Tony Ennis
September 14, 2025
Thoughts on Poke
  • Quick Takes

    • Onboarding was smooth

    • Surfaced current, useful information about me (unlike other chatbots that pull random old LinkedIn details)

    • Sold me a $50/month subscription

    • First time I could see a realistic path to a billion-dollar single-person company

  • Interaction Design

    • The conversational style differs from most AI products:

      • Short, natural messages in both directions (no verbose paragraphs)

      • Read receipts and typing animations eliminate the "is anything happening?" dead time

      • During onboarding, I found myself talking to it like a person

  • Identity and Personality

    • The personality is somewhat abrasive—it basically negs you. This makes it memorable, though not necessarily appealing long-term. The personality does evolve after onboarding.

    • More interesting is the identity model:

      • Tied to a phone number you can add to iMessage, SMS, or WhatsApp

      • Integrating AI into existing communication channels seems like a good direction

      • I'd like to see this extended to email addresses (CC-able) or Slack users (addable to channels)

  • Limitations

    • Gets confused in group chats

    • Can't use it across multiple messaging platforms simultaneously

    • Core functionality after signup still feels incomplete

  • Why It Matters

    • Throughout the signup process, I kept thinking "this feels like a real salesperson." If it can sell to me without human involvement, it can probably sell to others. That scales.


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