The Superwall Podcast · 2025-11-11
Zuhair Lakhani - How to Make Viral Content 100% Using AI in 2025
Joseph Choi interviews Zuhair Lakhani, co-founder of Doublespeed (a16z Speedrun), which runs AI-made TikTok content on physical phone farms. Covers his path from sneaker/retail botting to a Supreme-style reservation drop that sold out his dad's restaurant for 2 months, a TikTok Shop poster store validated with one AI video that did $100K in its first month, slideshow sub-accounts and synthetic-face creators, and a Doublespeed demo (template cloning, image banks, hook+demo matching, account warm-up) where a client got 4.7M views in under 4 weeks on 15 accounts.
Play the episode9 tactics
Numbers mentioned
| Subject | Metric | Value | Quote |
|---|---|---|---|
| Doublespeed | funding raised a16z Speedrun investment | USD 1M/one-time | “It's a program by them, basically like their own version of YC, and they do a total of 1 million.” |
| Doublespeed client running 15 AI slideshow accounts | views Across 15 accounts in under 4 weeks on the platform | 4.7M views approximate | “This is a client that has been on our platform for less than 4 weeks, and they've generated 4.7 million views just with 15 accounts.” |
| Doublespeed client running 15 AI slideshow accounts | count TikTok accounts the client ran on Doublespeed devices | 15 accounts | “and they've generated 4.7 million views just with 15 accounts.” |
| Guest's TikTok Shop poster store | revenue First month of sales on TikTok Shop, all from AI content | USD 100K/month approximate | “The first month on TikTok Shop, we did $100,000 worth of sales, and just using AI content.” |
| Guest's TikTok Shop poster store | views First AI-made poster video, first day | 5,000 viewsper video approximate | “But I think at the first day, it was probably at like 5k views, and it got just three sales.” |
| Guest's TikTok Shop poster store | views Same first poster video as stated in the opening teaser (likely its eventual total) | 280K viewsper video approximate | “It got 280,000 views, but that just validated that this could work.” |
| Guest's TikTok Shop poster store | count Sales from the first AI video on day one, which validated the product | 3 sales | “And as soon as it got three sales, I went to the print shop, and I gave them a deposit.” |
| Guest's TikTok Shop poster store | cost Deposit to a local print shop to print posters on call and bill his card afterwards | USD 100/one-time | “"Okay, instead of just doing that, here's a 100 bucks. Every time I I have a poster order, just make it for me, and then like, you know, bill my card afterwards."” |
| Guest's TikTok Shop poster store | count Orders pending when the 3PL failed and TikTok banned the shop | 1,000 orders approximate | “and I had 1,000 orders lined up. So, TikTok just banned my account because they're like super strict on like two-day deadline.” |
| Guest's dad's restaurant | count Reservation waitlist size | 6,000 people approximate | “It's 6,000 people on this waitlist” |
| Guest's dad's restaurant | time to milestone How long the restaurant stayed sold out / the waitlist ran | 2 months approximate | “drive so much hype that the restaurant was sold out for 2 months” |
| Guest's dad's restaurant | count Sign-ups on the first reservation drop against capacity for 100; he announced it as full anyway | 20 sign-ups approximate | “Like 20 people signed up. We have space for a 100. I just said it was done.” |
| Guest's AI content agency | customers Brands he ran AI content for while in school | 15 brands | “So, I was working for 15 brands while in school, all using AI.” |
| Guest's AI content agency | count Synthetic-face slideshow accounts running at once, each posting 1-2 times a day | 25 accounts | “Each one of these is a full slide set that gets posted to TikTok, and we had 25 of these running, right?” |
| benchmarkCost of hiring a college-aged UGC creator for 30 videos in 30 days | creator pay | USD 500–1,000per creator /month approximate | “The traditional way is to hire a bunch of college-aged kids to make, you know, 30 videos in 30 days. That will run you anywhere from like 500 bucks a month to $1,000 a month, and you don't even know if they're good.” |
| benchmarkStaffing of a typical hired-creator program the guest was part of: full-time managers per creators | team size | 1 managersper 25 creators approximate | “There's like one person full-time managing all 25 of us. The ROI just isn't there.” |
| benchmarkShare of content work AI should do versus human touch-up, per the guest | share AI does ~95%, a human does the final ~5% check | 95% approximate | “You want AI to do like 95% of the work, and then human comes in 5% for touch up.” |
| benchmarkImages per slide-position image bank and slideshows it can feed | count A 50-image bank for slide two can run ~300 slideshows | 50 images illustrative | “you can have like a collection of 50 images that you can run, you know, 300 slideshows on.” |
| benchmarkHow long the 'hire many creators' TikTok strategy has worked | time to milestone | 2–3 years estimate | “The current cycle of TikTok of like hiring a bunch of creators has gone on for the last 2 to 3 years, I'd say.” |