Lina Colucci, Lemon Slice & The Power of AI Video

In partnership with

Lina & Her 3-Person Team (Lemon Slice)

Lina Colucci and her two co-founders at Lemon Slice launched something wild last week: a real-time audio-video chat model that renders a fully animated avatar—pixel by pixel—at 25fps, directly in your browser. You upload a photo. It talks back. In real time.

If that sounds like something only a well-funded lab like OpenAI or Character AI could pull off… well, that’s the point. It was.

But Lemon Slice is just three people.

No $100M war chest. No sprawling engineering org. Just sharp tools, open models, rented GPUs, and a clear goal: build the best video foundation model in the world.

And they beat Character AI to market with it.

The Pattern: Small Teams, Fast Models, Big Wins

Here’s what’s happening—and why it matters for every micropreneur reading this:

1. AI is collapsing the moat of scale.

What used to take a full-stack team of 50 now takes a few focused builders. With diffusion models, open-source codebases, and rented infrastructure, a three-person crew can ship what a 100-person company planned.

2. Speed is leverage.

Small teams aren’t winning despite being small—they’re winning because they’re small. No politics. No overhead. No six-month product reviews. Just build, test, ship, repeat.

3. Character beats capital.

While others are focused on avatars that are “photoreal,” Lemon Slice focused on making them feel real—emotive, expressive, and alive. That’s a creative decision, not a funding one. And it’s the kind that builds brand gravity.

Micro Move of the Week

Explore the edge cases where your small size is a superpower. Lemon Slice didn’t try to outspend or outscale—they out-thought. They saw a gap in real-time AI interaction and filled it before the giants could organize their meeting agendas. What could you ship faster or differently than your bigger competitors? Where can speed, soul, and surprise beat budget?

Slicing Pie: A Working Metaphor

Think of AI like a giant pie that everyone’s trying to carve up. Big companies want to bake the whole thing and control the kitchen. Small teams? They’re just quietly slicing off the most flavorful pieces before anyone else gets to the table. Lemon Slice didn’t try to build everything—they picked one slice: expressive, real-time video chat. And they nailed it.

💡 What to Watch

• Lemon Slice's “Live” product is public—try it for yourself and pay attention to the emotion in the avatars. It’s subtle, but it’s sticky.

• YC-backed solo or duo AI startups are launching weekly now. Follow the speed. Watch the craft.

• We’re entering a phase where storytelling and personality matter just as much as tech. That’s a micro brand’s arena.

Stay Small. Move Smart.

The rise of micro-AI teams isn’t a trend. It’s the next normal. So if you’re building something with three friends and a rented GPU—keep going. You're not behind. You're exactly on time.