Where Creativity, AI, and Business Innovation Converge – Interview with Mann Patel

Mann Patel | Mxnn is the Founder and CEO of MxnnCreates, a high-end digital studio behind immersive, interactive brand experiences. He is also the founder of Sylzo, creator of ACI (Artificial Creativity Intelligence), and serves as CTO at Orphiqe. His work sits at the intersection of creativity, AI, and modern business, focused on building systems that make originality measurable and scalable. In his writing, he covers creative intelligence, digital innovation, and the shifting economics of attention.

Mann Patel (Mxnn), Serial Entrepreneur

Who is Mann Patel?

Mann Patel | Mxnn is a founder and creative executive known for turning creativity into repeatable systems. He is the CEO and founder of MxnnCreates, the CEO and founder of Sylzo, and the creator of MxnnDirective, a startup incubator scheduled to release in 2026. His work focuses on creative direction and building internal “thinking frameworks” that help teams stop overthinking and start thinking differently. Mann has been recognized as the #1 Youngest CEO worldwide by ICON, his company has been featured on Gary Vaynerchuk’s YouTube channel, and was ranked among the Top 50 profiles on Crunchbase.

What inspired you to start MxnnCreates and shift the way digital experiences are built?

MxnnCreates started in 2022 when I was still a teenager in school, building Shopify sites for clothing brands that did not look like anything else on the market. I was mixing 3D and interactive elements into work that most people still treated like a static brochure.

What pushed me to start it was simple. I kept seeing people charge six figures for websites that barely ran on mobile, looked generic, and felt like they were built on autopilot. It made no sense to me that “expensive” had become a synonym for “lazy.”

So I set a different standard. I wanted websites to be treated like canvases, not templates. The goal was to raise the creative ceiling and make digital experiences feel intentional, immersive, and worth someone’s attention.

The moment I knew it was working was in school at lunch, sitting alone, looking at my phone, and seeing business owners trying to schedule meetings with me. I had never even been on a sales call in my life, but I was already closing people running companies three times older than me.

How would you describe your philosophy of True Creativity™ to someone new to your work?

True Creativity™ exists because “creativity” got turned into a marketing synonym people throw on anything. To me, True Creativity™ is a stricter standard. It is a stamp of real, human-made originality, like the Geneva seal in watches. It is not about looking cool. It is about effort, intention, and ideas that could not have come from a template.

True Creativity™ is not WordPress templates, not a buzzword, and not AI-generated slop. AI can help speed up parts of work, but True Creativity™ requires a human to make the decisions, take the risks, and put the taste on the line.

My simplest test is this: if the idea feels unexpected, but instantly obvious in hindsight, and you can tell a real human had to fight for it, it passes. If it feels like it could have been auto-generated or copy pasted from what already exists, it fails.

You can see True Creativity™ in moments like the first iPhone or landing a man on the moon. Not because they were “innovative” as a word, but because humans pushed past what was normal and made something that redefined the standard.

What problem are you most passionate about solving for businesses with your services?

I care most about helping serial entrepreneurs and young founders who move fast and build constantly. A lot of them get trapped early, not by competition, but by bad infrastructure. They sign contracts with mediocre developers who charge monthly forever and effectively hold a weak site hostage. It kills momentum, credibility, and speed.

What we do is remove that bottleneck. After we step in, the brand instantly looks established. The business feels trustworthy, the founder stops bleeding time, and their online presence finally matches the ambition of what they are building.

Long term, the goal is money. More sales, higher deal size, higher conversion, more leverage. The difference is we get there through credibility and execution, and we do it far faster than most teams.

I also protect the standard. Clients can have opinions, but if an idea is garbage, we deny it. People come to Mxnn for creative direction, not permission to dilute the work.

In simple terms, how can an immersive, custom web experience transform a brand’s online presence?

In the first five seconds, the feeling should be shock and interest. Not confusion. Not “nice.” Shock in a good way, like someone just walked into something different than every other site they have seen that week.

I have seen this play out in real rooms. I was on a call with one of the biggest accounting firms in Dubai and within the first minute the person leading the call told me their entire boardroom was addicted to the hero effects on our site. They kept interacting with it like a game, kept learning, and ended up spending over 20 minutes on a section most people scroll past in two seconds. By the end, around 20 people were speechless.

That reaction creates a business outcome most companies are starving for. Memorability. The brand gets implanted. When someone hears “website,” they think Mxnn. And we replicate that same effect for our clients. When someone thinks “dog training,” the mind should snap back to the feeling of that one dog training site they interacted with and cannot forget.

Generic sites are template-driven. They are built to be acceptable. Immersive custom experiences are built to be remembered.

What makes your approach to AI (like ACI at Sylzo) different from traditional AI tools?

Traditional AI is built to produce “good enough” output quickly. It’s automation-first. It helps people move faster, but it also makes everything start to sound the same.

ACI is different because it is creativity-first. It is designed to help humans find sharper angles, original ideas, and choices that actually have taste behind them. It is deliberately narrow on purpose: it protects standards instead of trying to do everything.

If ACI generates something generic, that’s not a win. That’s a failure. The goal is the opposite of mass output. The goal is one idea that makes someone stop, smirk, and remember.

Who are your ideal clients, and how do you tailor your work to their goals?

My ideal clients are founders and operators who need credibility fast and understand that perception is a growth lever. That includes serial entrepreneurs, high-visibility creators turning attention into real businesses, and teams who treat their website like a core asset, not a box to check.

I tailor every build around the real goal, not the surface request. Most people ask for a “website,” but what they actually need is trust, clarity, and a reason to be remembered. The process is simple:

• Positioning and intent: what the business must be known for, and what the visitor must feel immediately

• Creative direction: translating that into a signature experience that cannot be confused with a template

• Execution and refinement: building fast, tightening the flow, and polishing until it feels inevitable
  

The best clients want direction and let us lead. A red flag is someone who wants premium results while controlling every creative decision, or someone shopping for the cheapest option.

Can you share an example of a challenge you solved that had a big impact on a client’s growth?

One of the most common problems I fix is when a founder is trapped. They’re paying monthly for a site that looks generic, runs badly on mobile, and can’t be changed without begging a developer. That isn’t a website. That’s a bottleneck.

In one case, we rebuilt the entire experience around credibility and clarity. We tightened the positioning, redesigned the flow so people immediately understood what the company does, and made the experience memorable instead of forgettable. Most importantly, we gave the founder control again with a system that could scale.

The outcome wasn’t cosmetic. It changed perception. Conversations closed faster, inquiries improved, and the founder showed up with more confidence because the brand finally matched the level they were operating at.

The lesson is simple: if your digital presence is average, you pay for it every day in trust, speed, and missed opportunities.

What do you want people to understand about creativity and technology working together?

Creativity without technology stays stuck in someone’s head. Technology without creativity is just a faster way to produce the same boring result.

Most people think creative tech is decoration. They assume it’s just motion or effects. The real value is psychological: it builds trust faster, makes a brand memorable, and raises perceived value because the experience feels intentional.

People don’t remember what they saw. They remember what they felt. When creativity and technology work together correctly, the market can tell instantly.

Quote to steal: Creativity is the idea. Technology is the delivery. When both are sharp, the market feels it instantly.

How do you help startups and creators overcome limitations when building bold digital experiences?

Most founders aren’t limited by ambition. They’re limited by time and execution. Either they’re moving too fast to manage vendors properly, or they’re stuck with people who build slow, build generic, and then charge forever.

The first step is removing confusion. We get brutally clear on the goal and what the visitor must feel immediately. Once direction is sharp, everything becomes faster and cleaner.

We cut what wastes momentum: endless meetings, bloated scopes, template thinking, and “nice-to-have” features that don’t change perception or conversion.

What stays non-negotiable is the standard. Even with limited resources, the work has to create credibility immediately. That’s what opens doors.

What advice would you give to someone who thinks custom digital design and AI are out of reach?

That belief usually comes from two fears: “it’s too expensive,” or “I’ll get trapped with the wrong vendor.” Both are valid. But staying stuck is more expensive than most people realize.

You don’t need the biggest build on day one. You need the right first move. Start with one high-impact upgrade that improves credibility immediately: tighten positioning, rebuild one key page, or fix the conversion path. Small upgrades done correctly compound.

The biggest mistake is trying to do it cheap in the wrong way. Cheap usually means templates, rushed thinking, and unclear ownership. That’s how businesses end up paying monthly forever for something they can’t control.

Custom work isn’t about spending more. It’s about spending correctly so you stop leaking trust, time, and opportunities every day your presence looks average.

What’s the next evolution you see for creative-tech, and how is Mxnn preparing to lead it?

Two things are happening at once: attention is getting harder to earn, and AI is making average output cheaper than ever. That combination is going to wipe out anything generic. When everyone can generate “good enough,” the only thing that stands out is what feels intentional, human, and impossible to confuse with a template.

The next wave of digital experiences will feel less like pages and more like products. More interactive, more responsive, and built around how people actually explore and decide. The best experiences won’t just display information, they’ll create a feeling strong enough that the brand gets remembered.

Most teams will use AI to speed up mediocrity. They’ll automate the parts that should stay human, and polish something that still has no taste behind it.

Mxnn is preparing by building systems that protect standards. We engineer creative thinking internally so output stays original. We move fast without sacrificing taste. We don’t chase trends, we keep raising the ceiling.

Bold prediction: as AI floods the internet with noise, human-made creativity becomes the real luxury, and the brands that win will be the ones that feel designed by someone who actually cares.

Follow me on Instagram for more info!

Read more from Mann Patel (Mxnn)