meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
Startup Stories - Mixergy

#2290 He’s building an AI media empire

Startup Stories - Mixergy

Andrew Warner

Money, Business, Tips, Education, Society & Culture, Mix, Ambition, Growth, 581719, Entrepreneur, Synergy, Startups, Improvement, Management & Marketing, Energy, Motivation

4.5591 Ratings

🗓️ 29 December 2025

⏱️ 60 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On the surface, it looks like Ricardo Vice Santos is selling AI-created books for your kids. But he’s aiming for something much bigger: a world where TV, movies, and every other media will be customized to you, using AI. He’s starting with children’s books because that’s what people will buy and what AI can do well today. This is the story of how he’s building DreamStories and how you can build a similar company.

Ricardo is the founder of DreamStories, a company creating AI-powered, personalized children’s books tailored to individual families. Previously, he worked in consumer media and was an early team member at Spotify, where he developed a deep understanding of long-tail content and personalization. Drawing on that experience, Ricardo is now building toward a future where books, videos, and even movies are generated uniquely for each person.

More interviews -> https://mixergy.com/moreint
Rate this interview -> https://mixergy.com/rateint

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

This founder is creating thousands of customized books using AI.

0:04.0

But that's just a start.

0:05.6

He visualizes a world where movies, TV shows, every kind of media is going to be customized to you.

0:11.5

And he's building a company that's going to do it.

0:13.3

He'll tell you how he's doing it.

0:14.8

And he's going to riff on an idea and a vision for how you can do it too.

0:19.5

Ricardo Vais Santos is the founder of dream stories, makers of personalized children's books.

0:28.5

Presented by Zapier, the AI Automation Company.

0:32.0

Ricardo, how many books have you created that are all AI generated, would you say?

0:36.9

Oof, many thousands, right?

0:39.3

We, we, in a sense, all of them are, I was going to try to say how to answer the question.

0:47.3

You know, each one of them is unique, right?

0:49.3

So that's why it's hard to be precise.

0:52.3

But yeah, but we've had, since we launched, we had about 70,000 characters created on the

0:58.2

platform.

0:59.3

And those are, those essentially, you know, each book, you know, includes up to three characters.

1:04.9

Some people like create multiple books with characters.

1:07.5

You know, some people get the entire series, like six books in one go.

1:11.3

And so, so yeah, so it's quite a big number. That's a lot. And all customized to the actual

1:17.8

customer who's getting it. How much revenue have you produced? Yeah, we're not talking about

1:22.9

revenue anymore. I think that when you talk about revenue, the story becomes like quite quickly

1:27.2

about like sort of, don't get me wrong, but kind of a get rich quick type of thing. Yes. Where in reality, I see that what the revenue we've had is kind of support of the larger vision we're trying to build. And so that's why I would like to focus on that instead. Can we just say get rich quick story here? Because I think that's going to power people up. Can we make it into a get rich quick story? No.

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Andrew Warner, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Andrew Warner and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.