“If you’re really solving a problem, you don’t talk about any hype,” says the investor.

The excitement is palpable: As techies from near and far gather at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 in San Francisco—one of the few places where Waymo is available to the public—there’s a lot of talk about the self-driving vehicle service.

“If you think about artificial intelligence and everything else, everyone is going to be excited about what self-driving cars will look like in 10 years,” Pega Ebrahimi, co-founder and managing partner of FPV Ventures, told TechCrunch on stage. Break 2024. “It’s impossible to achieve perfection for a while, but people are very excited and live in this world of optimism about what it can be, and they kind of want it all to happen right now.”

The hype around Waymo among Disrupt participants from outside San Francisco is a clear example of how hype works: we’re more invested in what might happen, as opposed to what’s actually happening now, which is: Waymo is slower ( and sometimes more expensive). than Uber. But it’s fun, and you can’t resist the urge to share self-driving car videos on social media.

For Natalie Sportelli, director of Bullish, social media is a key part of the hype.

“I think the internet hype and the media are creating a lot of excitement among consumers (of the products),” Sportelli said on stage. But social media doesn’t just work for futuristic events like Waymo. Even Mill, whose founder Harry Tannenbaum calls “a raccoon’s worst nightmare,” has managed to attract more than 80,000 Instagram followers for its high-tech trash can.

“We ask people to dumpster dive with us,” Tannenbaum said. “I think any time you can ask people to amplify your message and create content that is actually engaging and interesting in its own right is much better than paying per click.”

The mill’s containers dehydrate compostable materials and grind them into soil that can be used in gardening or as chicken feed. Waste technology may not be particularly sexy, but its business could easily be reimagined as a valuable “green” technology that could potentially reduce food waste (once Mill can reach a price point that the average consumer can afford – right now, the device costs 360 dollars per year).

As for consumers, Sportelli says the best way to capitalize on the hype is to build long-term relationships with customers.

“One thing I’ve definitely learned throughout my career is that people will love and continue to buy from you if they truly love the experience of the product and how it makes them feel,” she said. This remains true whether it’s a fashion product like Glossier’s face wash or, yes, a trash can. “This is also true for B2B SaaS, for example, I love Guideline, my 401(K) provider, and it’s software and I think it’s an amazing experience.”

Given the current AI hype cycle, some companies are keen to tell investors they are powered by AI, while others are less forthcoming. What you may not notice about Mill’s product at first glance is that it uses artificial intelligence to know when there is enough food in the bin to start dehydrating it.

As an investor, Ebrahimi is more interested in a company’s overall potential than how it relates to media hype.

“If you’re actually solving a problem, you don’t talk about any hype—you think this is the problem I’m solving,” she said. “You don’t want to hear about the hype. … You just want to know what you’re solving and can you solve it for me effectively?”