Me, My Customer, and AI

Henrik Werdelin is an accomplished founder, investor, and author with over fifteen years at the forefront of entrepreneurship. Werdelin’s first entrepreneurial success came as cofounder of BARK (BarkBox/BARK Air), the NYSE-listed company that brings joy to dogs and their people. He also cofounded Prehype, the highly regarded startup studio behind ventures like AndCo, Ro, ManagedByQ, and now Audos, an AI platform helping aspiring entrepreneurs create startups smarter and faster. Active in applied AI since 2019, he cohosts the podcast Beyond the Prompt, with Stanford’s Jeremy Utley. Werdelin is the coauthor of the forthcoming Me, My Customer and AI, a book that explors how AI reshapes the entrepreneurial landscape.

Formerly an Entrepreneur in Residence at Index Ventures and head of product development at MTV International, Werdelin has been involved in multiple successful startups and incubations (including HotPotato, AndCo, ReadMill, and Sunrise, which were eventually bought by the likes of Facebook, Fiverr, Dropbox, and Microsoft). A native of Denmark with stints in Paris, London, and New York, Werdelin is the author of The Acorn Method, frequently speaks on entrepreneurship and AI, and has been recognized by Fast Company as one of the “Top 100 Most Creative People in Business” and by Business Insider’s Silicon Alley 100.

Nicholas Thorne is an entrepreneur and student of entrepreneurship. He is a cofounder of Audos, the entrepreneurial AI company, which he created to capture his learnings from a decade of building the venture studio, Prehype. He is the coauthor or Me, My Customer and AI.

Through Prehype, Nicholas has worked with entrepreneurs to start dozens of companies and has documented the methods used by founders in the firm’s portfolio to create companies like BARK (NYSE: BARK), Ro, and Public.com among others. He frequently shares his learnings at Stanford University and beyond, with lectures on novel entrepreneurship methods and how AI will impact entrepreneurship. He serves on the boards of Ferry and For Them, among other young companies in the Prehype portfolio.

Nicholas graduated magna cum laude from Yale University, where he launched his first online business—an on-demand delivery service for dorm essentials. After graduation, he started his career in the investment banking division at Goldman Sachs before leaving to pursue entrepreneurship fulltime. He is a born-and-raised New Yorker, where he currently lives with his wife and two sons. He serves on the board of the Mt. Sinai Parenting Center and is an ambassador of the Dream Charter Schools.