How can we build technology that’s not only innovative, but truly safe for its users—especially in a world of rapid AI and crypto development? This episode of The Angel Next Door Podcast explores the critical intersection of safety, user empowerment, and digital progress in today’s tech landscape. Our guest, Karima Williams, is a leader in crypto and AI who has brought communities together, educated newcomers, and, following personal adversity, created Crash Out Diary—a wellness app designed to help people regulate emotions and find support online. In this wide-ranging conversation, you’ll learn about practical safety strategies for both crypto and AI applications, hear Karima’s vision for human-first technology, and get inspired by her drive to create tools that meet users where they are. If you care about the ethical side of tech and want real stories from the front lines, this episode is a must listen.
How can we build technology that’s not only innovative, but truly safe for its users—especially in a world of rapid AI and crypto development? This episode of The Angel Next Door Podcast explores the critical intersection of safety, user empowerment, and digital progress in today’s tech landscape.
Our guest, Karima Williams, is a leader in crypto and AI who has brought communities together, educated newcomers, and, following personal adversity, created Crash Out Diary—a wellness app designed to help people regulate emotions and find support online.
In this wide-ranging conversation, you’ll learn about practical safety strategies for both crypto and AI applications, hear Karima’s vision for human-first technology, and get inspired by her drive to create tools that meet users where they are. If you care about the ethical side of tech and want real stories from the front lines, this episode is a must listen.
To get the latest from Karima Williams, you can follow her below!
https://www.linkedin.com/in/idodigitalmedia/
https://www.crashoutdiary.xyz/
Sign up for Marcia's newsletter to receive tips and the latest on Angel Investing!
Website: www.marciadawood.com
Learn more about the documentary Show Her the Money: www.showherthemoneymovie.com
And don't forget to follow us wherever you are!
Apple Podcasts: https://pod.link/1586445642.apple
Spotify: https://pod.link/1586445642.spotify
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/angel-next-door-podcast/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theangelnextdoorpodcast/
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/theangelnextdoorpodcast/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@marciadawood
Marcia Dawood [00:00:02 - 00:00:05]:
[00:00:02] Well, Karima, welcome to the Angel Next Door podcast.
Karima Williams [00:00:06 - 00:00:08]:
[00:00:06] Thank you. [00:00:06] Thank you for having me on here. [00:00:07] It's exciting.
Marcia Dawood [00:00:08 - 00:00:28]:
[00:00:08] I know. [00:00:09] I'm really excited to talk to you. [00:00:10] Wow, you're like a wealth of knowledge. [00:00:12] We met at an event and I remember talking to you and thinking to myself, oh, my gosh, this woman knows so much about crypto, AI apps. [00:00:20] So we're going to talk about all of those things. [00:00:23] So start us off. [00:00:24] Tell us a little bit about your background and how you got to learn so much about all this.
Karima Williams [00:00:28 - 00:00:52]:
[00:00:28] Yeah, my background is. [00:00:30] I think the best way to describe it is that I've always been bridged between people and technology. [00:00:35] I'm definitely a people person. [00:00:37] I love people. [00:00:37] I could talk to strangers on the bus anywhere. [00:00:40] I'll let them talk me to death if they wanted to. [00:00:42] And my first, like, career job out of college was helping people get onboarded to Obamacare for D.C. [00:00:48] and actually started the digital program and got us on Twitter.
Karima Williams [00:00:52 - 00:01:23]:
[00:00:52] So we had to be on there because that's where people are. [00:00:54] And so that was always like a fun experience. [00:00:56] And then from that experience, I went into crypto because it was a meetup. [00:01:01] I wanted to work in tech and like, the meetup scene was really nice, like really robust in dc. [00:01:06] And so I started to go to meetups and I didn't like them, so I hosted meetups. [00:01:11] And then I. [00:01:12] They were horrible, but I was like, they could be better, this could be different. [00:01:15] And so I started to host them and a company named Consensys hired me to do it globally and specifically in the US area.
Karima Williams [00:01:23 - 00:02:03]:
[00:01:23] But I got to do some work globally and it was really fun. [00:01:27] And that again, was like a front facing consumer and community role where I focused on making crypto feel less challenging and feel less daunting for populations. [00:01:37] And so through crypto is how I got into AI, actually, because last year around this time, there was a really big boom between AI and crypto and AI agents. [00:01:47] And the conversation there was like, the biggest use case for crypto is having AI and the AI agents spend the money and all these kinds of things. [00:01:55] And it started my journey into AI in maybe 2024. [00:01:59] And I've been immersed in knee deep since. [00:02:03] Wow.
Marcia Dawood [00:02:04 - 00:02:08]:
[00:02:04] Okay, so wait, you have to tell us, like, how did you change the
Karima Williams [00:02:08 - 00:02:26]:
[00:02:08] meetups that so that they were better? [00:02:11] Yeah. [00:02:11] So there was this old dude, he was running them. [00:02:13] He was so cool. [00:02:14] His name is Richard. [00:02:16] I'll always be appreciative of Richard because he was running the D.C. [00:02:19] meetup. [00:02:19] And I started to run mine concurrently. [00:02:23] So if he had one, I would have another day because it was still like very unified.
Karima Williams [00:02:26 - 00:02:56]:
[00:02:26] It was. [00:02:27] I had a different flavor I wanted to bring to and his was like more happy hour oriented. [00:02:32] And then one day he was like, karima, do you want to run these meetups? [00:02:35] And I was like, yeah, because it also was like the biggest meetup group in the city. [00:02:40] And so mine's a little bit smaller, his was bigger. [00:02:42] And so I took his over and I started to just run it. [00:02:46] And at that time, it was a very like, I don't say fruitful, supple crowd. [00:02:52] Like, it was very easy to get sponsorships. [00:02:54] It was very easy to get like co.
Karima Williams [00:02:56 - 00:03:36]:
[00:02:56] Working spaces were booming, so it was easy to get a place and so coordinating. [00:03:00] Like at one point, I probably hosted like one meetup a week for a year by lie. [00:03:05] Oh my gosh, that's a lot. [00:03:06] It was intense, but it was also like super easy because there were like few coworking spots that I would just circle around. [00:03:13] There was this one law firm that loved sponsoring all the meetups, and the sponsorship would be like 2:50 to $500. [00:03:21] Nothing really crazy, really, like chips, beer, water. [00:03:24] And so like I was able to do that for a while. [00:03:26] And then I would bring different themes into it, like gaming or women in blockchain or trading or how to build a miner, how to do the software aspect.
Karima Williams [00:03:36 - 00:03:58]:
[00:03:36] And because I think one thing, like, online, the crypto community is rough. [00:03:41] They're a lot, they're intense, but in person, it's like a different vibe. [00:03:44] It's so different. [00:03:46] It's so open and welcoming and like nurturing almost. [00:03:50] And so that's why I was able to get people to collaborate and all sorts of kinds of things and get people to show up and have fun at the meetups.
Marcia Dawood [00:03:59 - 00:04:07]:
[00:03:59] That's cool. [00:04:00] So tell us more about how do we think about crypto? [00:04:04] How try to demystify it a little bit for us.
Karima Williams [00:04:07 - 00:04:58]:
[00:04:07] Yeah, it's so funny because working at an agency, like we were just talking to a client and they categorized a group of people we used to call people like crypto curious. [00:04:18] And those are people who were somewhat familiar, but like interested, maybe scared to dip. [00:04:23] But now, like, we've like changed it over to crypto aware. [00:04:26] People are aware that it exists and like over it, or maybe they would touch it. [00:04:31] And so I think that more so it's still Internet money, in my opinion is the easiest way to explain it. [00:04:38] And it's a way to do things with your money that you can't do with regular paper money as far as earning yield or locking it in a smart contract, which is like an if then statement. [00:04:48] If this person does this action, then the money does this. [00:04:51] And so it's like ways that creatively use money in a new kind of way that is not available with the standard dollar.
Marcia Dawood [00:04:59 - 00:05:00]:
[00:04:59] And can you give us a couple examples?
Karima Williams [00:05:01 - 00:05:51]:
[00:05:01] I think the best and easy example is probably this is good. [00:05:06] I want to think of something that's like useful, which is my favorite though it's a simple one. [00:05:10] It's like being able to earn yield. [00:05:11] Like the yield because you're usually like oh no, not earning yield. [00:05:16] I'm. [00:05:16] I'm going to say that staking could be a better example because yield is still basically the crypto banks having a lot of money, you putting money with them. [00:05:25] They could just offer you more yield because it's a different kind of system versus where if you're staking you are basically contributing some computing power to the blockchain and you're saying, hey, here's some computing power, here's some of my tokens to use so that you can verify transactions in the correct way. [00:05:43] And because you're like, because you're using my computing power to verify transactions in the correct way, I'm able to get a little bit of a kickback and that is called staking.
Karima Williams [00:05:52 - 00:06:18]:
[00:05:52] You can. [00:05:53] Staking has been with. [00:05:54] It used to be really popular with Ethereum. [00:05:56] Since then they've changed from, from proof of work to proof of stake. [00:06:00] So now it is, but it's not as popular because it's more expensive. [00:06:03] Like at one point you need to have 32 Ethereum to really like do staking and be able to get like a big cut. [00:06:11] But that has been like, I think a really simple esque use case. [00:06:17] I try to make something as simple as possible.
Karima Williams [00:06:19 - 00:06:21]:
[00:06:19] I realized I haven't really explained some of these in a while.
Marcia Dawood [00:06:22 - 00:06:22]:
[00:06:22] Yeah.
Karima Williams [00:06:22 - 00:06:35]:
[00:06:22] Because many people just focus on what can you get now, which is the yields from places like Coinbase and different wallets, even different smaller crypto wallets will offer you a yield for keeping your dollars there.
Marcia Dawood [00:06:36 - 00:06:41]:
[00:06:36] Interesting. [00:06:37] So how does it work if somebody's, I've never done this before, what do they, where do they go?
Karima Williams [00:06:41 - 00:07:35]:
[00:06:41] What do they do if someone's never done it before? [00:06:44] I always recommend Coinbase just because Coinbase is tried and true. [00:06:49] They're in regulations, they're held responsible or more so in cahoots with the government. [00:06:56] And with that dispute they have more responsibility and they do take it seriously. [00:07:00] I've just watched them over the years and I would say the first thing that you should do is take $100 and put it on Coinbase and earn yield and just see yourself see your account increase over time. [00:07:12] I think the Yield is like 4%, which is a lot higher than you would maybe at another high yield saving account at Burger Bank. [00:07:19] And once you see that, that's like kind of your gateway to start to explore other assets. [00:07:24] But I would always say be curious and learn. [00:07:27] Attend an event if you can, because there will be someone there who break it down for you in your own language, in your own terms, in your own world.
Karima Williams [00:07:35 - 00:08:16]:
[00:07:35] If you're a hairdresser, you're a race car driver, anything you are, someone can figure out a way to explain it to you. [00:07:41] And I think that's a better way of acquiring information from other people versus online. [00:07:47] Because online is just so much more noisy than it was before in the past. [00:07:52] And there are a lot more people that are more willing to scam than not now. [00:07:57] There are still like some channels like on YouTube and some people who are putting out quality information. [00:08:04] But I do think that it's just best to learn from other people and to go to events, to. [00:08:09] To see how you want to go further into it. [00:08:11] Because there's lots of ways that you can dig deeper than just having a standard coinbase account that earns you yield.
Marcia Dawood [00:08:17 - 00:08:21]:
[00:08:17] So some. [00:08:18] Because there's tons and tons of different types of coins nowadays, right?
Karima Williams [00:08:21 - 00:08:48]:
[00:08:21] There's like thousands and thousands, probably millions of different kinds of coins. [00:08:27] Coinmarketcap.com is one way to explore those coins. [00:08:31] So if someone ever tells you, oh, get this coin, you can go to coinmarketcap.com you can look up the coin, you can see the history of it, the price, the exchanges that it's listed on, and you can legitimize it that way before doing anything crazy or like going down a rabbit hole.
Marcia Dawood [00:08:49 - 00:08:58]:
[00:08:49] Yeah. [00:08:49] Wow, that's good advice because, yeah, we don't want people to just haphazardly go and try to buy stuff, right?
Karima Williams [00:08:58 - 00:09:40]:
[00:08:58] Absolutely not. [00:08:59] I learned it the hard way. [00:09:01] It's easy to buy into hype cycles. [00:09:03] It feels euphoric almost to get into a hype cycle. [00:09:07] But when there is something on the news that's being talked about over and over again or that's popular that you like, how NFTs like an art on the blockchain and art and crypto was very popular, so everybody was buying them in 2020, in 2021. [00:09:23] And now they're like worthless and Everybody said they would be worthless, but in the moment, all is that this dude's account went from this to this. [00:09:30] And so you're like, I want some of that. [00:09:32] You buy into a hype cycle, and then if you are not trained as a trader and knowing about trading assets that you set yourself up for failure.
Karima Williams [00:09:41 - 00:10:00]:
[00:09:41] This is a very emotional thing that's happening. [00:09:43] You're feeling something, excitement, and usually when you feel that way, you don't want to let go of the feeling, so you don't sell in time, and then you lose your money. [00:09:51] And so most people don't understand that because this is their first exposure to participating in a financial market outside of being a consumer worker. [00:10:00] Right.
Marcia Dawood [00:10:01 - 00:10:09]:
[00:10:01] Wow. [00:10:02] Huh. [00:10:03] So then how did you transition from crypto over to really spending more of your time in AI?
Karima Williams [00:10:10 - 00:10:18]:
[00:10:10] Yeah, I transitioned because I was working at a defi protocol that focused on synthetic options. [00:10:16] So I got like, deep into the rabbit holes.
Marcia Dawood [00:10:18 - 00:10:21]:
[00:10:18] I was gonna say, wow, you just said a lot of words I don't understand.
Karima Williams [00:10:21 - 00:10:40]:
[00:10:21] Yeah, like decentralized finance protocol and options trading. [00:10:25] I was new to options trading when I started to work on protocol and synthetic options. [00:10:29] Just basically pretend. [00:10:31] It's like, basically you're getting pretend money to bet on whether the price of an asset will go up or down. [00:10:37] And when I really. [00:10:38] Risky. [00:10:39] Super. [00:10:39] Yeah, options are.
Karima Williams [00:10:40 - 00:11:04]:
[00:10:40] Options. [00:10:41] Trading in general is just risky. [00:10:43] And that's why synthetic options was actually less risky, because you're not actually using the asset. [00:10:47] You're using, like a synthetic version of the asset. [00:10:50] So you're like, playing around with it. [00:10:51] But then the day company failed, but it's a startup. [00:10:54] And so after that, I moved on to teaching, just going back to what I like to do, which was teaching crypto. [00:11:01] And I would go and explore what was going on.
Karima Williams [00:11:04 - 00:11:55]:
[00:11:04] And I just see my goal was like, what can I refer to my friends? [00:11:07] What can I, like, look at and say, hey, like, you should use this and not feel embarrassed about or not to, like, overly explain it. [00:11:15] And I ended up coming up on AI agents, and I had at that point, I already was using Claude and chat casually or, like, for work or just not as heavy as I began to be. [00:11:28] And when I learned an agent, which is like an AI that can. [00:11:33] The best way I feel like I could describe it is make take action. [00:11:38] So like a workflow is if this happens and that happens, if they send an email, then this happens, and then this triggers. [00:11:44] In this spreadsheet or whatever, an agent can take action on its own without having to be triggered. [00:11:50] My workflow When I learned about agents, I thought they were super cool. [00:11:54] I tried to build my own agent.
Karima Williams [00:11:56 - 00:12:10]:
[00:11:56] I was teaching that live on livestream. [00:11:58] And that's how I started to transition more and more to heavily getting into AI because I had to educate myself about what this agent like, thing was about and like, why would I use it and why was it so cool?
Marcia Dawood [00:12:10 - 00:12:12]:
[00:12:10] So give us an example.
Karima Williams [00:12:13 - 00:12:48]:
[00:12:13] And the best example is like those bots that can reply on Twitter so they can like reply contextually to. [00:12:20] They waned out now, but at one point they could reply contextually to you on Twitter. [00:12:25] That's an old example. [00:12:26] I think now it's just gotten crazy. [00:12:29] Every day there's a new dang on update that is happening. [00:12:33] But another example is I have an agent that searches for grant opportunities based off of a criteria and then sends me a update once a week. [00:12:43] And then I can reply to it. [00:12:44] And if I reply to it and say I'm interested, it'll draft the.
Karima Williams [00:12:48 - 00:12:53]:
[00:12:48] The application for me. [00:12:50] So it's crazy.
Marcia Dawood [00:12:53 - 00:12:53]:
[00:12:53] Yeah.
Karima Williams [00:12:53 - 00:12:54]:
[00:12:53] Yeah.
Marcia Dawood [00:12:55 - 00:12:58]:
[00:12:55] Huh. [00:12:56] Now did you have to create the agent?
Karima Williams [00:12:59 - 00:13:35]:
[00:12:59] Yeah, but like now. [00:13:00] So I would say a year ago you would have to know how to code or you would have to know how to use like workflow platforms, but now you can just like the way that I built that agent was through a text message through this other, like one other tool I was using. [00:13:16] So I was just texting the tool. [00:13:18] We were talking, I was talking to it about grants, and then I was like, you know what, I should build a criteria. [00:13:23] And I said, well, create an agent. [00:13:24] So I had to tell it to create an agent that does X, Y and Z. [00:13:29] And then after, based on that, it has a schedule that it follows and it. [00:13:34] I can change it at any time.
Karima Williams [00:13:35 - 00:13:59]:
[00:13:35] I can stop at any time. [00:13:37] It's not that expensive to run it. [00:13:38] Maybe every time it runs, it's like a dollar. [00:13:41] And to me that's like very valuable because it like automatically is looking and searching for grants based off of a criteria. [00:13:47] So I say, I can't move from my home. [00:13:49] I'm a black woman, I'm this age. [00:13:52] And it'll be like, oh, or because you're this. [00:13:54] It's finding things that specifically fit that I can have a higher likely to do well on.
Karima Williams [00:13:59 - 00:14:22]:
[00:13:59] And agents are really like, I feel like going to be something that will be normalized into people's lifestyles, like very soon because it's becoming very easy to use them versus before it was like more complex and more scary. [00:14:11] And now like, I can translate it into an Everyday use case that can help like anyone with what they're doing or business owners especially entrepreneurs especially.
Marcia Dawood [00:14:22 - 00:14:26]:
[00:14:22] So like you can't go on to ChatGPT right now and make an agent.
Karima Williams [00:14:26 - 00:14:54]:
[00:14:26] You could they have Agentix so you could like put something on a schedule. [00:14:30] I don't think it would be as strong. [00:14:33] I know Claude is really like leading the way when it comes to it. [00:14:37] With Claude you could. [00:14:38] They have the new cowork feature where it's. [00:14:41] It basically has agents and sub agents inside of one chat. [00:14:45] So one has a task and it'll give others a task so it can complete one thing at a time. [00:14:52] An example is I was going to make a.
Karima Williams [00:14:54 - 00:15:30]:
[00:14:54] I'm going to make a YouTube video about how to onboard to Claude. [00:14:57] So it gave me a script and at the same time it gave me LinkedIn post and it gave me threads and Instagram script and copy but all in different posts with the different kind of directions and different instructions that I had for each. [00:15:12] And they did it like in two minutes. [00:15:14] It was crazy. [00:15:14] I did this morning. [00:15:15] That's an example of like how sub agents can work. [00:15:18] And I think the safest tool right now is Claude and Claude cowork when you want to do stuff as agentic or to your best ability. [00:15:28] There's also something called Open Claw.
Karima Williams [00:15:31 - 00:15:59]:
[00:15:31] I haven't even dug into that because there's. [00:15:34] Sometimes it's too much. [00:15:35] There's too much AI things going on. [00:15:37] Be good at what you're good at and be confident. [00:15:39] And also open Claws open source. [00:15:41] So you had to understand more security parameters around what you do. [00:15:47] There was, I think the head of a head of safety at Meta gave open call access to her emails and it deleted all of her emails and she was like stop. [00:15:57] And it was like it didn't automatically do it.
Karima Williams [00:15:59 - 00:16:24]:
[00:15:59] So you have to have a. [00:16:02] Just a different kind of knowledge to be able to operate brand new tools and then also a risk tolerance to be able to operate those tools because they do make mistakes. [00:16:11] They're not perfect but that is another one that's like really popular. [00:16:15] The person who created it, OpenAI just actually hired him to work for them. [00:16:19] So I'm sure that they will be incorporating more agent type of stuff in their platform too.
Marcia Dawood [00:16:25 - 00:16:30]:
[00:16:25] Interesting. [00:16:25] And so why do you like Claude over like Perplexity or Chad or whatever?
Karima Williams [00:16:30 - 00:17:00]:
[00:16:30] Yeah, I, it's so funny because one of my friends like kept telling me to use it and I was like, hey, I was already. [00:16:36] But I was comfortable with Chad's like I'm fine here. [00:16:39] She just Kept telling me and I was like, you, do you work for them? [00:16:41] And eventually I tried it out and I was like, oh, okay. [00:16:46] It's a lot. [00:16:47] I would say chat is. [00:16:48] ChatGPT is like the Cliff Notes and Claude is like the full book with citations. [00:16:53] It's more thoughtful and it's. [00:16:56] It challenges your thoughts sometimes or challenges why you're making the decisions that you're making.
Karima Williams [00:17:01 - 00:17:49]:
[00:17:01] And I ended up using it as a technical partner to build Crash Out Diary. [00:17:05] And I will basically go in and talk to it about what I was trying to build. [00:17:09] It would tell me like, I remember one day I wanted to build a new feature or something and it was like, but don't you have this to do? [00:17:14] And I was like, well, I was like, yeah, you're right, I should prioritize what I'm supposed to prioritize. [00:17:22] But it was so funny to see that it can reflect back on me by my main goal, which was to get this thing done. [00:17:29] And it could also help reflect back to me that I was being distracted by this other thing. [00:17:34] And so I really did appreciate that about it. [00:17:37] And then over time, the more I learned about Anthropic, they seem to prioritize safety more than any other major AI company. [00:17:46] And that is like a part of their constitution, a part of what they talk about.
Karima Williams [00:17:50 - 00:18:19]:
[00:17:50] They just stood 10 toes down against the Department of Defense yesterday where they Department of Defense wanted to use anthropic model for a mass surveillance. [00:18:00] And they were like, no. [00:18:01] And I was really wondering what was going to happen there. [00:18:04] It was scary to be strong armed by the government, I'm sure, because they did have a $200 million contract with them. [00:18:10] And so I do to put my energy into companies that are, that clearly are human first, even if it's an AI company.
Marcia Dawood [00:18:19 - 00:18:19]:
[00:18:19] Yeah.
Karima Williams [00:18:19 - 00:18:20]:
[00:18:19] Wow.
Marcia Dawood [00:18:20 - 00:18:25]:
[00:18:20] Okay, so you brought up Crash Out Diary. [00:18:22] Tell us what made you want to build this app.
Karima Williams [00:18:26 - 00:19:08]:
[00:18:26] Yeah. [00:18:26] Crash Out Diary was a child of my divorce and like not having access to health care. [00:18:33] Honestly, I was divorced. [00:18:35] I was working for my ex husband and so when we broke up, I no longer had a job and then I no longer had health insurance and so I had to make it on my own. [00:18:45] And I, I had an emotional regulation coach at the time and she would help me basically identify bigger themes of my. [00:18:54] Around my behavior and patterns and my thinking processes and help me process them. [00:18:59] And I had all of our call transcripts, so I uploaded them to a cloud project. [00:19:06] And a cloud project is basically like a container for information.
Karima Williams [00:19:09 - 00:19:36]:
[00:19:09] Think of it like a way to if you were to hire, intern and onboard them, you would give them documentation to read up on. [00:19:15] It's the same way a cloud project works, except for it will always reference that data and documentation. [00:19:22] So it has a knowledge base to work from. [00:19:24] And so that's what I would use that. [00:19:27] And I would talk to it and I'd be like, okay, I gotta think through this. [00:19:29] Cause I was so heartbroken trying to find a new job. [00:19:32] Still a mother had to manage everything. [00:19:35] And it was intense.
Karima Williams [00:19:36 - 00:19:54]:
[00:19:36] And it helped me through a lot of moments where I wanted to share with other people. [00:19:40] Like, I know I'm not the only one going through this. [00:19:42] I want other people to just experience it and just see how it is. [00:19:45] Almost like how my friend was towards me to try cloud. [00:19:49] I was like, you should try this project. [00:19:50] You should really try it out. [00:19:52] And I couldn't share. [00:19:53] You can't.
Karima Williams [00:19:54 - 00:20:37]:
[00:19:54] Like, projects are just in your account. [00:19:56] You cannot share them. [00:19:58] If you have a team account, you can, but that's still closed because then people leaving your team and that's just not the right format. [00:20:05] And so when I built Crash Out Diary, it was like a very thin, lightweight version of the project in a fun app form of a mini app. [00:20:14] So it was basically a way to release your thoughts, be validated, and play a fun game. [00:20:20] And have more fun with troubling emotions than saying them out loud or regretting them or posting on the line and regretting them. [00:20:28] I really wanted people to have a way to not feel shame about what they were doing and have like somewhere to store. [00:20:36] Store their stuff online.
Karima Williams [00:20:37 - 00:20:46]:
[00:20:37] Well, not store their stuff online, but somewhere to place the emotions and take it away from their reaction so they wouldn't do something they would regret.
Marcia Dawood [00:20:46 - 00:20:49]:
[00:20:46] So how does it work? [00:20:47] People open the app and what do they do?
Karima Williams [00:20:50 - 00:21:25]:
[00:20:50] Yeah, right now it's in the app store or also it's the website. [00:20:54] And so they go to the website or the app store and they go through a ritual. [00:20:59] And the ritual is you pick a issue that you're dealing with, love, life, work. [00:21:04] You pick a companion that you want to hear from. [00:21:07] So you want to hear, if you want to hear, if you want to laugh, you would go to the sassy best friend Persona. [00:21:13] If you want a hard truth, you would go to the guy friend Persona. [00:21:17] And if you want it like something more empathetic, there's like a big sis Persona there. [00:21:22] And so you pick one and then you just say how you feel.
Karima Williams [00:21:25 - 00:21:47]:
[00:21:25] You can say, I hate him so much for blah, blah, blah, or I'm really upset because this happened at work and I don't even know how to deal with it. [00:21:32] Right. [00:21:32] I feel small. [00:21:33] And it sends you a message back that says, hey, I see you, I hear you. [00:21:38] Or the most popular character picked is actually called Chaos Twin and I still want to talk trash with you. [00:21:44] So people will pick that one. [00:21:46] It'll talk trash. [00:21:47] Or.
Karima Williams [00:21:47 - 00:22:08]:
[00:21:47] So it's at their job. [00:21:48] Let's go take a walk. [00:21:49] But it'll say something of that nature. [00:21:51] And once you're done and you get the message back from the AI, the app will redirect you to do an activity. [00:21:56] It'll say, are you so angry or do you want to calm down? [00:22:00] If you want to calm down, you can do a breathing exercise. [00:22:04] And if you're so angry, you can tap and break a phone and be at. [00:22:08] And after. [00:22:08] That's the end.
Karima Williams [00:22:08 - 00:22:21]:
[00:22:08] It's like the end screen. [00:22:09] And it sounds long, but it's really quick. [00:22:11] It's like you type a message, you get something back, and then you either tap, tap, tap away or you do a breathing exercise. [00:22:17] And that was like the base, like very first MVP version of it.
Marcia Dawood [00:22:22 - 00:22:24]:
[00:22:22] Nice. [00:22:23] So who's using it mainly?
Karima Williams [00:22:25 - 00:22:48]:
[00:22:25] So funny you say that. [00:22:26] I built it for me. [00:22:27] I built it for my friends. [00:22:28] I thought it was funny. [00:22:29] But then I posted online and it picked up really well with high schoolers and college students. [00:22:36] Yeah, my main age Range is about 14 to 21 on the app. [00:22:42] Know this because I've. [00:22:44] So through the app, we've had about 60,000 users since it started.
Karima Williams [00:22:48 - 00:23:11]:
[00:22:48] And yeah, it. [00:22:50] When it went viral, it really went viral and people kept using it and they kept coming back and through. [00:22:56] So when it went viral, it was just me. [00:22:58] So I had to build out features as it was getting traction, which was so stressful. [00:23:03] Yeah, I didn't log in. [00:23:04] I had to find someone on Fiverr, help me build a login. [00:23:07] Because now those things are like, you can just prompt it. [00:23:10] But last year you couldn't.
Karima Williams [00:23:11 - 00:23:37]:
[00:23:11] You couldn't prompt everything the way you can now. [00:23:13] So I had to build as I go. [00:23:15] So, like, I would build out certain things out over time. [00:23:18] I built something called a fault, which gives the user an account and they can save their crash outs. [00:23:24] So far because you can also do this anonymously. [00:23:27] You can go through the whole process. [00:23:28] Nothing is saved, you know, on you, that's a big part of it. [00:23:32] But if you don't want to and you want to save your crash outs over like 5,000 people created accounts.
Karima Williams [00:23:38 - 00:24:13]:
[00:23:38] And from that there are 28,000 saved crash outs. [00:23:41] Wow. [00:23:42] They're coming back. [00:23:43] And from that data, that's anonymized. [00:23:46] I learned from the data and I see that, like a common thing that people go through is that, like, they have school issue, best friend drama, parent pressure testing, new job. [00:23:58] All those issues really correlate with that certain age range of high school and all the way to fresh out of college. [00:24:05] Got my first new job. [00:24:06] There are some outliers of people my age in between that, but the bulk, majority of it is in that age range.
Marcia Dawood [00:24:13 - 00:24:15]:
[00:24:13] Interesting. [00:24:14] Wow.
Karima Williams [00:24:16 - 00:24:17]:
[00:24:16] Crash outs.
Marcia Dawood [00:24:17 - 00:24:22]:
[00:24:17] I like that they. [00:24:20] So what's the vision for it then?
Karima Williams [00:24:23 - 00:24:56]:
[00:24:23] The vision is to build a safe space online to be able to regulate emotions with an app. [00:24:29] The vision also is to put a human in the loop. [00:24:33] And so I've been experimenting with what this looks like realistically. [00:24:37] And so one thing that the app will have is like an emergency contact. [00:24:40] And it could be anybody, just like a safe person. [00:24:43] And the person will be alerted if, like, you reach a score that is a certain level. [00:24:48] So say you're crashing out and it's like getting to a point where you are. [00:24:54] It's sounding like maybe suicidal or homicidal.
Karima Williams [00:24:56 - 00:25:22]:
[00:24:56] Well, we don't want that one. [00:24:57] Right? [00:24:58] But it can happen. [00:24:59] It would be really, like, naive of me to think that won't happen, that someone won't get that far, because crashing out is a crisis moment. [00:25:07] So it would log you out the app and then pop your human up and be like, okay, can you contact this human? [00:25:12] So there are certain things that I want to put in. [00:25:14] There is intervention, but my goal is to meet people where they are. [00:25:17] This is a digital age. [00:25:18] This is. [00:25:19] This age group has really been raised on apps.
Karima Williams [00:25:22 - 00:25:51]:
[00:25:22] And so I want to provide them a safe space of, like, where they already know and then contextualize it and help them become, like, better regulated themselves. [00:25:30] And so the app is just has a ritual. [00:25:32] And I'm introducing a companion chat, but I haven't yet because I just want to be able to have safety guardrails on it. [00:25:38] And it has many games. [00:25:39] Like, it has tapping games. [00:25:41] You can scream into the phone. [00:25:43] It has a few meditations, which are meditations with cursing in it. [00:25:46] Because the idea is it meets you in this intense moment in your own language, and then it brings you down.
Karima Williams [00:25:51 - 00:26:39]:
[00:25:51] Because profanity is one of the main types of like, also language used in the app. [00:25:55] People are cursing people out all the time. [00:25:58] The idea is you meet them in a language exactly where they are, so they feel more compelled to calm down and ground themselves. [00:26:05] That's the idea of the meditations that are in the app. [00:26:08] And I want to basically expand those mini games and incentivize like gamify playing them because they become like the exercises and the things that you do to interrupt the pattern that you have. [00:26:19] So instead of like when you go crash out, you lash out on someone, you may just play this mini game or instead of posting something online that you're most likely going to regret, you may post it in the app instead. [00:26:32] And so that my goal is to help people redirect the behavior little by little. [00:26:37] 1% a month would be huge.
Karima Williams [00:26:40 - 00:26:41]:
[00:26:40] To help people get better.
Marcia Dawood [00:26:41 - 00:26:47]:
[00:26:41] Yeah. [00:26:42] Wow. [00:26:43] And so you just made this because you wanted it for yourself?
Karima Williams [00:26:47 - 00:27:10]:
[00:26:47] Basically, I wanted to. [00:26:49] I had it for myself of claw and I wanted to share it with the world. [00:26:51] And then I wanted to, I wanted more. [00:26:54] I wanted to have an agent like that text me when I wanted to have it check on me. [00:26:59] I wanted to have more structure around like reaching a goal. [00:27:03] So if I have different Personas. [00:27:05] So if the person is self critical, it may prompt you to okay, hey. [00:27:10] When you're.
Karima Williams [00:27:10 - 00:27:33]:
[00:27:10] So it educates you when you're self critical. [00:27:12] This is like your brain hating on yourself. [00:27:15] So almost in your own language. [00:27:16] And then it goes from that to, okay, tell me three nice things about yourself or three things that you did for yourself today. [00:27:22] And it helps you contextualize and practice these tools. [00:27:26] And so I wanted a way to practice more in real time. [00:27:29] And so that's why I started to build more into Crash out Diary than just having the ritual.
Marcia Dawood [00:27:34 - 00:27:42]:
[00:27:34] Yeah. [00:27:34] Wow. [00:27:35] And what about HIPAA and liability about people's health? [00:27:40] Actual mental health?
Karima Williams [00:27:43 - 00:28:02]:
[00:27:43] Yeah. [00:27:43] So that's huge. [00:27:44] One of the things is that for hipaa, I am not store. [00:27:48] I got a mental health. [00:27:49] Like it's a wellness app technically. [00:27:51] And so I'm like, as long as the data is stored in a proper way, then I'm fine. [00:27:56] The data is stored locally on their phones, so they have any opportunity to delete it. [00:28:00] We don't like save it.
Karima Williams [00:28:02 - 00:28:48]:
[00:28:02] Another thing, what we do, if they save it to the crash vault, we do, but it's anonymized. [00:28:07] I don't know who said what. [00:28:08] I just know what was said and that helps me have the safety agent in place. [00:28:13] Also, it's not for people under the age of 13, so if they're under 13, they can't use the app. [00:28:18] It. [00:28:18] I can't. [00:28:19] I don't have like official way of blocking it, but it says it in terms of conditions in like the Preview or the onboarding, because there becomes a whole new world of regulations that comes with people under the age of 13. [00:28:31] And then right now, it's a lot of stuff happening, like in California, in different states, where they are focusing on, like, crunching down on chat bots, which is why I haven't just dropped mine into the wild yet, because I'm working with some, like, startup.
Karima Williams [00:28:48 - 00:29:42]:
[00:28:48] It's just me right now and two other people. [00:28:50] And so working with some more professional developers to help me build the safety guardrails into it that are being considered, that are being, like, flagged by professionals and then still, like, keeping the language of wellness. [00:29:03] But that's also why it's important to wrap the mini games into it and the gamification taking more than about a chatbot, but just about a new kind of ritual that someone does. [00:29:13] And so that's, like, how I think about it as far as regulations and safety goes, because it's going to get cracked down on in some kind of way. [00:29:21] But then there's still companies like company ash just raised $93 million to work in the. [00:29:26] I know, right? [00:29:27] I just found out the other day. [00:29:28] I was like, what? [00:29:28] But it's good context for me to understand that it's still movement there. [00:29:32] It's just that, like, how are they positioning and why are they saying what they're saying? [00:29:36] How do they get away with this? [00:29:37] Because that's huge dollars to a chatbot company and it's brand new.
Karima Williams [00:29:42 - 00:30:01]:
[00:29:42] Right? [00:29:43] And theirs is 100% mental health. [00:29:45] 100% going for the therapist position. [00:29:48] I'm not. [00:29:49] I'm like, hey, share these notes with your therapist. [00:29:52] Use this in between therapy. [00:29:54] So that's also a position that I take. [00:29:56] This is a tool for you to use. [00:29:58] It's not a replacement, and it's not intended to be a replacement.
Marcia Dawood [00:30:02 - 00:30:19]:
[00:30:02] Interesting. [00:30:02] Wow. [00:30:03] Well, Karima, you are doing some amazing stuff, and thank you so much for coming on the show today and telling us all about it. [00:30:10] We learned a lot about AI and chatbots and crypto and apps and crashing out, so I love it. [00:30:18] Thanks for coming.
Karima Williams [00:30:19 - 00:30:21]:
[00:30:19] Thanks for having me. [00:30:20] I appreciate it.