The big names of generative A.I. are having a bit of a rough time in more ways than one, and some commentators are wondering if we’ve hit peak A.I.

But while the route to ever more capable large language models might not be as clear as some investors hoped, the tech as it stands is still very capable of opening up all sorts of new opportunities.

Take today’s startup, for example. Clio has built a new way for entrepreneurs and business leaders to turn their thoughts and experiences into books.

Aspiring thought leaders, read on…

– Martin

This issue of PreSeed Now is brought to you by EHE Ventures.

Known for backing high-growth tech such as Clio, founded by Georgia Kirke, the subject of this newsletter, EHE just announced they're building a £15m A.I. tech fund and have finalised their core Fund Advisory team.

The fund itself seeks to support and accelerate the growth of more innovative thinking and AI technology founders like Georgia, empowering the brightest minds in tech at pre-seed, seed and Series A.

Learn more about their mission and the fund here

Clio uses A.I. to ghostwrite a new generation of non-fiction books

If you want to establish yourself as a thought-leading expert, there are few things as impactful as writing a non-fiction book. 

Hopefully, lots of people will buy it and turn it into a bestseller. But even if you self-publish to a modest audience, being able to say you’re the author of a book focused on your field of expertise looks great on your CV.

There’s only one problem. Writing books is difficult and time consuming. Even if you have the budget to work with a ghostwriter, you’ve got to fit your time around the availability of a good one.

Clio (👈 that’s a special link for PreSeed Now readers to claim a priority free trial) wants to shake up the business book market by making it easier for more people to tell their stories in longform print.

You guessed it; they’re using generative A.I. …but in a thoughtful way that keeps humans still very much in the loop to ensure there’s a quality product at the end of the process.

How it works

Clio is aimed at entrepreneurs and business leaders. It guides them through the process of creating a draft for a book, allowing them to speak or write all the information and anecdotes they want to include. The software then uses that to generate a draft book.

“It's an A.I.-human collaboration, and they can have a draft of a book that could go to a top publisher without writing a single word themselves,” says founder Georgia Kirke.

Kirke explains that while there are plenty of people out there with valuable stories, experiences, and insights to share, they don’t necessarily understand how to plan, outline, structure, and write a compelling book.

To solve this, Clio guides users through a number of questions such as their business goals, target reader profile, and the topics they could cover in the book.

Once the software has structured the book, it gives the users prompts to share their knowledge to fill in the different sections via voice or text. Kirke says it will even tell the user if they go off topic or talk for too long. The goal is to create a finished work in a business book ‘sweet spot’ of 50,000 to 60,000 words.

The software then takes everything the user has shared and turns it into a manuscript that is ready for a human editor to work with. This is part of the Clio offering - an experienced human who polishes up the manuscript so it’s ready for publication.

From there, the author can shop their finished book to publishers, or self-publish if they prefer. Clio can take care of proofreading and design for an additional fee if authors choose to self-publish.

Quality first

Given some of the absolute dross that generative A.I. can create, Kirke is keen to emphasise that quality is a paramount focus for Clio.

“It's not about commoditising a precious format. It's about enabling people to get the highest quality content they can produce out of their heads and onto paper in a timely fashion.

“The software cannot and will not create content on somebody's behalf, and that's one of its many benefits. It's all your own IP. It's all your own knowledge. So the quality of the books is really well protected, because it relies on authors who really know what they're talking about.”

The business model

Clio is shunning the subscription model and is instead available for a flat fee per book.

If you sign up up with this link, you’ll get a one-chapter free trial and a live webinar demo from the Clio team. Beyond the free trial it will cost £2,799 to get a book up to the point where it has been edited by a human. For £7,779, you also get proofreading and design services, and print-ready files, ready for self-publishing.

You will soon be able to sign up without a free trial, but with a 14-day money-back guarantee, for £2,499 or £7,499.

The story so far

Kirke knows what she’s doing with Clio because she already offers something very similar without the tech.

Write Business Results is Kirke’s eight-year-old business that she says has helped entrepreneurs turn their ideas into more than 100 business books.

She says her original vision was something like Clio, but the tech wasn’t ready yet. When generative A.I. broke through, she saw an opportunity to automate a lot of the processes she’d developed.

She has worked with thestartupfactory.tech to develop the first version of Clio over the past year.

“This isn't a wrapper around ChatGPT, this isn't this isn't something basic. It's really quite an advanced product, especially for MVP stage.” Kirke says.

“We had a beta group of 20 entrepreneurs… They provided some invaluable feedback and we've been able to continue building the software based on their preferences.

“One of our authors has co-authored her book in there with seven others. It can create books for a variety of different types of business, different industries, and different individuals with different natures. 

“We've learned an awful lot along the way. But it's really purpose-built specifically for people in the world of business who want to share their story, but don't want to become writers.”

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