This Week in Startups · Monday, August 3, 2026
Akemi Tsunagawa, founder of Bespoke, revealed that her company initially faked AI chatbot interactions with human employees to demonstrate market demand for the service. This "fake it till you make it" approach was used because investors were skeptical about AI communication in 2015, before the widespread adoption of technologies like ChatGPT. The strategy helped Bespoke secure a crucial partnership with Narita Airport.
“Uh, we did a lot of uh test run, right? We also had human, including myself, chat with people, uh, pretending to be about.”
“You faked it? Yes. Yes. Multiple occasions. Yes.”
“And this is important. You have to do things that don't scale as Paul Graham would say at Y Combinator. And it's a good insight to have the human in the loop because you learn.”