourage people to have their own approach and metric of success and failure. Clarence Keith: Yeah. Host: I'm curious, how do you define success? What does success look like in your eyes? Clarence Keith: For me, for Nalana, it's two things, I think. Might be three. But one, it is a metric boatload of people using this product, benefiting from it. I think two, it is being able to see the influence of a product like this change the way how people design and create, right? Because if I was building Cursor, then Cursor, my success for that, to elaborate on what I mean by the influence and stuff. My success rate would be people don't do any manual coding anymore. They just talk to the platform, and then it just does all the coding for them. Host: Okay. Clarence Keith: You could probably ask a lot of engineers right now, they don't do no manual Python scripting- Host: No, they don't Clarence Keith: anything like that. Host: They don't. Clarence Keith: So that is a metric of success for me when it comes to 3D design and just 3D creation in Nalana. I think the third aspect obviously is an exit and everything because, or even acquisition. Host: Right. Clarence Keith: Are those the same thing? Maybe. I don't know. I don't know about an IPO, but I definitely think exit or acquisition because I have other goals. Host: Yes. Clarence Keith: I have a lot of goals in life. I have a lot of things that I will accomplish. And the thing is with Nalana is building that up to a point to get acquired, I will still use the product afterwards in my creative work, in my day-to-day just creating stuff. So those are the... Those two, I might have said three, I don't know. Those areas are in which I deem a success for myself. Host: Love it. Clarence Keith: And that's something I just had to talk to myself about. Host: Yeah. Clarence Keith: I can't really get that from anybody else saying- Host: Yeah Clarence Keith: "Oh, I want to raise this amount of money." Host: Right. Clarence Keith: Raising doesn't really mean anything until you are either start making money or you exit, and you... At least to me, until you exit or you IPO or something like that. So my metric of success isn't really raising or even getting to like a Series B or anything like that. It's more or less just based off of a conversation I have with myself about what I want. Host: Sure, and I think you described Nalana as a Cursor for Blenders. Clarence Keith: Yeah. Host: I think people can get a pretty clear idea from the first sight of that description. Clarence Keith: Yeah. Host: Is it what you want to emphasize is that you want to, as you just mentioned, just change the way people who are designing 3D assets, for example. Basically, they don't need to do any manual work anymore. Clarence Keith: Yeah, I think the reason I say Cursor for Blender is so people can easily understand it. AI-native design software, there's a bunch of different things wrapped up in there, but Cursor for Blender is so much simpler, especially for people that know Cursor- and investors that know Cursor, and the success that it had. And I'm like, "Okay, Cursor for Blender." Host: Yeah. Clarence Keith: Yeah. Host: For people maybe who are not familiar with designing- Clarence Keith: Yeah Host: and not familiar with Cursor, how would you introduce that to them? Clarence Keith: People who are not familiar with design. Host: Well, like a toddler. Clarence Keith: Say again? Host: Like a toddler. Clarence Keith: Yeah, a toddler. Shoot. All right, well. So how would you explain it simply? Everything around us has to be created in some way. The MacBooks you guys have, these microphones, the shoes that we're wearing, everything has to be created. Most of the times it's made in a software beforehand- where you can make a lot of versions of it. You can test it out, see how it might look in real life. But the thing is with that, it takes a lot of time. And so what I'm building is a software where you can create these things like a MacBook, you can create these things like shoes really fast and really easily. The example that I might give for a lot of people is "Toy Story," because "Toy Story" was made... The first "Toy Story" was made in around five years. And I think, rather know, I know there was this movie called "Flow," I think. It was like a cat movie or something. It recently won a, what is it, Oscar? I think that's the award for movies. But it was made entirely in Blender, and that still took a very long time. And part of that time is the animating, the rigging- the modeling. Forget everything else about financing and everything like that. The actual creation process took a very long time. So what I'm building is a way for that time to be compressed, and for people like, I'm assuming you two, who might not have ever touched a software to create something, can do it easily. The same way... I actually don't want to say, or bring up Cursor in this example. But yeah. It's essentially just making it so that- Host: Totally Clarence Keith: you can create it. Host: Totally. Clarence Keith: The big boys can still create, but much faster, and it's just going to change the way that we create. Host: Folks, if you have kids at home, definitely let us know if your kids understand what Clarence said. Clarence Keith: Yeah, maybe not. I said a lot in that supposedly toddler explanation, but we'll see. Host: Yeah. Clarence Keith: I'll get better at that. Host: And I do remember you mentioned Nalana is not like a plugin- Clarence Keith: No Host: into the Blender software, but- Clarence Keith: Yeah Host: you build your own software. Clarence Keith: Yeah. Host: What's the rationale behind that decision of making your own instead of a plugin? Clarence Keith: There's a lot- Host: Is that easier to build a plugin? Clarence Keith: Oh, it's so much easier to build a plugin. But you can't really get... I don't think you can really make a profitable, rather a venture scaled business off of a plugin. Maybe you could, maybe somebody will do it, prove me wrong. But at least for what I see, you can't really do that, and the reason why is because I want to also collect data from, not directly from people, but in terms of how people are using my platform or... Yeah. And the best way to do so is to have my own software. Because then I can control a lot of different things about what type of data is collected, how that can improve my pipeline on the back end. You can do so much with data. So that's the reason why I'm choosing to build my own platform rather than a plugin into something that's already established. Host: So about Nalana, who's feeling the problem you're trying to solve most acutely today? Clarence Keith: Right now, it's industrial designers and footwear designers. I'm mainly tackling industrial designers first, though, because these are the people that Experiences work for on a day-to-day basis, and they've also tried to experiment with the tools that these different companies like Meshy or Tripo create right now. Host: Right. Clarence Keith: But they can't necessarily use it in their workflow because of a slew of different reasons. I've even tested that in my own workflow before Nalana, and I can't use them for the same reasons. But industrial designers are first. I actually tested out on architecture. Architects, architectures, architectural visualization, that entire just ICP. But I saw that they didn't have an immediate use case for Nalana, so then I just pivoted, tested out another one in industrial designers, which I kind of knew about. Works out. They've shown interest. We're in conversations about pilots and partnerships and everything, so I'm just going with that- Host: Yeah Clarence Keith: as an immediate go to market. Host: Yeah. But I think for architects, there are also startups out there that are trying to make innovative solutions about, for example, agentic interface for CAD and BIM, something like that, right? Clarence Keith: Yeah. 100%. Host: Yeah. Clarence Keith: I know a few of them, but yeah, they're in their own aspects. Host: Yeah. What does a bad day look like for industrial designers? Clarence Keith: What does a what look like? Host: What does a bad day- Clarence Keith: Oh, a bad day Host: look like for industrial designer before they start using your product, before Nalana ever exists? Clarence Keith: So, for industrial designers, one of the actual people that I've been talking to, I don't know if I mentioned it, but the 3D modeling process, it just takes a long time. Right? It might take anywhere to model one product a few days. If you're doing a lot of products, weeks. If you're making something from scratch that hasn't been made already, that can be weeks to months. And on a day-to-day basis, it's just like a repetitive practice of going into the software, modeling it out, exporting, bringing it to different softwares for different reasons. And the one specific workflow that I'll actually bring up right now is, let's say like a vacuum. Host: A vacuum. Clarence Keith: Yeah. If you're modeling out a vacuum, there's so many intricate parts about a vacuum, which depending on the use case, you wouldn't need, but for industrial designers, you have to model out almost all the aspects of it. And depending on the client, you might need to model out even something small, like a... What is it called? The dustbin collector or something. Host: Okay. Clarence Keith: And then there's also if this is proportional, if this is an accurate representation of the actual product, even though they don't have it in front of them. There's a lot of different things that can go into the factor or into the workflow of an industrial designer. And then even still, the iterative process of sending it off, getting feedback, and then changing it, that might take anywhere from doing a quick change to another few days, depending on... It's just a lot of different moving factors, but the one consistent is just that the modeling process takes a very long time. Host: Pause. Cut out this part. I got to clear my throat. This is going too bad. Clarence Keith: Yeah. Host: Man. Oh, man. Clarence Keith: You good? Host: All right, should be fine. Clarence Keith: Yeah. Host: Okay. So does Nalana provide, I would say, different value add for beginners and advanced industrial designers? Clarence Keith: For beginners, I'm not necessarily focusing on beginners right now. Host: Oh, so it's just pro? Clarence Keith: Yeah. Host: Okay. Clarence Keith: It's just pro, and there's a reason why. Beginners, they could use it. They could use it right now, and they'll still get the value because, it's a professional product, but the fundamental of what it is, it's allowing you to create the things that you want to, right? Host: Right. Clarence Keith: I'm not designing Nalana specifically for an industrial use case. Right? It has to be able to go out into other verticals. Host: Absolutely. Clarence Keith: So then, the beginners will still be able to benefit from that. And what I'm also doing is making the experience... Like I said, one thing about the beginners is that it's very intimidating, and there's a big gap, right? Host: Yeah. Clarence Keith: The gap is already solved- Host: Right Clarence Keith: with them having this solution to create their models already or create whatever scene they want. The intimidation, that comes from an entirely different just process and experience of using the platform. Right? And that goes into onboarding. That goes into whatever's on the website. That goes into-... the actual downloading of the platform. That goes into the first thing you see when you open the platform. Host: Right. Clarence Keith: Right? That goes into all these different aspects, which I don't think are really considered in a lot of the platforms that I've used in my own experience and even heard from them. So that is a big thing for me right now, and just it will be continuously. I think another thing... Let me know if I just keep jumping to different topics as well- Host: No, it's fine Clarence Keith: because I... But yeah, another thing is trust. I think trust is a big aspect with this as well because at the end of the day, 3D is thought of as an artistic practice, and it's a very touchy conversation with artistic practices and artificial intelligence. And I think trust is going to have to be a big thing for Nalana because it's not like I'm taking anybody's workflows, right? It's not like I'm taking anybody's assets. We're generating it from scratch. Host: Right. Clarence Keith: And so that really means anything that you create, anything that Phil creates- Host: Interesting. Yeah Clarence Keith: anything that I create is literally just based off of ourself. It's not based off of anybody else's work. Host: Are you actually getting any pushback from more traditional or old-school design partners, architects? Clarence Keith: Old school. Not... From the people I've talked to, no, and that's because I mean, they're adapting. Host: Right. Clarence Keith: Right? They know that the tools are coming out right now. Host: Yeah. Clarence Keith: And they are adapting to this process. The people that I have gotten feedback from and pushback are the artists, and that's the whole reason why I say it has to be very trustworthy because this was a few months ago. This isn't my strategy now, but a few months ago when I was reaching out and doing my content strategy for almost B2C or B2Prosumer, as some people call it, there was just a lot of backlash- Host: Oh Clarence Keith: because it's thought that it's going to be taking away people's jobs or it's going to be stealing from artists and their work and everything like that. But the fact of the matter is, even tools like Cursor, right? I don't think Cursor has really caused people- Host: Yeah Clarence Keith: to lose their jobs for real. Host: No. Clarence Keith: But it is just a general fear that that could happen, right? And the reason why I'm building Nalana in the way it is, is so it empowers the people to be able to raise the bar literally on what they can create. And so that really just raises the bar on what will be created in the world. And then at the same time, it's not taking from people's workflows or it's not taking from people's artistic practice. Right? Everything is based off of you and whatever you're creating. Host: So basically, we've seen a lot of resistance from artists, especially in either music or even painting. Clarence Keith: Yeah. Host: Right? There are a lot of resistance. They're saying that basically AI is either stealing their ideas or whatever. Why would Nalana not be facing the same resistance? Clarence Keith: So it has in the past. Now, it shouldn't. Because there's a lot that goes into being trustworthy, and that just takes time. Right? So building this relationship with customers and users over time, that's the thing that builds trust, and trust is the thing that helps with your authenticity, helps with people wanting to use your product as opposed to other people's products because they feel like, or they might not feel like these products are really taking their artistic process into account, right? I think those are the main aspects as to why Nalana won't really receive a lot of backlash in the future. And just as time goes on, people adopt, people start using these tools more and more- and they get used to them and get more comfortable and realize that these tools aren't really out to take their jobs or anything. Host: Are there people who enjoy just the process of creating by their own hands? Clarence Keith: Yeah, 100%. There's always going to be those people. Even now when it comes to manufacturing, right, there's people like leatherworkers, right? People who work at a Louis Vuitton or something, right? Host: Oh, yeah. Luxury. Clarence Keith: There's a lot of handmade goods still, but then there's a lot of mass-produced goods- at the same time. So I think there's always going to be the person who wants to do it by themselves and do it by hand. I think at the same time, though, it's just going to be a different process. Right? Because somebody who does a lot of more mass manufacturing of these goods, they still have to design the process of how it gets made, and they have to design the product itself, right, and make it mass manufacturable, right? Because that's an art for them, too. For me, especially, I used to do leatherwork as well, and it would be all handmade and everything. I don't want to do that. I don't want to do it by hand anymore. I would rather have my ideas expressed in the fastest way. Right? I do enjoy the practice and I know people enjoy the practice, but at a certain point it'll get to a point where a lot of people like to vibe code. A lot of people like to work in different ways. Host: Right. Clarence Keith: And at some point it'll be a lot of people still think of the Nalana process as a manual type of process because you still are incorporating all of your ideas. You still are doing all the prompting. You still are doing everything according to your workflow, but it'll just be a different way of work. Host: Can you basically unbox the magic behind Nalana? What a user sees is basically you give a description of your ideas, and then it comes up with a finished design of- Clarence Keith: Yeah Host: a 3D asset. Clarence Keith: Yeah. Host: What's actually happening behind the scene? How do you make that happen? Do you use, for example, a 3D generation model to do that or do you kind of build them up like a human designer would do, piece by piece and then you combine them together into a finished product? Clarence Keith: Yeah. Host: How is that magic behind the scene? Clarence Keith: So one of the things I've seen when companies like Meshy or Tripod 3D is that they generating from almost like a... It's almost like image generators. Right? They start from your prompt and then I believe they go from a noise field or a point cloud or anything, and then slowly build out your model almost like you're starting with a block of stone and then- Host: Yeah Clarence Keith: you're slowly carving away at it until it gets to that model. And that's not necessarily the process that I go through. What we do is just going through an iterative process of- Hand creating that model, and then seeing if it adheres to the prompt that you wanted. And if it doesn't, go redo it again, and until you get to the type of fidelity that you wanted in the first place. Host: I do remember you mentioned there was a Python, I don't know, function in Blender. Clarence Keith: Yeah. Host: Is what you're doing kind of... Basically building up in Blender can be finished by writing codes, right? Clarence Keith: Say again. Host: Is it basically building up the model, you can do it in a user interface where we can drag this, I don't know, maybe a rectangle thing or a square block, but you can also do it by just writing codes. Clarence Keith: Yeah. Host: And then do you finish that pro-- Do you automate that process by basically-- So basically you're translating human input, natural language- Clarence Keith: Inputs Host: into a code, and it will just- Clarence Keith: Run it behind the scene. Host: Yeah, behind the scene. And the front end, it looks like a 3D- Clarence Keith: Yeah, so what I want to do is essentially make Nalana just orchestrate the software, right, as a person would. So whether that's adding a cube and then doing whatever else you do with that cube. That's the kind of the process that I want to take Nalana with, and that is almost different to generating code and generating models from scratch in that same way. Host: Okay. Interesting. And then I think Lucas can go with the- Oh... competitive landscape. Yeah. Well, where does your moat actually come from? Clarence Keith: The moat comes from the data that I said before, and that's really the biggest aspect of it, right? I think if we were to do the build out Nalana in any different way other than having our own platform, we wouldn't be able to have as strong data. And the data is the thing that makes it profitable. The data is the thing that makes it defensible. The data is everything regarding that data because it also helps us improve our pipeline on the back end. It helps us, I don't want to say personalize, but helps us learn the person- Host: Yeah Clarence Keith: and their workflow. And even if it's at a big company, then learn the design language, learn all of these different aspects about how they work, and adhere whatever's being made to them. Host: And you also talk about Nalana emphasize editable geometry. Why does the editability matter so much for serious builders? Clarence Keith: I think it matters initially because people like these industrial designers, they still have a lot of skills. I still have a lot of skills within 3D. And when you're generating this model, something small might not be as how you perfectly envisioned it. And depending on what it is, you could still go in there and just make a quick change. That might take a second, literally, or two seconds. But then something that's a bigger change that takes a while, that's something that should honestly be just regenerated with a prompt. But the thing is, with something like Meshy or Tripo or anything, mainly Meshy I'm going to say, because they generate the models and you export it into your software, but you can't really easily- Host: Okay Clarence Keith: edit a small part about it. You might be able to reprompt it. You might be able to change up the image that you generated it from. Host: Reprompting is like going through a blind box and- Clarence Keith: Reprompting is- Host: hoping that you get what you want. Clarence Keith: Essentially, right? But it's just that process of being able to tweak the things. And then at the same time, if it's not exactly to your standards or a company's standards or what they need in their products, then doing that within a platform that isn't built to do that, you wouldn't really... Or rather it'd take a longer time to try to take that model and conform it to your standards, rather than taking a model that was already built to your standards, and then tweaking just something very small about it. Host: Makes sense. And we have been seeing different companies. I think they're doing something that have a overlap with what you're doing. We met people who are doing AI game engines. Clarence Keith: Yeah. Host: Basically, they also need to handle the process of generating 3D game assets. And also, further down the line, there was this famous company called Ver labs. They're generating a 3D interactable world. And then we also met people, as mentioned before, people doing AI design for CADs- Clarence Keith: Right Host: basically for architectural designs. And do you see you guys who maybe just cross, just getting to doing similar things at the end of the day, and would these people be kind of your competitors? Clarence Keith: I think Nalana... I don't know their plans. I know a few companies within this space. I know a few competitors, talk to them myself. I don't know their long-term plans with this. They definitely don't have the same visions that I do. So I think at some point, maybe early on, it might be a pretty good fight. I'm not even going to say a pretty good fight, actually. I'm going to say that. Host: I think you're anticipating that. Pretty good fight. Clarence Keith: I think early on it is... I'm going to say what you said. I think early on there might be, or we might cross paths a little bit. But especially in the long game- Think of it like Google, right? Because-- Or even Apple. I'm going to say Google. So Google had a lot of competitors when they started, but then skyrocketed even past the biggest companies at the time, Yahoo! Apple, I think, I don't know if it was Dell or HP, but it was just some other Windows-based company, and Apple almost came in as the consumer version of it or really made it cool to use a computer and made it such an easier experience for people to use a home computer and just home products in general, iPad, iPod, everything like that. I think over time, there is differentiation now. Over time, it'll be such a different landscape in the fact that... I'm going to sum it up and say given time, Nalana will probably be one of the only companies within the 3D space. And the reason why is because of how I'm building it right now and just the fundamental nature of it. Host: And do you think there is a value of focusing on a specific vertical? For example, people doing architecture, 3D modeling, people doing gaming asset modeling- Clarence Keith: Yeah, you got to enter- Host: Or a general one. Is there a- Clarence Keith: You got to enter the market somehow, right? I think, I understand what people say when they say, "If you try to do everything great, you'll probably do nothing great." I kind of disagree with that at the same time. But nonetheless, I do understand once you establish a little bit of footing in your market, then it gives you ability to step in another place, and then another, and then another, and then another. But I think the way that I'm doing it is I am taking everything I get from this initial vertical of industrial designers. And obviously, I'm using them to develop the product and get it better and better. But I also understand that they're not going to be the only people using it, so it has to be able to serve other people at some point. Host: So after the V1 launch, I'm curious, have you received any feedback that you used to improve your version 2? Clarence Keith: The first thing is, dang, when V1 came out... Host: It's a couple months ago? Clarence Keith: Yeah, it was a couple months ago. What was the state of Nalana at the time? I think Nalana looked completely different. It felt completely different. And I think one of the things that some of the design partners have told me is that, one, images are a huge part. They have their own custom images, custom sketches, everything like that, so quickly had to add in some way to just drag and drop your images in there and even reference it as it's modeling. Host: Right. Clarence Keith: I think the next thing was, I felt it at the time, but when Nalana's working in the background, it might take a second to show the user any pro-- It took a second to show the user any progress, right? Host: Okay. Clarence Keith: Because some of them got confused as to if it was actually doing something, right? That's an immediate change. Host: So there wasn't real-time feedback? Clarence Keith: There was real-time feedback, but not enough. Host: Okay. Clarence Keith: And not the right kind of real-time feedback. Right? Because you could send it a prompt, and then you'll see it change. You'll see the UI- Host: Right Clarence Keith: change and everything like that, but there just wasn't... I recently just started working with a girl. Her name is Angela Chan. She's very talented, very talented UI/UX designer, but she's also a cognitive science as well. Host: Wow. Clarence Keith: So I think that's been a big help and even just working with her. And what we recently worked together on is, I called it like you're designing the wait. Host: Right. Clarence Keith: In the experience of putting in your prompt or saying whatever you want, and then everything else that happens after that until the first change happens in the viewport. And that was birthed because of all the user testing, all the design partners that I've talked to, and it was like a recurring theme of they didn't say this explicitly, but they were just like, they sent it, waited, like, five seconds to then they said, "Is it working?" Right? Just that simple question enough told me that, okay, something needs to change. And so we've been working to redesign that entire wait period. Within the first X amount of seconds after you send in your prompt, what will happen? Why will it happen? And how does the user feel after this? Right? And then how does this actually play into, this is really great because she's cognitive science, because how does it play into the psychology- of how people feel when they're waiting on something to load or something to happen, right? Host: Are we actually able to show a user a short description of the process step you took, like the deep thinking mode of GPT? There's an expandable sidebar, I think, when you click it, and you can see- Clarence Keith: Oh, yeah Host: its logic flow, right? Clarence Keith: Yeah. I think that's really good. That's something else we've incorporated as well, but I think it goes a little deeper than that because GPT and Claude and everything like that, those are fundamentally text-based. Host: Right, right. Clarence Keith: This isn't text-based. So you can do so much more when it comes to what this wait period could look like or what- just the experience of using this product to look like, right? You could have pre-visualizations of- Host: Wow Clarence Keith: what your model could look like immediately after the prompt goes in. You could have, as you're talking, it's almost just like this is blob or ray of light or something. Just something almost as if you're talking to a god at that point. And then as you're talking to it, it gives you exactly what you want. Host: Wow. Clarence Keith: Or you're seeing that it's cooking to give you exactly what you want, right? So it's a lot of different directions you could take it. Host: I got to sign up. You need to sign me up on the wait list, bro. Clarence Keith: Yeah, bro. It's a lot of stuff. It's a lot of different directions you could take it, so I'm very excited about how we can take it and how people will feel about it. Because I think one of the biggest things with Nalana is I want people to feel like they can do anything with this, and they can create anything with this. Because for me, I know I can create anything and I can do anything, and having people to feel that they can do anything will lead them to do anything they want to and create anything they want. Right, there's a lot of startups right now. I know there's one startup at IWAY that came out of it. Mark Engineering, they make an AI bookmark. Host: Oh, Mark, right. Clarence Keith: Yeah, Mark. And I don't know if they had any 3D modeling or even CAD experience before, but nonetheless, if somebody else wanted to make a product like that, I know one person, they want to make a-- Actually, no, my girlfriend, she has an idea for... I'm obviously not going to share the entire idea, but something with credit cards. But she doesn't have any CAD experience. Host: Okay. Clarence Keith: So it's like, okay, that could be a blocker. And yes, you can go get somebody else to do it, but if you could do it yourself- Host: Man Clarence Keith: faster, save money on doing it, too. Come on, now. What are we talking about? Host: Man, I wish I had it when I was a child. I think kids are a period of time where we have the most creativity. Clarence Keith: 100%, bro. Host: Yeah. Clarence Keith: And you're just talking to it as a kid, and you're- Host: Yeah Clarence Keith: "Oh, I want to see what Mars looks like- Host: Right Clarence Keith: on this day." Host: Right. Clarence Keith: With Legos and Batman- Host: Right Clarence Keith: on this thing. Like bro, what? Host: I think the go-to market should focus on kindergarten. Clarence Keith: On kids? Host: Yeah. Clarence Keith: That would be so interesting. Host: Yeah. Clarence Keith: I wonder what kids would actually create with it. Host: Yeah. Clarence Keith: Yeah. Host: And can you share with us, what are the pilot partners you're cooperating with right now? Are they more focused on industrial design, as you mentioned before? Clarence Keith: Yeah, they're mostly industrial designers right now. Host: What kind of products are they designing? Clarence Keith: One company, they do a lot of different products. They do vacuum, like I said before. A lot of just household goods. A lot of really technical products like a microphone, even MacBooks. They just do a large range of products, so that's really good to test because to see if the product can be made. There's this one company, I don't even know how to describe what they do. But I think it's medical devices, but it's really beautifully looking and designed medical devices. Which- Host: Are these two words can ever exist in the same sentence? Clarence Keith: I'm like, bro. Well, y'all are- Host: Beautifully designed medical device? Clarence Keith: It doesn't make sense, right? But I saw their website. I'm like, "Oh, shoot. Okay. I kind of like this." And I tested it to see how well Nalana would be able to create their products, and it created really well. So I'm like, "Okay, I'm going to reach out to them." Host: Yeah. Clarence Keith: There's another company I recently just reached out to, and I don't actually know what they create. I can't pinpoint one aspect. It's a lot of installations, it's a bit of CAD projects, like hard surface goods. They just kind of do a lot of cool stuff, really. One of the things that just came to mind is I used to work at this company called Mat Projects. They are a very cool company. Everybody in there is very hard-working and everything. I have nothing but great things to say about them. When I started working with them, I did a lot of different 3D projects, whether that's designing out facades for different companies. I don't think I'm still under NDA, so I can talk about it. But a lot of designing out a lot of different facades for companies, like marketing videos, even installations, right? So all of those aspects, I should actually retest them because I already have that warm introduction. But yeah. Those are just some of the things that the companies are, people are modeling out. Host: Yeah. And from that description, I assume you are basically selling to the corporations, selling to the enterprise- Clarence Keith: Yeah Host: instead of directly selling to consumers or... Clarence Keith: Yeah. As of right now, I'm selling to enterprise. I think later on down the road, it'll start with enterprise, then almost like the pro users- or the power users, and then just general consumers. Host: And we will go to some easier topics. We want to go back to your experience in schools. Clarence Keith: Yeah. Host: I assume you, we matched some of the guys who are pitching at the trial- Clarence Keith: Right Host: demo day- Clarence Keith: Yeah Host: representing your company there. So can you share a little bit more about your experience around the school, about what kind of resources do you reach out to? What of them did help? Do you have any suggestions for some other students? Clarence Keith: There's this one girl at the Blackstone LaunchPad. Her name is Amaya Shepherd. She was drilling me when it came to... I entered New Venture Seed Competition, and I went to her for assistance on just like my pitch, the product, everything like that. And I walked in there, showed her, pulled out my pitch deck. She was like, "Clarence, this sucks ass." I'm like, "Oh, shoot." Like, golly. Okay. But nonetheless, yeah, she said it sucked, but then I came back with a better pitch deck. She said, "Oh yeah, this is good. Okay. Now, the next thing that investors might look for is X, Y, and Z." So she's a very go-to figure. Amaya Sheppard at Blackstone LaunchPad. IOA has a lot of great resources because a lot of the professors are either founders- Host: Right Clarence Keith: they've started their own companies. Host: Right. Clarence Keith: They've exited, they've done all it, or advised startups as well, who exited, and everything like that. So even just talking to those professors, they just do so many great things. And they're so willing to help. It's really just a great thing to be at that school because they have all the professors that have done really good experience. They have a lot of the startup level manufacturing, a lot of 3D printers, a lot of metal work that you can do, woodworking. They even have a computer lab that was donated by NVIDIA and- Host: Yes, they do Clarence Keith: there's like 18 to 20 computer desktops in there with NVIDIA A6000 GPUs in there. I'm like, "Y'all just have this that we can use?" And it's just things like that which makes it so much easier as a creative and just as a person with a lot of goals to just create the stuff and work towards those goals. I think another thing is... Host: The food? Clarence Keith: I don't think so. Host: Oh, man. Clarence Keith: What is it called? Venture Showcase. IOA Venture Showcase. That's another thing where you could- Host: Oh, the annual one, right? Clarence Keith: Yeah. It's almost like a pitch at some point, but then they also have this just venture walkthrough where you-- kind of like how Troy Labs demo was- Host: Right Clarence Keith: where you could just walk through and see a bunch of the startups that are just in this area. Then some people have the pitch at the end as well. There's a lot of great resources. Albert Napoli, he's a very cool guy. He runs or helps run the New Venture City Competition. He's very knowledgeable himself, too, though. He'd be cracking a lot of jokes and stuff, but when you get into a one-on-one conversation with him, he will give you so much game. It's crazy. Chris Swain, that's a GOAT. Host: Yeah. Clarence Keith: What's his name? Who else? Fudge. Oh, Tina Sharkey. Oh, that's a GOAT. Grant Del Gatti. Oh, that's a GOAT. Host: This is not an ads. It is an ads. Yes, this is an ads. We should get some endorsement from IOA. Clarence Keith: We should get some endorsement from IOA. Tina Sharkey, Davina Walter, fricking Thomas Dorrian. Host: Yes. Clarence Keith: Oh, man. That's a GOAT. Host: Yeah. So just be aware, we're going to tag those people in the video. Clarence Keith: Bro, you got to. Host: If they don't respond, we're going to get you. Clarence Keith: You got to tag them all, dude. IOA is just filled with such go-to people. Dang, there's one other person. A few other people. Jose. That's a GOAT. Oh my gosh. Host: Oh, okay. Clarence Keith: Yeah, Jose. Renee. All of these people, bro. Oh my gosh. IOA's just got so many GOATs. Host: Yeah. Clarence Keith: Yeah. Host: And you've been moving here, I suppose, for a couple weeks or around two months. How do you feel differently from when you were in LA? Clarence Keith: There's no real nightlife here, to be honest, and I've heard a lot of people complain about that. Host: Wait, there's nightlife in LA? Clarence Keith: Yeah. Host: Oh, shit. I've been missing out then. What? Clarence Keith: What you mean, bro? Nightlife in LA is fire, bro. Host: Okay. Clarence Keith: What you talking about? Yeah. Host: Okay. Clarence Keith: Yeah. But they say it's not really too much nightlife in San Francisco. I don't really care about it because I really just be going home, going to bed, watching anime or something. And then just getting up and working. But I think, bro, it's cold as balls out here. It's actually crazy. Somebody said the coldest winter they've ever experienced was the summer in San Francisco. I'm like, "Bro, there's no way that I'm walking outside, it's 50 degrees, and go to New York." I just came from New York this past weekend. It was 110 degrees outside. Host: Oh, gee. Clarence Keith: Nightlife is crazy, though, in New York. The people here are cool, though. There is a very big just work culture in San Francisco- which I definitely appreciate, especially being at the stage that I'm at. I think I would be able to, but I think it would be just a little bit harder to be in Los Angeles right now and being at the stage I'm at to give the work that I need to give to it. So it is very much so different. I do like it, though. I like the vibes. I like taking a Lime scooter around the city. It is a vibe. They just did this pride parade two weeks ago, and they had this big light, this rainbow colored light- that was shining down on Market Street. That was so tough. I don't know if they had it in any other city, but hey, they got it here, so it's pretty cool. Host: And is there something that surprised you as a student founder specifically? Would that be pretty challenging because you need to handle your study and maybe your own projects at the same time? Clarence Keith: Surprising? I don't know about surprising, but it definitely is a challenge to be able to balance schoolwork and I kind of see why people say... I didn't really understand why some people would say student founders are kind of a little bit more riskier because I would just think, okay, well, you just start the company. You do what you got to do. But really when you get into it and you got to work on time management, if you still want to get good grades in your classes- Host: Yeah. Clarence Keith: then you still got to be able to put in the work for your classes, but then also if you want to start a great company, you got to put a lot of time into that too. So at the time I didn't really understand it, but then going from not being in school or rather being in school and balancing that, but really giving 90/10, 90 Nalana, 10 to school, and then even the 10% difference to doing it 100%, it's like, wow, there's so much more time. There's so much more mental capacity. There's so much more all of these different things that I can put towards Nalana rather than if I was a, still founding- Host: Yeah. Clarence Keith: a company in school. Host: Would you consider dropping out or for students who are considering this option- Clarence Keith: Oh, boy Host: do you have any Well, what's your take there? Clarence Keith: I think I am in a very unique position, very blessed position because IYA, from my understanding, they definitely help to work with you as a student founder, especially if you're doing something really good. So I have a very unique position to be able to do so. Though, what I will say is that if push came to shove and I had to decide between dropping out or rather going to school and working on Nalana full time, I'm picking Nalana 100% of the time because I just don't know what... I think I will gain a lot more working on Nalana than I will going... Especially since like my last year of school. I think I would gain a lot more working on Nalana than I would going back to school. And I've never really had a for real taste in school, to be honest. Before I even went to college, I was like, "Man, if I'm a millionaire before college, bro, I'm not going to college." Though I didn't become a millionaire before college, but that's why I'm here. I never really had that super big focus on school, though I always kept good grades and stuff. I never really had too much value put on school. I always have a value on learning though, 100%. I always continue to learn, take on new things. Host: And the network. Bro- Clarence Keith: Talk about the network Host: you just mentioned a long list of names. Clarence Keith: Oh yeah, bro. Host: The network. Clarence Keith: The network is crazy. I didn't even have that in mind when I was first picking schools and stuff, but the network is actually insane. Especially at a school like USC. You go to any of the top schools, you're going to have a really good network. Host: Right. Clarence Keith: But I will always say- you don't need to go to a great school to succeed. Host: That's for sure. Clarence Keith: People drop out of high school, people drop out of college, people drop out of all these different things. To succeed and accomplish your goals, you don't need to go to school. If you want to become a doctor, you got to go to school. But depending on your goals, you might not need to go to it. There is still a lot of value in going to school. Me, who knows if I'm going to go back. But we'll see. Host: So, in your launch post, LinkedIn post actually- you wrote that, "The real work started after the initial excitement." What did the real work mean here when people actually started showing up? Clarence Keith: I don't even remember saying that. But the real work... Oh, I know. So the real work is like, you can reach, let's say... Do y'all play sports? Host: Soccer. Football. What? Wait. How's it called? Soccer, yeah. Sorry. Yeah. Clarence Keith: So you could play, let's say in this World Cup, right? Whoever wins the World Cup, they're going to be excited. They're going to be partying- Host: Sure Clarence Keith: they're going to do all these different things, right? Because they just won. They just- Host: Yeah Clarence Keith: achieved this milestone. Host: Yeah. Clarence Keith: You still got work to do, though. You still got another World Cup coming in the next year. Host: Four years. Yeah. Clarence Keith: Oh, not next year, but- Host: Four years Clarence Keith: what did I say? Four years? You still got another- Host: This guy doesn't even watch the World Cup. Clarence Keith: Don't even watch the World Cup for real. Oh. But nonetheless, you still got another World Cup coming in the next four years, right? Olympic athletes, they still got another- Host: Yeah Clarence Keith: Olympics coming up soon. Host: Yeah. Clarence Keith: Right? They still always got work to do. So it's like, yes, it's great. Yes, it's exciting to achieve this milestone to launch, but launching, it's such a minuscule event in this long history of a career or of a company that a launch is almost just like, who really cares? You got so much more to think about. You got so many more milestones to hit. You got so many more highs to achieve. You got so many more things to accomplish, right? Kobe, oh, man. There was this interview. It's a popular interview. He was like, "Oh, either you're up 3-1 or you're up something in the finals." He's like, "Job's not finished." Job's not finished, bro. You still got stuff to do. Host: Yeah. Clarence Keith: And even when job gets finished and you win the finals, you got next season to prepare for. Host: You got to get the shit done. Clarence Keith: You got to get that done, bro. Host: Yeah. Clarence Keith: Yeah. Host: Yeah. Clarence Keith: Yeah. Host: Yeah. Clarence Keith: Yeah. Host: Oh, man. So you also mentioned that there's a longer vision for yourself beyond just an AI 3D tool for Nalana, right? Clarence Keith: Yeah. Host: What part of the vision do you feel like people still hasn't see clearly yet? Clarence Keith: I think I haven't even communicated the long-term vision. So I think the vision is just... a fundamental shift in how we create. Because something like a cursor fundamentally changes how people create products and what products people create, and how many people, who creates X, Y, and Z. So to Tesla, or not Tesla, SpaceX. So it just fundamentally changes. I honestly think San Francisco is kind of like it's a bubble, but it changes San Francisco, too. Nalana changes how things are created. How people interact with their softwares. Because the thing is with a 3D software, especially like Nalana, you can do a lot of 2D stuff in there, too. I've done a lot of 2D almost After Effects type of videos within Blender. And the fact that you can do that and you could also create physical products, there's so much you can do. And then even not just what you can create and how it's created, but the human process of doing so. So like I said, whether you're talking about it and then it's creating as you're speaking or you're gesturing as, "Well, I want this 2X bigger or actually no, place it over there." And then you have this aligning with things like new technologies. I'm not actually designing it for the new technologies that are coming out like Meta Ray-Bans or Google just partnered with Gentle Monster a few years ago. But as technology improves, you have things like AR glasses, which could fundamentally change how people even interact with software in general. So then that also changes how people create in 3D as well. You already have things like Gravity Sketch, which has the Meta Quest headset that you can create different things in. So that's almost like a step in the right direction, I would think. But that hasn't fundamentally changed how people create for its own reasons. But yeah, I think the biggest thing is with Nalana is the vision is-- One of the great things about a vision that's kind of ambiguous is that there's so much that can come out of it. Host: Right. Clarence Keith: Because it's great to be dead set on a specific outcome because then you will achieve that outcome. But if you're dead set on just a state, there's so many different areas and ways in which you could still grow and even blow past that or whatever that initial outcome would be and still achieve that state. Host: Right. Totally. There was also a bonus question about your state, about your emotional state. Clarence Keith: Yeah. Host: Being a founder is so freaking tough and- Clarence Keith: Yeah Host: you constantly need to deal with a lot of uncertainty and shit stuff. Clarence Keith: Yeah. Host: How do you stay emotionally steady throughout uncertainty? Clarence Keith: I do a lot of journaling. I do a lot of breathwork. I think I have to recenter myself with the fact that I have a specific vision. I have a specific outcome. I don't know if a lot of people share that outcome or rather vision and it is hard though. Not even just being a founder, but it is hard to have very big ambitions at times because it's almost like a process of you having to consistently keep yourself in a mindset to achieve that vision even when it's not in there in that moment. And you could see things like, let's even say Kanye, for example. Because you could see any of the "Genius" documentary and he's been talking about, oh, he wants to be the biggest in the world of music, he wants to go fashion, he wants to go all these different areas. And if you look back in time, there's so many different areas and interviews or conversation and everything like that of him talking about the problems in doing so. But that's all stemming from having an ambition that is far bigger than where he is currently. And you hear the things like, oh, him saying he's a god or him saying he can do anything. It's like you've got to say these things to keep yourself focused on your goals because there's so many things in this world that's not even just of, oh, you got to deal with uncertainty. You have to deal with your social life. You're working a lot- Host: Right Clarence Keith: and then you might have to put some extra effort in on friendships and everything because it's like you're choosing work over this or you're choosing ideas. Host: There's a lot of trade-offs. There are a lot of sacrifices. Clarence Keith: There's a lot of trade-offs with it. But to still stay focused on this, you almost got to have your own practice or your own way of staying aligned with your goals because I don't think I expanded on that point, but there's so many different things that even subtly, even explicitly can steer you away from that. And the example I'll give is even something as simple as Instagram. Host: Instagram. Clarence Keith: You could be scrolling on Instagram and somebody could talk about how they don't know if they're going to achieve their goals. Just hearing that alone- Host: Oh, man Clarence Keith: is like that's okay for them. I cannot think that way and I will not think that way because I will achieve my goals and I have to achieve my goals because that's just me. But that's just an example of the different ways you got to keep yourself focused and keep your almost tunnel vision. I think tunnel vision has its own problems but in some cases- Host: Yeah Clarence Keith: you've got to- Host: Yeah Clarence Keith: to achieve whatever you want to achieve. Yeah. Host: Just got to brainwash yourself every day. Clarence Keith: You literally have to. It's There's this one dude named Bob Proctor. He's like old, white dude. I don't even know if he's still alive. But I'm going to keep it a buck. He might be, hopefully he is. If he's not, then prayers. But, he used to make a lot of videos and stuff about self-belief, self-improvement, everything like that, and changing your paradigm of how you operate as a person. And I think even looking into stuff like that, about the power of your words and what you say to yourself, and how you talk to other people, that all goes into achieving what you want and achieving your life goals and everything like that. And you'd be surprised, there's so many people at these such high-level positions who think like that. And I brought up Kanye, but then there's also other fashion designers, there's also other founders, there's also other just people in general who think that way. Then it's like you kind of have to achieve these goals that you want to. Host: Yeah. Clarence Keith: Yeah. Host: Any last-minute words or tips that you can give to our student founders who are feeling uncertain or early out there? Clarence Keith: Uncertainty is okay. I think nothing in life is certain, actually. And- Host: Only death is certain at the end of life. Clarence Keith: I don't think I'm going to die. Host: Oh, good. Okay. Clarence Keith: I'm going to say that. I don't think I'm going to die. But regardless, you don't know how tomorrow will go. Host: No one knows that. Clarence Keith: You don't know how the next day will go. So the earlier to get comfortable with that uncertainty, and still make great decisions based off of that, the easier that it'll be. Because something will always be uncertain. But also trust that everything will work out. I think that's the biggest thing, actually, more than just get comfortable with uncertainty. Trust that everything will work out. Because what I did for three or four years straight, I probably journaled every night before I went to bed. I think I missed maybe 20 nights over- Host: Wow Clarence Keith: that four-year stretch. But even looking back on those journal entries and just talking about my day, talking about my experience and that, you read it back and then realize literally it gave me physical evidence of everything working out. So it was like regardless of how I felt in that moment and how I feel now, I can look back on this two months even, a year, five years. Don't none of that matter, bro. Yes, I didn't know what was going on. Yes, I was feeling what I was feeling. Yes, the experience that I was having was real. Look, five years later, everything works out and everything continues to get better. So just trust in that. Host: If you have 98% of rate of getting through failure, be the 2%. Clarence Keith: Yeah. Be the 2%. Host: Be the 2%. Clarence Keith: Be the 2%. Host: Don't think about the rest.