Meta Muse Connector：AI时代的App

I think a gigantic opportunity has just opened up and we need to talk about it. Meta has opened up Muse, its personal AI agent to developers and you can now submit something called a connector which gives Muse a way to use your service when someone asks for help. And I think this could be the app store moment for AI. So, if you're thinking about starting a business or you already have one, it's worth understanding what just became possible because billions of dollars are going to change hands.

By the end of this video, you'll understand what Muse connectors are and where I'd look for business opportunities. We're going to walk through how you can build one using a coding agent and submit it to Meta. We'll also spend some time on how people actually find what you've built because let's be real, that's a big part of whether any of this turns into a business. I'll give you four Muse Connector startup ideas for free by the end of this video.

And if you're new here, my name is Greg Eisenberg and I'm the host of the Startup Ideas podcast and I know a thing or two about social apps. In the past life, I was an adviser to Tik Tok, an adviser to Reddit, and now I build AI native businesses. If this episode gets 7,000 likes, comments, and subscribes, I'll drop a Muse Connector guide 100% free with more ideas. I'll include the link in the pin comment description if that happens.

So, go ahead and do that. All right, let's start the episode.

Think about what happened when Apple opened the App Store in 2008. Apple had built the phone. Now an outside developer could build something useful for the people who owned it and sell it through the store. Someone could build a photo editing app and charge for it. Apple supplied a way to distribute the software and collect payment so that the developer could focus on making something people wanted to use. And it was a win-win scenario.

By the way, Apple got a way better app store and developers made money. By June 2010, less than two years after the store had opened, Apple had paid developers a billion dollars from paid apps and inapp purchases. So, this new market had formed around the phone and outside businesses were earning a bunch of money from it. That's why I'm interested in this news announcement. Meta is building the assistant and other businesses could supply services that help it complete a customer's request.

How big that market will become will depend on whether people actually use Muse for those jobs. But the opening for developers is now. And yes, I know someone in the comments say comment section is saying, "Well, who knows if this is going to be a big app?" No one really knows, but it is today as of recording the number one app in the app store. When I'm thinking about the App Store analogy versus the App Store for AI analogy, there's another interesting wrinkle.

So, your service can become useful halfway through a bigger request. Let me explain what I mean by that. Take someone who's organizing a small event. They're going to need a venue and later they realize they need maybe some equipment that they need to rent. A company that handles equipment rentals could become relevant at that moment. Even though renting equipment wasn't what started the conversation, as a founder, someone who's trying to build something, I would closely look at those moments.

Someone is trying to accomplish something and there's a step where they need access to a business that can actually deliver and money's changing hands. Meta's platform now has a submission process and a directory of approved connectors. There's a bunch of big companies in there now and I think there's going to be a bunch of small and mediumsiz soon. editors also can feature them. That gives something real to explore.

I remember when I was launching apps in the early days and I got featured and I was getting like 40,000 downloads every single day from that feature. It was all free. With MuseAI connectors, what we still need to learn is how people will find those services and how often they use them. But I wouldn't be surprised if the directory generated a bunch of customers. That's why being early could help you learn faster than other people in your category.

So, I would use that time to understand a customer's request and make my service work really well for it. And then, who knows, you might get featured. Um, but we're also uh towards the end of the episode are going to talk about a bunch of other techniques to get uh downloads or not really downloads to get usage uh to your uh connector that isn't reliant on meta featuring you. So, how does a Muse connector actually work?

Say I tell Muse I need a podcast studio on a Tuesday afternoon for 2 hours and my budget is $200. It needs to find out which city I'm in and what kind of recording I'm going to be doing. Then it needs a business that can answer whether a suitable room is available. An API is a way for one piece of software to ask another piece of software for something. It's just at the core of it. You can think of it as a service window at the studio.

You make a specific request like checking Tuesday's availability and you get the specific answer back. The connector lets Muse use that window. So the studio system might return an available room at I don't know $160 including the equipment I need. Muse can show me the offer and once I approve it, the service could make the booking and then it sends back a confirmation. That's a proposed workflow, but it shows what the connection is there to accomplish.

The studio still has to keep its uh calendar accurate, right? Someone has to make sure the equipment works. Of course, if a customer needs help getting into the building, the business needs a way to handle that, too. What's cool is an agent makes it easier to ask for the service. The service still has to be good, though. You can see a real version of this in travel. So there's a company called Duffel and they say their Muse integration lets people search flights and manage bookings.

Duffel also said that its business has passed a billion dollars in annual transaction value on their I guess web app and mobile app. So now they're betting on the Muse AI connector thing. That's the value of bookings, by the way, passing through its business rather than Duffles revenue. And it covers the whole company. But it's a useful example of a company that already provides something valuable becoming accessible through a new interface.

If you built software before, I'd start by looking at what your customers can already do through your API. There might be a useful connector sitting inside the product that you already have. So, if I wanted to start a Muse Connector business, where would I actually start a business? Here are four ideas I want to walk you through that I think are pretty good. The first idea is just doing lead genen for business suppliers.

Let me explain what I mean by that. Say you run a linen service in Miami. You supply restaurants with clean tablecloths and napkins. You could ask Muse which restaurants are opening nearby that might need our service. And your connector reaches a service you've built to track those openings. It brings it brings back relevant restaurants with a source showing when each is expected to open and a public business contact when it's available.

Of course, the customer can see why each restaurant might be worth approaching. I'd start with one city and maybe just one supplier. You can use sources you're allowed to access, by the way, like, you know, local business announcements. And then you verify the details before adding a restaurant. A planned opening might get delayed. Someone might announce a second location when you're still showing the first. So, keeping that information current is going to be a big part of what you're selling here.

General contact search already exists. I mean, I'm sure you've seen things like Apollo, but your opportunity is knowing someth