Building A Global AI Startup From India

In this episode of The Lightcone, we talk with Mukund and Madhav Jha, the founders of Emergent - an AI platform that lets anyone build and ship production-ready software. In just eight months, users have created more than 7 million apps on Emergent, with the number doubling in just the last 45 days. We discuss how they built one of the most powerful AI coding agents, why they focused on non-technical users and what it's like building in India for a global audience.

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Chapters:

00:00 - Intro

01:06 - What Is Emergent?

01:18 - Founder Backstory

02:09 - From AI Testing to General Coding Agents

02:52 - Getting Ahead of the Market

04:18 - The Pivot to Non-Technical Users

05:22 - Why Second Movers Can Win in AI

09:04 - Building for Production, Not Just Prototypes

18:21 - Live Demo: Building Apps with Emergent

24:40 - How Emergent Hires and Runs a Lean Team

29:04 - Is SaaS Dead? The Rise of Personalized Software

34:04 - The Future: Niche Apps, Solo Builders and AI Agency