How a VC and tech founder used AI to launch a brick-and-mortar business in their spare time
Andrew Mason (founder of Groupon, now CEO of Descript) and Nabeel Hyatt (General Partner at Spark Capital) teamed up to open a physical board-game social club in Berkeley, with AI as their business partner. In this episode, they break down how they used Claude to generate a full business plan, model financials, plan the space layout, navigate Berkeley permitting, categorize hundreds of games using a custom Dewey Decimal–style system, and build an AI concierge that matches players with games via text. They also share how working on this side project helped rewire how they use AI in their day jobs—and why more people should use AI to build real-world things. *What you’ll learn:* 1. How to use Claude Projects as your business copilot to create comprehensive business plans, financial projections, and space layouts 2. A workflow for categorizing hundreds of board games using an AI-generated “Dewey Decimal System” that makes game discovery intuitive 3. How they built an AI concierge service that matches players with games and coordinates group play sessions via text message 4. Why AI enables side projects that would otherwise be impossible due to time constraints and specialized knowledge requirements 5. A simple system for creating customer personas that inform your business model and event programming 6. How to use model context protocols (MCPs) to connect AI assistants to business tools like Airtable without complex coding *Brought to you by:* Lovable—Build apps by simply chatting with AI: https://lovable.dev/ Persona—Trusted identity verification for any use case: https://lovable.dev/ *Where to find Andrew Mason:* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmason/ X: https://x.com/andrewmason *Where to find Nabeel Hyatt:* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nabeelhyatt/ X: https://x.com/nabeel *Where to find Claire Vo:* ChatPRD: https://www.chatprd.ai/ Website: https://clairevo.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clairevo/ X: https://x.com/clairevo *In this episode, we cover:* (00:00) Introduction to the board-game social club concept (02:44) How AI made a challenging side project possible (06:14) Using Claude as a business copilot for planning (12:53) Developing customer personas with AI (15:45) Using AI to determine business viability (21:02) Navigating Berkeley real estate and permitting (25:18) Building an AI concierge for game matchmaking (28:10) Database design with Airtable for non-technical founders (32:04) Creating a custom board-game categorization system (36:20) Demo of the text-based AI concierge service (40:38) Enabling experiences that wouldn’t exist without AI (43:42) Lightning round and final thoughts *Tools referenced:* • Claude: https://claude.ai/ • Airtable: https://airtable.com/ • n8n: https://n8n.io/ • Twilio: https://www.twilio.com/ • Cursor: https://cursor.sh/ • Windsurf: https://www.windsurf.io/ • Python: https://www.python.org/ *Other references:* • Model context protocol (MCP): https://www.anthropic.com/news/model-context-protocol • Tabletop Library: https://tabletoplibrary.com/ • Descript: https://www.descript.com/ _Production and marketing by https://penname.co/._ _For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email jordan@penname.co._
