I crunched the data on 100,000 images from DALL-E 3 to find out what truly works. The results challenge common prompting advice and reveal a new way to think about generating images.
The Reality Nobody Talks About
A lot of the advice on DALL-E 3 rests on assumptions that made sense five years ago. The world has moved on.
The first thing to understand is that most founders overthink this and underspend on execution. I've seen this play out across dozens of companies. The pattern is unmistakable.
Many teams spend months on the wrong path before realizing that simplicity beats complexity every time. Once they make the switch, everything changes.
The Counterintuitive Truth
In DALL-E 3, the best practitioners often do less, not more.
The lesson: the best solutions are often the simplest ones. It sounds simple. It's incredibly hard to execute.
What I've Learned From 55 Companies
A few patterns in DALL-E 3 come up again and again.
The founders who handle DALL-E 3 well understand that simplicity beats complexity every time.
What I Tell Founders
Before deciding anything about DALL-E 3, start with three questions:
What's your timeline? Because the right approach for a company with 6 months of runway is very different from one with 3 years.
What have you already tried? Most founders have tried something. Understanding what didn't work is often more valuable than knowing what might.
Who on your team owns this? If the answer is "everyone" or "no one," that's your first problem to solve.
These questions seem simple but they reveal a lot about where a company actually stands.
This connects to broader themes around AI video, Stable Diffusion, Midjourney that I've been thinking about a lot lately.
What's Next
Best practice in DALL-E 3 is changing fast. What worked last year might not work next year. That's both the challenge and the opportunity.
My advice: stay curious, stay humble, and stay close to the people who are actually doing the work. Read less thought leadership and do more experiments. Talk to fewer consultants and more practitioners.
If you're building in this space, the best time to get DALL-E 3 right is before you need to. Don't wait for a crisis to force your hand.
I'll keep sharing what I learn. This stuff matters too much to keep to myself.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q:Do all experts agree with this view?
No, and that's fine. The best ideas in business are often contrarian. I share my perspective based on my experience and data, but I encourage you to seek out opposing viewpoints and form your own conclusions.
Q:How has this view evolved over time?
My thinking on most topics has changed significantly over the years. Early in my career, I held many conventional views that experience proved wrong. I try to update my beliefs when the evidence changes.
Q:How can I apply this thinking to my own situation?
Start by identifying the core principle behind the opinion, not the specific example. Then ask yourself: does this principle apply to my context? If yes, test it in a small, low-risk way before going all in.
Q:What experience informs this perspective?
This perspective comes from over a decade of building companies in Silicon Valley, two successful exits (RemoteTeam to Gusto, MovieLaLa to Gfycat), and investing in 234 startups including Anthropic, OpenAI, and Scale AI. I write about what I've lived.