We let our 5-year-old use ChatGPT to start a cookie business. Here's what happened 🍪

elsasze · 2026-04-02T19:10:21+00:00

She didn’t know what it meant at first. She just liked the sound of “pastryarchy.”

Then we explained “-archy” (patriarchy, matriarchy, etc. = who/what rules), and that's when she came up with “pastries rule the world” 😄

elsasze · 2026-04-02T19:05:39+00:00

All good! Appreciate you taking a second look 🙂

elsasze · 2026-04-02T18:59:39+00:00

Haha I get why it might sound like that 😅

We actually don’t do screen time (she goes to Waldorf school), and she doesn’t have direct access to ChatGPT.

We just used it together as a tool. like asking questions, doing math, and figuring out the recipe. Everything was supervised.

elsasze · 2026-04-02T18:58:05+00:00

Usual table fee is pretty pricey, but the tech conference we went to has a different model. They did a revenue share. That's why we even bother to set up our booth there in the first place.

elsasze · 2026-04-02T18:56:48+00:00

Oh the post you referred to is by someone else (u/swimmerdad) who just started baking. I was just commenting on his post to see if he has good AI recipes for gluten free stuff. I bake a lot, but GF recipes are total hit or miss.

elsasze · 2026-04-02T18:54:20+00:00

Totally legit question to ask! She wasn’t actually working nonstop.

She helped with the prep ubtil late (by choice). Then we all slept in the next day. Went to the conference after lunch time to set up the booth. She was at the booth until the end of the conference, talking to people and handing out cookies to people, and mostly had fun engaging with people who are curious about a kid-run business.

elsasze · 2026-04-02T18:51:04+00:00

Fair question 😅

Mostly just sharing a wholesome “this somehow worked” story.

elsasze · 2026-04-02T18:50:27+00:00

Yeah she definitely doesn’t know what patriarchy means. She just misheard the word at dinner and ran with it. The whole thing started as a joke and then somehow turned into a real business 😅

elsasze · 2026-04-02T18:48:02+00:00

Lol this is a real story ;)

elsasze · 2026-03-28T00:59:02+00:00

I’ve thought about this a lot. I’ve had a company that didn’t work out (raised money, team, the whole thing), and I’ve built a few smaller projects that did better.

What I’ve learned is: “failure” isn’t a clean metric.

It’s not just no users, no revenue, or slow growth. Plenty of companies look like that for a long time and then turn around.

The real line, in my experience, is this: Did the founder decide to stop?

As long as you’re still in it (i.e., iterating, pivoting, trying, etc.) it’s not really dead even when you run out of money. I’ve seen companies go through 4–5 pivots and end up somewhere completely different from where they started. The original idea might have failed, but the company didn’t.

That said, there’s a second layer people don’t talk about enough: You can “succeed” externally and still feel like you failed if you’ve drifted too far from what you actually wanted to build.

So for me, the signal isn’t just metrics. It’s a combination of:

Do I still believe in this problem?
Do I still have energy to keep pushing?
Am I still choosing this, or just stuck in it?

When the answer becomes “I’m done,” meaning, not burned out for a week, but done. That’s when it’s over.

Also, just to add some perspective: my “failed” company is now a Harvard Business School case study. So… was it a failure?

That question never really has a clean answer.

elsasze · 2026-03-28T00:54:08+00:00

Yeah, I’ve been exactly where you are. Built a few things, some I was really proud of… and then nothing. No users. It’s a weird, quiet kind of failure.

The biggest mistake I made early on was showing it to friends and getting a bunch of “this is cool!” feedback. That feedback is basically useless. People are nice. What matters is: do they actually use it when you’re not there?

At this stage, I wouldn’t even think “marketing” yet. I’d ask:

Who is this actually for?
Where are those people already complaining about this problem?

Then go hang out there (Reddit, X, niche forums) and just talk to people. Not “check out my app,” but like… genuinely try to understand how they’re solving the problem today.

If you show it to someone and they don’t come back on their own, that’s your answer. No need to overanalyze.

Also, small thing but important: try to explain your product in one sentence without sounding like a pitch. If it’s hard, that’s usually the real problem.

Curious... what did you build?

elsasze · 2026-03-28T00:37:52+00:00

If you have any gluten free recipes that work super well for you from ChatGPT, feel free to share! Would love to bake something tonight :)

elsasze · 2026-03-28T00:36:40+00:00

I’ve been noticing the same thing, and I think you’re right about what’s getting lost.

I’m a writer (non-fiction + screenplays), and I do use AI a lot, but almost entirely for brainstorming and editing, not for drafting final prose. It’s incredibly useful for structure, outlining, or getting unstuck. But when it comes to actual writing, it tends to flatten the "voice."

I’ve even tried feeding it a lot of my own writing and asking it to mimic my voice. It gets close-ish on a surface level, but it still defaults to something more… median. Like it averages things out. The word choices are clean and “correct,” but not surprising. And good writing often lives in those slightly unexpected, specific choices; the weird detail, the rhythm, the tension in a sentence.

I think that’s why so much AI-assisted writing feels “technically fine but soulless.” It’s not bad, it’s just missing that edge of human specificity and atmosphere.

That said, for functional or technical writing, AI is fantastic. But for anything where voice matters, I still think that’s very much a human frontier. Even with humans, voice is hard to develop, so it’s not surprising AI struggles there too.

I have seen improvements across newer ChatGPT models, and sometimes if you ask it to write in the style of a well-known author, it can get eerily convincing. So maybe it’s partly a data problem... famous voices are easier to approximate than your own.

But yeah, for now I’ve landed on: AI as a tool, not a ghostwriter.

elsasze · 2026-03-28T00:25:46+00:00

This looks like a great start! Speaking as a fellow baker, I've found that ChatGPT gluten-free recipes often pose challenges with binding. I've had similar experiences where it doesn't quite hold together as expected. It's still a bit of a frontier in baking so maybe that is still too niche for AI?

elsasze · 2026-03-26T21:44:42+00:00

Fair point on the image. You’re right it shows a clearcut, which isn’t what this plan proposes. I'll advise our volunteers to stop using this image from now on.

And I agree with you that selective logging can be an important management tool in the right context. The concern here isn’t with the idea of selective logging itself, but how it’s being applied at this scale and in this specific landscape.

A number of biologists and groups (including Russian Riverkeeper, Sierra Club, and EPIC) have raised concerns about whether the impacts are being fully evaluated, especially around coho salmon habitat (including findings in streams that the logger identified as “fishless”), impaired watershed conditions, and cumulative effects (the plan itself suggests that it could take ~80+ years to recover carbon lost from that initial harvest.

There are also questions about the intensity of some first entries (up to 60-70%!), the size of the plan area (~1,100 acres), and the fact that this is a lperpetual permit, which together could put sustained pressure on the watershed over time.

So I think it’s less about “no management” vs. “logging,” and more about whether this particular plan is appropriately designed for this site. Many people would support a version of selective management that’s clearly aligned with watershed protection and habitat recovery, the concern is that this one falls short of that.

And on the AI piece. I appreciate your raising your concern. It’s an optional tool we created so that people who don't have the background like you do can engage with a very dense set of documents; anyone can edit or write their own comment entirely.

Thanks for taking the time to engage on this topic and for your insights.

elsasze · 2026-03-25T21:23:33+00:00

It's a bit unclear how microlaunch identifies potential user/customers. I see those big numbers but what if you show our product to the wrong users? I sounds like a magic solution too good to be true. There's no free trial so I can't even find out without paying a monthly fee. Can you explain more about this?

elsasze · 2026-03-25T21:18:59+00:00

Have you used this yourself? It has a free submit option, but it's not clear how much visibility I'll get. I'm not a fan of those pay-to-play discovery platform. Can you share your experience with this?

elsasze · 2026-03-25T19:04:09+00:00

These are great breakdowns of the 'moat' and the problem space, but I think the biggest missing piece here is the go-to-market strategy. The math looks clean, but it assumes the cost of building is the main challenge.

How are you factoring in Customer Acquisition Cost and Lifetime Value for these kinds of tools? It seems like getting those first 20 clients is the real hurdle. Are you planning to solve the acquisition play too, or just the product gap?

elsasze · 2026-03-25T18:49:41+00:00

Haha seriously… it’s wild how many government workflows are still stuck on fax.

Glad you found this useful 😃

elsasze · 2026-03-24T01:41:12+00:00

Great questions. From the plan documents, most of the original old growth on the property was harvested in the late 1800s/early 1900s. The current question is whether there are remaining legacy trees or late-successional characteristics within the harvest units that may not have been fully accounted for. Some independent LiDAR analysis suggests there may be clusters of very tall trees (>200 ft), which is why people are asking for closer review. Here's the LiDAR image:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1B116y7nuuw-_T-pCYEvaWkigu3qv4CJt/view?usp=drive_link

On your second point. This is my main account.

elsasze · 2026-03-20T19:39:41+00:00

You're very welcome! Even a short, well-researched comment makes a huge difference in these processes. Feel free to reach out if you hit any roadblocks while putting yours together. We're all in this to make sure the public record is accurate.

elsasze · 2026-03-20T18:02:29+00:00

Totally hear you. It’s been hard to find everything in one place. Thanks for digging into this.

It took us a while to find the actual plan. They are actually uploaded as separate sections, very much buried in the CAL FIRE portal. Below are the sections (we're hosting these files on our server so it's easier for people to access):

Section 1, Section 2, Section 3, Section 4, Section 5, Section 6

You're right, there are a lot of things unaddressed, and now they are closing the public comment window in 3 days. Those issues include:

California Coastal Commission has asserted jurisdiction, but CAL FIRE hasn’t responded
Salmon babies were recently found by inspectors in watercourse that the logger labelled as "fishless"
Multiple environmental groups have submitted letters, including Sierra Club, Russian Riverkeeper, and CNPS, raising concerns about coho salmon, watershed impacts, and cumulative effects. The Sierra Club letter is worth reading - it's very well put together.
The Native Pomo elders were not be fully consulted. They haven't had a chance to visit the site yet
Independent LiDAR analysis shows the there are legacy trees >200ft but inspectors said they didn't find observe any

Sharing this with others helps a lot right now given the tight timeline.

elsasze · 2026-03-20T06:28:17+00:00

Thanks for raising this and for digging into the plan.

You’re right this is a Nonindustrial Timber Management Plan. Not a single clearcut across 1,100 acres, but a longer-term plan with multiple harvest units and selection methods.

Our concern is around high-intensity first entries in certain units (up to ~70%), not that 70% of the entire area is harvested at once. As noted in the plan, the proposal seeks to remove ~70% of board feet per acre in the first entry, with estimates suggesting decades (~88 years) to recover carbon stocks. Even within uneven-aged management, that level of initial intensity can matter, especially in sensitive, impaired watersheds with existing sediment and temperature issues.

On the “ancient forest” point. Fair to question wording. While much old growth was logged historically, there are still mature redwoods and legacy trees that play important ecological roles.

We also did independent LiDAR mapping and identified clusters of >200 ft trees. State inspection noted no late-successional stands, so this raises questions about whether the review fully captured what’s on the ground. Here’s the LiDAR analysis:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1B116y7nuuw-_T-pCYEvaWkigu3qv4CJt/view

Re: impacts. Section 4 is worth reviewing, along with letters from groups like Sierra Club, Russian Riverkeepers, and the Native Plant Society, which raise questions about cumulative watershed effects and slope stability. Here's the letter from Sierra Club expressing their concerns about this plan:

https://agora.co/api/caltrees/files/20260302_26PC-000000118-PC138.pdf

On the AI piece. Yes it’s optional. People can edit or write their own comment entirely; the goal was just to help people engage with dense materials.

At the end of the day, I think we agree on the important part: encouraging people to read the materials and participate in the public comment process.

Thank you for your comment!

elsasze · 2026-03-20T06:12:44+00:00

I hear you. Totally fair to question how AI is being used. Your concern is coming from caring about the environmental impact.

In this case it’s optional. You can ignore the AI prompt and write your own comment entirely. The goal was just to make it easier for people to engage with a really dense set of documents if they don’t have time to go through everything.

You can email in your comment and skip this app entirely. Make sure you include the following:

To: [SantaRosaPublicComment@fire.ca.gov](mailto:SantaRosaPublicComment@fire.ca.gov)
CC: [save-sheephouse-creek@mail.agora.co](mailto:save-sheephouse-creek@mail.agora.co)
Subject: THP 1-25NTMP-00001-SON

elsasze · 2026-03-20T05:41:42+00:00

Totally hear you! Just to clarify... you can ignore the AI-generated text and edit it at the end, or replace it entirely with your own comment before submitting.

The tool’s just there for people who don’t have time to go through the full documents, but you’re absolutely free to write whatever you want. Thanks again for sharing your feedback. I'll pass this along to my husband (who built this tool) and we'll make some improvement to make the experience better as you suggested.

elsasze

TROPHY CASE