Hard Work Makes Its Own Luck: How Sahil Created an AI Video Revolution

Sahil, founder of DeepReel, shares his journey from investment banker to AI entrepreneur and explains how his platform creates complete videos from just ideas or text.

• DeepReel has evolved from an AI avatar company to a comprehensive video creation platform
• The system handles everything from scriptwriting and finding visuals to editing, transitions, music, and captions automatically
• Currently has 300,000 total signups with 15,000-20,000 monthly active users
• Operates 10 automated social media channels to showcase capabilities and attract new users
• Sahil left a 12-year investment banking career to pursue his passion for AI and technology
• Returned to university for a master's in data science to gain hands-on technical knowledge
• Believes in "making your own luck" through persistent hard work
• Recently had his entire remote team live and work together for a month to accelerate progress
• Recommends founders go "all in" rather than taking a part-time approach to startups
• Sees in-person collaboration as essential for early-stage companies, claiming "work from home is completely dead"

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Transcript

Introduction to Sahil and DeepReel

Sahil Dhingra 0:00

Yeah, so that no one can no noise.

Stewart Noakes 0:05

All right. Well, here we are, sahil. It is amazing to have you here. I think you're probably and camera don't get excited about it, it's probably the best founder in venture space. It's wonderful to have you join us today for the Founder Friday. For those people who are watching this and they don't know who you are, maybe could you introduce yourself. Just to start off with yeah.

Sahil Dhingra 0:24

Hi, I'm Sahil. I'm the founder of DeepReel, which is the first video agent that allows you to make complete videos from just an idea or a blog or a document.

Stewart Noakes 0:38

So when I describe DeepReel as a deepfake video avatar and you cringe and look at me and say, stu, come on now. Why is that so bad? Like, what's the difference between what you said and what I said? How can people interpret this?

Sahil Dhingra 0:52

So I think we have moved on from just being an AI avatar company. So yes, we used to and we still do allow people to clone their face and voice to make a deep fake of themselves, but we do a lot more now. So we allow anyone to create polished explainer videos. That means script writing with engaging hooks, finding the right visuals, doing smart editing so placing cuts, transitions, finding the right music, adding captions all of those things done automatically within a couple of minutes.

Beyond AI Avatars: What DeepReel Does

Sahil Dhingra 1:38

So it's a lot more comprehensive than just creating an avatar video.

Stewart Noakes 1:49

Okay, so now I understand why you cringe every time I say it. So in June, which seems like a million years ago, we had the London Tech Week demo night and you stood there and you basically created, as a live demo, the news item, the news feature of this AI-powered squid invasion of London, and that was going to be basically your latest functionality, which I think you were about to put live. Has that now launched? Are you out there making more squid invasions around the world?

Sahil Dhingra 2:19

Absolutely. We released our latest version of DeepReel last month. In fact, tomorrow we are doing a Product Hunt launch. So anyone reading and watching, please support us on Product Hunt. We are quite excited about that. But, yes, anyone can now go and use this feature to make AI storytelling videos, convert your blog posts into videos for social media, for video SEO, as we call it. So it's all live and there to use.

Stewart Noakes 3:01

Fantastic. Well, everybody was pretty blown away in the demo night by what you managed to achieve, right there in front, and I think, as I remember, you asked the audience for what they wanted, which is how the AI-powered squid thing happened. But, yeah, very impressive. Now give people an idea of how long you've been doing this and how many users you've got, and that kind of stuff. Any figures you're happy to share?

User Growth and Automated Marketing

Sahil Dhingra 3:22

Yeah, before I go there, in fact, Any figures you're happy to share? Yeah, before I go there, in fact, that demo thing reminded me that I was showing my mum, who's 65 soon on how to use Deep Real and once she started, so she's quite a religious person, so she loves making religious videos and you know, like these mythology, hindu mythology videos and once she started I had to literally yank the laptop out of her hand.

Stewart Noakes 3:54

You created a monster.

Sahil Dhingra 3:57

She literally created about five videos in the 15 minutes I was sat with her and she was addicted. And there were 15 minutes I was sat with her and she was addicted. So that was quite a fun thing for me to see. But in terms of you said how many users and things like that, so I think the last number I looked at this morning because I had to email everyone about a product on launch, so total signups so far have been around 300,000. So we have to send about 300,000 emails tomorrow to everyone saying hey, support us on product on I may give you a can of spam for your desk. To everyone saying hey, support us on productcom.

Stewart Noakes 4:45

I may give you a can of spam for your desk.

Sahil Dhingra 4:51

It'll be an expensive affair when. I send all those emails tomorrow. Okay, fantastic, so 300,000, you know, but those are signups, obviously, and they're a bunch of mostly free users. Typically. We have about 15,000 to 20,000 monthly active users. All of them like most of them again are are free users.

Stewart Noakes 5:15

Uh, so our biggest challenge at the moment is converting people into paid users, so we're working extra hard on that and I I remember when you initially launched, you did it as a an integration on canva right, so it's part of the marketplace there. Are all these users coming through canva? Are they coming through directly or through other sources?

Sahil Dhingra 5:34

It's a mix of sources, so we do Canva, we have Adobe integration as well, so both Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe Express, and then we are also I mean, a lot of it is directly so we run about 10 Instagram and tick tock channels all automated. So we create once a week, we create a list of topics every day. About five topics are selected automatically and a video on deep real is generated. A person checks all the videos, makes any tweaks and finalizes the video, and then that video is finalized and automatically posted to all the channels at the scheduled time. So it's quite a automated farm that we run to get views and eyeballs on DeepReel.

Stewart Noakes 6:42

I guess Boris Johnson is going to commission you for his next bi-ministerial run, right?

Sahil Dhingra 6:48

Absolutely.

Stewart Noakes 6:52

So, like most founders, your journey to becoming a founder maybe isn't a straight line, right? Do you want to give people some of the backstory to how you got to sit at that desk in venture space?

Sahil Dhingra 7:04

Yes, absolutely.

Sahil Dhingra 7:05

So.

From Investment Banking to AI Founder

Sahil Dhingra 7:06

I started my career in investment banking, spent 12 years doing that, years doing that and for the last three to four years of that, which was, I think, around 2014, well-paid job to basically struggle hard as a founder.

Sahil Dhingra 7:44

But, in all seriousness, I was super interested in technology. I was trying to figure out how can I get involved in it, so maybe move to a tech company, but ultimately I landed on the fact that I wanted to actually hands-on build something on my own and if I did not do that, I would have serious regrets. And it was that Jeff Bezos' regret minimization framework that made me quit my job and go back to university to do another master's degree in data science and machine learning and to get like hands-on involved with AI and to really understand on my own how to do things, and that allowed me to start DeepReal, meet my co-founder at university and really get technically involved in the AI models that we made and, essentially, to start and run a company in the AI video space back in 2021, when no one was aware that video AI was a thing.

Stewart Noakes 9:14

Well, and there was a little thing like COVID going around and stuff as well, right, so it's a very disruptive kind of place, yeah.

Sahil Dhingra 9:20

It was also before OpenAI and GPT-3 came out. So it was quite an early, early, early time for AI.

Stewart Noakes 9:31

Do you think you picked the right course to kind of bring you from investment banker to here?

Sahil Dhingra 9:40

I think I was super interested in computer vision as an area of technology. I think there are applications of like. I think it mainly depends on what anyone is interested in. If I had stayed in banking and done something on AI, I think that could have been an interesting, and to do something in computer vision, consumer space and AI video seemed like a very, very hard problem to work on and that's what attracted me to it and that's why I started working on Deep Real. I'm personally less interested in in banking and finance as a person now than I was a few years ago.

Stewart Noakes 10:48

It's still buzzing around there in your brain, though right, all these things mixed together to make you the founder you are all these things mixed together to make you the founder you are.

Sahil Dhingra 10:58

Yeah, I mean, I'm still interested in investments and uh investing as a, as a topic. I'm maybe using ai for it and I do uh have some side projects that I work on, but they are side projects, not uh, not something I want to do for the rest of my life which do you think is going to make you more money? The side projects I think time will tell.

Stewart Noakes 11:23

Now, I know luck pays a big part in being a founder and I remember you got some luck from Elon Musk and Rishi Sunak right with their conversation. Do you want to share with people what happened with that?

Sahil Dhingra 11:35

Yeah, I mean, it was just a funny coincidence. I think it was when Elon was attending the AI Summit hosted by Rishi Sunak and

Luck, Hard Work, and Founder Superpowers

Sahil Dhingra 11:48

they were joking about how realistic deepfakes had become and Elon made a comment that deepfakes are so realistic it's almost like not fake, it's like deep. It's not deep fake, it's like deep real. And I was like yeah, thank you, elon Moss, for telling everyone how we came up with the name deep real.

Stewart Noakes 12:14

I mean, is luck, your superpower, or what do you regard as like that core strength that makes you a good founder?

Sahil Dhingra 12:21

um, I think uh hard work, I would it. Uh is more than things. Things don't happen like I. I really I believe that you have to make your luck. It doesn't come to you automatically and if you just continue, continue at it for uh for as much time as you need to, it will come to you. I mean, if you look at the story of James Dyson or if you read his autobiography, he struggled for 40 years, went through immense like almost being bankrupt, having no money but still going at it and um and keeping on inventing and improving his product, and he is a billionaire several times over now. So I think uh luck happens at the right time. I, but you have to keep working at it.

Stewart Noakes 13:38

So I know he keeps his private jet at Bristol Airport. Are you going to keep yours at London City?

Sahil Dhingra 13:43

I don't believe in private jets, so it will maybe be only commercial air travel for me.

Stewart Noakes 13:53

I've got to ask why don't you believe in private jets? I mean, I don't believe in them either, but why don't you believe in private jets? I mean I don't believe in neither, but why don't you believe in?

Sahil Dhingra 13:58

Well, I mean, I think they're just uh, uh, the carbon emissions from private jets is, uh, is is possibly the highest one, and, um, I think, uh, taylor Swift is the worst offender of all of them. So someone posted this, uh, this, this chart um, where Taylor Swift's private jet had, I don't know, like 41,000 times more carbon emissions than the average person.

Stewart Noakes 14:28

So I think, for climate reasons Now, if we were asking your mom what your superpower is, what would she say? Would she say hard work, or would she say something else?

Sahil Dhingra 14:44

That's a good question I have to ask her.

Stewart Noakes 14:49

Maybe she can do a vid for you about it, right?

Sahil Dhingra 14:51

Yeah, yeah, I think I'll have to. Maybe I hope she'd say EQ Okay, so being able to put myself in the shoes of others, possibly.

Stewart Noakes 15:08

What? 300,000 people? That's a good number.

Sahil Dhingra 15:10

That's tough yeah.

Stewart Noakes 15:14

I mean, I've never done anything at that scale. Right, that B2C space is not where I play at all, but that's an incredible scale to achieve. What do you think you've harnessed in the middle of all this that's latched with 300,000 people?

Living and Working with the Team

Sahil Dhingra 15:30

What have we harnessed? A lot of rejection, but, jokes apart, I think it just allows you to. I think, see, not everyone has not all of those 300,000 people have gone ahead and become customers, right? So it is trying to constantly figure out. I think with B2C, it's all about communication and marketing and really being super clear about what is it that you have built, what do you want and how to present it in the way that people understand it quickly. People are very fickle. They have their own desires and needs, and it's not about your product or your feature and what fancy thing can it do, but it's about putting yourself in the shoes of the user, understanding what the problem is and then explaining to them how your product solves their problem, how that feature solves the problem, and changing the way you talk about your product, and not talking about the product, but talking about their problem. And I think that's the key thing, like understanding what the user's problem is and then reframing your product as a solution to their life's problems. Are you an?

Stewart Noakes 17:08

introvert or an extrovert?

Sahil Dhingra 17:10

I'm an extrovert.

Stewart Noakes 17:11

You're an extrovert.

Sahil Dhingra 17:12

I'm an extrovert. I get my energy from being around people, which is why I like coming to the office five days a week, and last month I spent the entire month living and working with my entire team, so I think that was a very energizing month for me.

Stewart Noakes 17:32

What does that look like?

Sahil Dhingra 17:33

What does living and working with the team look like. So my entire team is remote, so I got everyone in one place in a big house and we all stayed together, lived together, had three meals a day together, worked in an office together and that was, I think, I hope, fun for everyone, but especially good for me. It's like I think this is the new thing in Silicon Valley these days getting people together in one space, and I know a bunch of startups that are living and working with their founding team or their entire team, and it helps in moving faster, ideating together, growing, forming a strong connection, and actually, whoever doesn't connect it's a good way for them to quickly drop out and do something else. And then you really have this core set of people who are all aligned, all working on the same mission, same objective and really executing at speed and at speed and in the same direction. So I think that's that's that Silicon Valley culture is is something that I associate myself with.

Stewart Noakes 19:09

How do you see that sort of traveling in the long term? Right, because that sounds like a three month thing or a one month thing. Is that a? Is that a three? Right, because that sounds like a three-month thing or a one-month thing. Is that a three-year thing? Is that a? Do the whole 10 years like that with your founding team all in the same house.

Sahil Dhingra 19:25

I think for sure, I would say I think doing. I think it would be cool in the long term for every new employee to do like a three-month gig in the hacker house, as we call it, where you can spend an extended amount of time with the team. I think that would be a cool thing to do. Startup like, being very close to your team and, um, and spending extended amounts of time with them really really helps. I think we've all seen, like post-covid, that work from home is completely dead, um, and everyone wants people back into the office. Like definitely, there's like zero Silicon Valley companies or zero Silicon Valley startups that I know are hiring remotely. Everyone wants people in SF.

Sahil Dhingra 20:27

I think that's true for, like just in London too, like I met, like last week at one of the events, people who really broke up with their teams because they just wanted everyone to be in person, and whoever couldn't make it in person, they're like, okay, I think it's best that we go our separate ways and I find a new team. So I think that is happening quite increasingly and I think that is happening quite increasingly and I think those, as we all call it, the water fountain ideas and chats are really important, especially at the early stage of a startup, and being like 100% all in to building a company in early stages is, I think, is the most important thing that one can do for the company so

Final Thoughts and Community Impact

Sahil Dhingra 21:28

or for the success of the company. So I think I recommend this to all startup founders starting out Go all in, live with your founders and founding team and that will really move the needle on the progress that you make.

Stewart Noakes 21:52

Is that your number one piece of advice, then, for a first time founder, looking at this today, it sounds like, if I replay my old British phraseology, you're basically saying you can't be part pregnant when you're doing a startup. Founder, right. You just got to be all in for this.

Sahil Dhingra 22:08

That's a very good way of yeah, I like these. I like the British phrases.

Stewart Noakes 22:14

Some silly old phrases.

Sahil Dhingra 22:16

No part pregnancies. Indeed, either you are pregnant or you're not, and if you are, then yes, yeah, I think you just need to go all in.

Stewart Noakes 22:27

Okay, fantastic. Well, thank you, Sal, I really appreciate it, and thank you very much for being such an amazing citizen at VentureSpace. You know you contribute to things like DemoNight, you share your experience, you support other people and it's amazing to kind of be around you and work with you. So thank you so much for everything you've brought to the community.

Sahil Dhingra 22:44

Thank you too, Steve, for organizing all these amazing events and really rallying to building the community and getting everyone together.

Stewart Noakes 22:59

So thank you for that too, Mate for me it's a joy, right, it's absolutely a joy. So thanks for this, and I look forward to seeing you when I'm back in London in a few weeks. Absolutely Likewise Thanks, bud.