Math Dall-E Goats DJ

The National Museum of Mathematics (aka MoMath) figured out how to make math fun! Instead of just boring math books and math problems for you to solve, they have all kinds of interactive activities. It’s very colorful, very exciting looking and it’s in New York City! There are two things that I really like about this museum but right on the homepage there is a great tagline that reads “Making Math Fun”. It’s short and simple, it gets the point across. On the homepage is a “MoMath Fans” section where they show photos of Bill and Hillary Clinton holding up their MoMath shirts and Jeff Bezos taking a ride on Square Wheels. I didn’t know you could ride a bike with Square Wheels!

Th犀利士 e first thing that’s great about this website is that they have exhibit guides. The museum seems to be spread out over two floors and on the website you can see a map of where everything is (with a little description of each exhibit). I like that because even before you get there, you’ll know (somewhat) how to get around the museum. Sometimes in museums you get lost because they feel like giant Ikea stores. Some of the exhibit descriptions sound really fun, this looks like it might be for kids, but I’d like to go! If you are a museum, do you have maps on your website? I think it’ll help some people understand how to get around even before they get there.

The second thing – and I think this is really the most impressive thing – is their Events page. At the top it says, “Upcoming events at MoMath” and just between May 1st and May 7th, they have seventeen events. SEVENTEEN! Looking at this page gives the impression that the museum is alive! It’s active! Things are happening here! This doesn’t look like something that’s just been the same for the last fifteen years. And as a visitor to museums, that’s a really exciting thing to see. If you’re a museum, do you have lots of events going on? Or can you come up with some events and make it seem more active and more alive? Because that’s what MoMath did and I’m very impressed with the number of events that they have here.

Talking about math, you really need to know math if you’re going to make AI tools. I’m sure that you’ve seen AI in the news recently (probably ChatGPT) and while I don’t talk about news here, this is technology that is going to be here for a very long time so I want you to get a very basic understanding of how it works.

Essentially, all AI functions the same way. You ask the AI a question (which is called a prompt) and the machine generates a response. I’m going to show you DALL-E by OpenAI. OpenAI is the big name in AI right now, and this is one of their services named DALL-E which generates realistic images.

When you get an account (it’s free) and you go to the DALL-E page and there is a text box that simply says, “Start with a detailed description.” In this box is where you describe the image you want the AI to create. You can type in something like, “A painting of a white sailboat in New York Harbor” and hit go and what happens is that the AI makes four images for you of exactly what you’re looking for. In a matter of a few seconds it created four images of paintings that look like a white sailboat in New York Harbor. 

Genius, right? Let me show you some more.

How about “a 3D render of a cute tropical fish in an aquarium on a dark blue background” this generates something that Pixar or Disney would make and it was made in seconds using AI. And what’s great is that if you go to Dall-E and type in the exact words I entered, you are NOT going to get the same results I did. These images are unique to my session.

Let me show you some more. How about an “Oil painting of a panda talking on an iPhone while standing in Times Square”. Why would someone need that? I don’t know, I’m just showing you what AI is capable of. 

How about this “A hot dog that is really a monster but made out of clay”. It’s amazing that AI not only makes what I’m saying (and slightly different variations of it) but it adds in things around the item. For example, in one of the pictures the hotdog has some mustard on the side and the hotdog is on a cutting board. Another one is on a corner of a table with some wallpaper in the background. Just little details that make it feel real.

These images all look like real photos, but they do not exist. They’ve never existed, and once I clear my screen, no one’s ever going to see them again (unless I save them).

How about two more? Checkout this “Watercolor painting of a cute yellow cat and a brown dog going on an adventure together”. This looks like something that would be in a children’s book – but again, AI made it in just a few seconds. This is really, really impressive technology. 

And the last one “A stained glass window depicting a green goat singing karaoke”. I am 100% sure that nowhere in the world is a stained glass window depicting a green goat singing karaoke, but right here are eight of them. I wanted to show you two sets of images with this one because when you type something into the prompt there’s another button that says “Regenerate” and it’ll make you more images of the same prompt that you just asked. You can click that button and get more and more images.

I can’t get over how great these images are! I mean, it’s exactly what I asked for… it’s a green goat, he’s got a microphone on some of them, he’s got his mouth open, he’s singing, he’s having a good time. Amazing! 

And talking about goats, there’s a lot of goats in this graphic from viruscomics.com, and it says the “Maturity Climb” and it’s really interesting. In this image are three plateaus on the side of a mountain, the goats at the bottom are the younger goats and the ones at the top are the older, more mature goats. If you zoom into the lower section this is supposed to be the less mature, younger goats, here are some of the words above their heads:

• Focuses on differences
• Can’t admit responsibility
• Has to be right
• Takes out problems on others
• Takes everything personally
• Knows everything
• Entitled
• Obsessed with status

That is so accurate! They really depicted a lot of traits of a young person. And then the older, more mature (green) goats are at the top and here are some of those items:

• Wants to help
• Focuses on having friends
• Respects others’ intelligence
• Obsessed with facts
• Assumes as little as possible
• Listens
• Isn’t afraid to fail
• Grateful
• Knows nothing
• Talks out problems with others

I love what they did here, visually, it’s really good eye candy, and it has a great message behind it. Congrats to Virus Comics, fantastic job! 

Ready to see how this all ties together? The genius plan? That green goat that was singing karaoke in the Dall-E segment… well that ties into this last segment a business idea about karaoke.

While traveling around the world, my wife and I have sung karaoke in a few different countries and i’s always fun so this business idea was inspired by some late nights with Kevin at Funkies in Sunny Beach, Bulgaria, and in Istanbul at the My Moon Bar (just off Istiklal Street) and singing Nirvana with Ali.

If you’ve never sang karaoke before, let me first tell you how it usually works. 

It’s typically at a restaurant/bar and there’s a DJ in the corner (with a laptop hooked up to the sound system and a few monitors). If you want to sing something, you walk up to the DJ and you’ll get a few small pieces of paper and a pen that you take back to your seat. Back at your table, you write down the song (or songs) you want to sing. I would write something like “Stan by Eminem”, or “Rocket Man by Elton John”, maybe Kevin’s favorite “Where Is the Love by the Black Eyed Peas” and of course my favorite “Creep by Radiohead”. With one song written on each piece of paper you go back up to the DJ and drop off your songs.

Now you’ve got to keep in mind that you are not the only one doing this. All the other (brave or drunk) people at the bar/restaurant are submitting songs as well. Once karaoke starts, the DJ is getting lots of little scraps of paper with songs written on it. 

Typically karaoke songs are sung in the order they are dropped off to the DJ so let’s say that my first song “Stan by Eminem” was the first one dropped off. The DJ does NOT have the songs on his/her laptop, so he/she goes to YouTube and searches for the karaoke version of my song (because YouTube has basically every song that you could ever want and karaoke versions). When the DJ does this, he/she is going to get a ton of different YouTube videos for the karaoke version of that song and that’s a problem, because the DJ doesn’t know what’s the best version for karaoke.

For every piece of paper that the DJ gets, he/she has to go to YouTube, and with headphones on they play the first few YouTube videos to see which one is the best. The first one might be great or the first three might suck. They have to listen to a bit of each video and determine which one is the best one. They have to do this for EVERY song submitted.

Once the DJ finally finds the best video for my song, over the speakers the DJ says “Okay, Ian, it’s your turn to come up here and sing Stan by Eminem” then I go up there and sing my song!

While I’m singing my heart out, the other people don’t know when they’re going to be called up because they don’t know who’s put in what songs in what order – so they can’t go to the bathroom or step outside to take a call (or do whatever) because they never know when they’re going to get called up to sing karaoke.

Think of all the points of friction here:

• The DJ needs to have bunch of paper and pens (and everybody steals the pens)
• The singer has to go up to the DJ booth to get the paper and pen
• The singer goes back to their seat and writes down their songs
• The singer brings the paper (wth their songs) back to the DJ
• The DJ has to keep track of who’s giving them all these pieces of paper (he/she could have dozens of pieces of paper in front of them) and hopefully there is no wind or a fan close by!
• For each song, the DJ needs to go to YouTube, search for the “karaoke” version of the song and listen to a few songs and find the best one. This might be quick, this might take a while.
• Nobody knows when they’re about to sing or when their next song is. It could be in twenty minutes or it could be in thirty seconds.
• If you leave but you still have a bunch of un-sung songs, the DJ is going to look for your song, call out your name, wait, wait some more, call your name again and then eventually move on to the next one. This angers everybody.

I came up with an idea that would solve all of these problems so somebody please, please, please steal this idea! Karaoke singers around the world need this. Here is how it works:

I came up with an imaginary name, let’s call this karaoke system website www.timetosing.com. All karaoke places have monitors (where the words come up for people to sing) but imagine if the monitor said “Go to timetosing.com on your phone and enter the party code 664FD”. Everybody has a phone, right? When you go to that website, there should be a big box that says “Enter the party code” and once you type it in and verify it. The system would know that that code is associated with that particular restaurant or bar, so the logo for the bar could come up. And then it would say, “Enter your name.” I don’t think the name has to be the person’s real name but the DJ needs to be able to call people up by something. And then it says, “Upload a selfie.” but that’s optional because why not? People like to upload stuff like that!

Once the person does that they will see the karaoke song list, this is all the people that have put songs in and it shows what order the song will be sung in. Just this screen will solve so many problems! At the top of the screen you can see that Ian is currently singing, “Stan by Eminem.” It’s a four-minute and 35-second song (it shows the song duration on the video thumbnail), and you can see a little progress bar so you can see about where the singer is in the song. That way the next person in the queue will think “Okay, in about two minutes, I got to go up there and sing.” Now everybody (that signed in on their phone) will see what everyone else is singing so they would think “Okay, well, after this song ‘Stan by Eminem’ then it’s going to be ´Come As You Are by Nirvana’, and then Amy is singing ‘Piano Man’ and then John Wilson is singing ‘Creep’ by Radiohead”. 

Think of what’s been accomplished already: 

• Everybody can see the number of songs in the queue and who is singing what
• People can take a bathroom break or smoke a cigarette outside and not worry about losing their turn
• The DJ doesn’t have to keep track of all these pieces of paper anymore.

But this system solves even more problems!

At the bottom of the main screen is a big button that says “I want to sing” and this is how people add songs to the list. Let’s make believe the person who signed in is named Nick and he wants to sing “Sweet Dreams by Marilyn Manson” (great song!) So when he clicks on that button there is a search box where he can type in the name of the song and then all the YouTube results come up on his phone. With those results on his phone he can hit the play button and put his phone up to his ear and listen and pick the best one.

The DJ doesn’t have to waste time watching youtube clips anymore because the singer does it!

FUTURE UPDATE: Once there’s some data in this system you could do things like show “Last Week’s Top Hits” or “Pick A Random Sing” from the songs that people have sung at this restaurant. You could have people in the audience submit photos of the person that is singing (through the system) on stage for the singer to share on social media. You could add lots of interactive things like that. 

Let’s say Nick likes the top video in the results, he can now tap the “I like this song” button next to that video and that will now take him back to the main screen where he can see his selected song at the bottom of the queue. 

He (Nick) can see a little message near that song that says “You will sing Sweet Dreams by Marilyn Manson” and it is outlined in green with a little X button so it stands out against the other songs so he knows it’s his. Let’s say Nick didn’t want to sing it anymore, he could hit the X button to remove it from the list. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard the DJ say something like, “Dan here ready to sing your song? Dan? Dan, are you here?” but Dan left ten minutes ago and didn’t tell the DJ. This system eliminates that problem.

There needs to be some settings for a system like this, I’ll go over a few of them. 

• There needs to be a unique URL for the monitors to show the videos. DJs have multiple monitors around the restaurant/bar and they simply drag a browser window to their external monitor, and it shows up on all those screens. 
• Upload a logo for the restaurant / bar and shows up at the top of the screen (good for branding) 
• There should be an option for sequence of songs. For example, you could “Let singers add unlimited songs” or “Only add one song at a time until after they sing”. You don’t want one person to just add thirty songs and then they just take over (of course the DJ can remove any song they want at any time). 
• What happens in between songs? Should the system “Immediately play the next song” or should it “Display a custom message”? And if it’s going to display a custom message, the restaurant will need to have a box to type in some text and there should also be some sort of music playing to keep the party going. A simple text area for the DJ to enter a YouTube URL on each that plays in random order would work. There needs to be an option for “How long should this custom message appear between songs?” So you could type in 60 seconds or 120 seconds, etc.. This message between songs could be used to display something like “Order your two-for-one drinks right now,” or “Get today’s special,” or whatever the latest promotion is. 

There would be more settings but those are the basic ones you need to operate this system

Now, you’re probably thinking “Okay Ian, what can we do with that? How do I sell that?” 

The first thing I would do is find a bunch of DJs/restaurants/bars that currently offer karaoke (find them on Facebook or Instagram) contact them and say, “Hey, I have this system that makes karaoke SO much better. Can you try it out and let me know what you think? It will be free for you forever, I’m just looking for feedback to make to better.” Once a dozen or so places try it out and like it (this first phase might take hundreds of emails but don’t get frustrated if places don’t go for it just yet), I would ask the dozen for a testimonial to add to the website to attract other (paying) customers.

Make changes to the system based on real-world feedback! Keep improving the system.

And then you can start charging restaurants and bars for this and here’s what I would do. I would reach out to other bars/restaurants/djs that offer karaoke and say, “Hey, all these other djs/restaurants love this system and you can try it for free for the first month and then it’s $100 a month going forward.”

$100 per month is tiny money for a restaurant but it’s going to eliminate so many points of friction for the customer, and that’s really what you want to accomplish with any business you start: reduce/eliminate friction.

Another important thing I would add is I would add unlimited one-on-one setup assistance. Just have someone that can FaceTime/Zoom with the DJ (before they get started for the night) and help them set everything up. I’m thinking something like “Oh, so you’re at this point in the set up process… okay, here’s what I need you to do. Click on this, do this” whatever, you get the idea. Give them everything that they need to set up this system. That’s going to be key. It’s not very hard, but that’s a major benefit so people don’t feel like they’re alone.