Afleveringen
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Presented by Zapier: https://zapier.com/
Timestamps
00:00 - Intro
01:09 - Anthropicâs mission and early structure
03:00 - FTX, investor alignment, and mission protection
04:03 - The Long-Term Benefit Trust
06:09 - Why trust can become a business asset
07:30 - Is Anthropic winning because of trust or product?
09:09 - What happened to Googleâs original culture
10:30 - Why Google missed the transformer opportunity
12:18 - Companies that stayed true to their ethos
12:54 - What makes an organization incorruptible
14:42 - Is the MVP still possible in the AI era?
15:18 - Why Eric is worried about vibe coding
16:12 - The danger of building artifacts you do not understand
17:51 - Why creators overvalue what they make
19:30 - AI-generated work and the illusion of quality
20:06 - Validated learning versus AI artifacts
21:36 - Craft matters more than typing code
22:21 - How Eric uses AI for writing
25:48 - Solve It and Ericâs AI-assisted writing workflow
28:39 - Why editing AI output inside the context matters
31:39 - How Eric uses research with AI
33:18 - Using AI to evaluate and improve writing
35:24 - Keeping the human in control of context
36:09 - Final thoughts on IncorruptibleEric Ries, author of The Lean Startup, joins Andrew to talk about his new book Incorruptible and why some companies stay mission-driven while others slowly lose what made them valuable.
They dig into Anthropicâs founding structure, why trust can become a business advantage, what Googleâs AI story reveals about corporate drift, and why Eric thinks the vibe coding era could end badly if people use AI to replace skill instead of building it.
The big idea: AI can make builders more powerful, but only if it strengthens human judgment, craft, and learning. The artifact is not the asset. The learning is.
đ Join us: https://thenextnewthing.ai/
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Polsia claims any non-technical person can launch and run a startup using their AI agent platform. Bold claim. So I asked Ben Cera to show me the real data: revenue, churn, infrastructure costs, and whether the product is actually building businesses â or just generating AI slop.
Presented by Zapier: https://zapier.com/
Resources: https://thenextnewthing.ai/l/how-ben-cera-builds-polsia
Polsia: https://polsia.comHere's what we covered:
-How Polsia hit a $10M annual run rate with no full-time staff
-The 50% month-one churn problem â and why Ben says it's not a disaster
-An Anthropic bill that hit $1â1.5M/month, and how they're fixing it
-Why the company name "Polsia" is "AI Slop" spelled backwards
-The $30M funding round and what it's being used for
-What it actually takes to build a zero-employee AI company in 2025This is the hardest I've pushed a founder in a while. Watch until the end â his answer on whether 10% of companies making any money is a success will either inspire you or infuriate you.
Chapters:
00:00 - Intro
00:59 - Polsia's $10M run rate
02:18 - Churn and who Polsia is for
06:27 - What needs to change in Polsia
10:12 - Is Polsia creating AI slop?
15:00 - Are users making money?
18:18 - Showcasing companies built on Polsia
21:36 - Why Polsia is AI slop backwards
25:30 - The $1.5M Anthropic bill
28:03 - Agent infrastructure partners
29:42 - How users bypassed email limits
35:15 - Zapier sponsor segment
36:27 - Cold outreach, spam, and guardrails
40:48 - AI-generated ads and Meta
43:39 - How much revenue comes from ads
44:33 - Andrew asks Ben to show Stripe
47:06 - Polsia coin and crypto scams
48:36 - Running Polsia with zero employees
52:12 - Ben's vision for agentic AI
54:54 - Closingđ Join us: https://thenextnewthing.ai/
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Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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đ Link to resources: https://thenextnewthing.ai/l/chandler-lovable-adds-sales
đ Chandler Bolt (X): https://x.com/chandler_boltPresented by Zapier: https://zapier.com/
Timestamps
00:00 - Intro
00:27 - The AI sales management hub
01:12 - How every sales call gets graded
02:15 - AI feedback for sales reps
03:00 - Building the hub in Lovable
04:12 - Letting the team update scripts and rubrics
05:15 - Replacing managers with AI
06:36 - Automating call reviews and quality control
08:24 - Where human leadership still matters
09:27 - The librarian for sales stories
10:21 - Managers vs. leaders
11:42 - How much time AI saves
12:54 - What happens to manager roles
14:06 - ClosingChandler Bolt runs an eight-figure company, and his team used Lovable to build an AI sales management hub that helped add half a million dollars in sales last month.
In this episode of The Next New Thing, Chandler shows how selfpublishing.com is using AI to grade every sales call, give reps detailed feedback, surface improvement opportunities, and turn call reviews into a repeatable system. Instead of managers reviewing a few calls per week, the AI hub reviews every call against a rubric, summarizes what happened, and gives specific coaching on what the rep can do better.
Chandler and Andrew also talk about what this means for the future of management. The big shift is that AI can take over the repetitive parts of management, like quality control, call reviews, scorecards, and accountability, while human leaders focus on coaching, encouragement, strategy, and recruiting.
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Presented by Zapier: https://zapier.com/
đ Link to resources: https://thenextnewthing.ai/l/jon-45million-ai-playbook
â± Timestamps
00:00 From $400 to $4.5M ARR
00:18 Hitting $1M solo with AI
01:57 The $105K dev quote that changed everything
02:15 Discovering Replit
03:18 From app idea to business opportunity
05:33 Having AI interview you to refine a business
07:21 The first business model
10:03 The first real customer and first $15K contract
13:12 Teaching practical AI, not just theory
16:48 Jonâs playbook for starting an AI business
19:03 How Zapier fits into the stack
21:18 Why the .org brand worked
23:15 Using GEO to get found in search and ChatGPT
27:27 Building recurring revenue with a fractional CAIO model
31:39 The move from services to software
33:54 What Jenna does for client businesses
36:18 Why this could become a billion-dollar business
39:00 How Jon thinks about pricing
41:33 Brand, trust, and distribution
43:39 Favorite tools: Grok, Replit, Midjourney, NemoClaw
47:51 Margins, growth, and reaching $4.5M ARR
49:12 How long this opportunity will lastHe started with $400, built the business himself with AI, hit $1M solo, and is now at $4.5M ARR.
In this episode of The Next New Thing, Andrew Warner talks with Jon Cheney about the exact playbook he used to turn AI tools into a high-ticket recurring-revenue business.
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Presented by Zapier: https://zapier.com/
đ Priority Launch List: https://thenextnewthing.ai/l/shane-priority-launch-list
đ Shane Mac (X): https://x.com/ShaneMac
đ Shane Mac (LinkedIn): https://www.linkedin.com/in/shanemacsays/
đ XMTP: https://xmtp.org/
â± Timestamps
00:00 Launch AI agents on your phone
00:09 Copy any app with a prompt or screenshot
00:18 Creating an agent inside Convos
00:36 Agents provisioned with tools automatically
00:45 OpenClaw vs Hermes agents
00:54 What makes something an âagentâ
01:21 Limited rollout and waitlist access
01:30 Turning a screenshot into an app
02:06 Demo: calorie tracking agent
02:33 From app â personalized AI coach
03:18 Training agents with personal data
03:54 Building a fully customized fitness assistant
04:30 Why agents get better over time
05:06 Backing from Andreessen Horowitz + USV
05:15 Coordinating group events with agents
06:00 Replacing chaotic group chats
06:45 Agent managing RSVPs, timing, logistics
07:21 Real-time updates and humor in chat
08:06 Monitoring content with âRadarâ agents
09:00 Tracking writers, artists, and updates
09:45 Daily summaries across the internet
10:30 Personalized alerts and insights
10:57 Relationship + life coordination agent
11:24 Daily plans, reservations, and logistics
12:09 Combining multiple tools into one system
12:18 Product rollout and waitlist strategy
12:54 Future integrations (Notion, calendars, etc.)
13:21 Why messaging becomes the main interface
13:39 Agents talking to other agents
14:06 Privacy and coordination between agentsWhat if your apps werenât apps anymoreâbut agents you talk to inside a chat?
In this episode of The Next New Thing, Andrew Warner sits down with Shane Mac to explore Convos, a new platform where you can launch AI agents directly on your phoneâand have them act like full apps inside a conversation.
Instead of downloading tools, you create agents by describing what you want. They get provisioned with email, phone numbers, browsing, and memoryâthen join your chats like participants. From there, you can clone apps, coordinate events, track information across the internet, or even build personalized systems that evolve over time.
Shane demos how a simple screenshot can turn into a working app, how agents can act as assistants inside group chats, and how they can coordinate with other agents without exposing your personal data.
The bigger idea: the interface is shifting from apps to conversationsâand agents become the layer that connects everything you do.
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đ Resources: https://thenextnewthing.ai/l/wade-resources
đ Wade Foster (LinkedIn): https://www.linkedin.com/in/wadefoster/Zapier just gave AI agents access to 10,000+ appsâand it completely changed how Wade Foster works.
In this episode of The Next New Thing, Wade (Zapierâs CEO) shows how their new SDK lets tools like Claude, Cursor, and Codex directly interact with your entire stackâSlack, Gmail, HubSpot, databases, and more.
Instead of switching between apps, Wade now does everything through an agent: checking Slack, reviewing customers, generating emails, prepping meetings, and even auditing hiring decisions.
The key shift isnât just automationâitâs turning your entire workflow into something an agent can run end-to-end.
He walks through how he built a personal âCEO CRMâ that pulls data from multiple systems, identifies which customers need attention, and drafts outreach emails automatically. From there, he shows how these workflows evolve into reusable skills, then into fully automated systems that run in the background.
The result: less time clicking through toolsâand more time operating at a higher level.
â± Timestamps
00:00 Giving AI agents access to all your tools
00:27 Zapier SDK launch (open beta)
01:12 Connecting agents to 10,000+ apps
01:57 Why this changes how work gets done
02:24 Installing the SDK in seconds
03:00 Running real workflows inside an agent
03:27 Demo mode (protecting sensitive data)
04:21 SDK vs MCP (whatâs different)
05:24 Building a personal CEO CRM
06:27 Pulling data from HubSpot, Databricks, Gong
07:30 Identifying accounts that need attention
08:06 Generating outreach emails automatically
09:00 Keeping humans in the loop (draft vs send)
09:45 Using Clay to verify contact data
10:48 Training AI on your writing style
11:24 Building reusable workflows (skills)
12:00 Daily brief automation (calendar, email, tasks)
13:12 Meeting prep generated automatically
14:06 AI reviewing hiring decisions
15:00 Advisory council of AI personas
15:45 Turning 30-min tasks into 5-min tasks
16:21 Creating your own daily brief system
17:15 Finding what to automate
18:00 Using AI to suggest new workflows
19:03 Reviewing past chats for automation ideas
20:06 Turning repeated tasks into skills
20:42 From manual â automated workflows
21:00 Cron jobs and background executionđ Join us: https://thenextnewthing.ai/
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Presented by Zapier: https://zapier.com/
Resource mentioned:
1. Tools Nat used to build Felix
2. Unedited transcript for the Felix interview
3. More
đ All here:https://thenextnewthing.ai/nat-eliason-felixGuest links:
đ Nat Eliason (LinkedIn): https://www.linkedin.com/in/nateliason/
đ Masinov: https://masinov.co
An AI agent made $177,000 running its own businessâand then got interviewed about it.In this episode of The Next New Thing, Andrew Warner does something unusual: he interviews Felix, an autonomous OpenClaw agent, before talking to its human co-founder, Nat Eliason.
Felix explains how it operates, where itâs actually autonomous (and where itâs not), and how it manages real revenue streamsâfrom selling products to handling customer support. Then, Nat breaks down how the system works behind the scenes: how Felix launches products, builds marketplaces, manages other agents, and continuously spins up new businesses.
Youâll see how a simple experimentââbuild something overnight and sell itââturned into a multi-product ecosystem including PDFs, marketplaces, services, and agent-native tools.
The bigger idea: weâre moving toward a world where AI agents are not just toolsâtheyâre economic actors.
â± Timestamps
00:00 Felix made $177K as an AI agent
00:27 Interviewing an AI agent (first ever)
01:12 Where Felix is actually not autonomous
02:24 Tools Felix runs on (OpenClaw, Claude, Discord)
03:00 Limits: memory, judgment, and calls
03:27 How Nat improves Felix through system design
04:03 Learning from real mistakes in production
05:06 First product: AI-generated PDF sold on X
06:09 $1K+ in sales overnight
07:03 Iterating products based on user feedback
08:06 Building Claw Mart (agent skill marketplace)
09:36 Why marketplaces beat service businesses
11:24 Selling OpenClaw setup services ($2K + $500/mo)
12:27 Why they paused the service business
13:21 Building an agent-first CRM (Sodex)
15:00 How agents manage customer context
17:15 Running the company entirely in Discord
18:00 Paperclip: agents managing other agents
20:15 When to split into multiple agents
22:12 Why Felix doesnât write code
24:00 Debugging, tickets, and agent workflows
25:48 How new product ideas emerge
27:00 AI-native newsletters for agents
28:03 Agent-friendly content distribution
30:09 The future of agent-driven commerce
31:57 Why Nat isnât going all-in (Alpha School)đ Join us: https://thenextnewthing.ai/
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Presented by Zapier
https://zapier.com/Episode Highlights / Timestamps
00:00 Revenue explodes after building for AI agents
00:18 The origin of Postiz as an open-source social media scheduler
01:12 Finding a âblue oceanâ inside a crowded market
01:57 Adding MCP and early AI integrations
02:42 Why automation dramatically reduces churn
03:54 Growing Postiz to $17Kâ$20K MRR
04:03 Discovering OpenClaw and the shift toward agent-driven software
05:06 Building a CLI so agents can control Postiz
05:51 The viral âLarryâ OpenClaw agent story
07:48 Why agents need strong documentation and skills
09:18 Turning a full API into a simple CLI with Claude
11:51 Why CLI tools may become the default interface for agent startups
12:45 The next startup idea: agent-native UGC video generation
13:03 Why CLI reduces token usage compared to APIs
16:21 Using Claude to build the CLI automatically
17:06 Postiz reaches $45K MRRIn this episode of The Next New Thing, Andrew Warner talks with Nevo David, the creator of Postiz, about how his revenue jumped to $45K+ MRR after a surprising shift: he stopped building primarily for humans and started building for agents.
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Presented by Zapier
https://zapier.com/Episode Highlights / Timestamps
00:00 Marketing to agents, not humans
00:45 What âagent marketingâ actually means
01:30 How agents decide which products to pick
02:15 What works: clean docs, fast pages, agent-friendly content
03:54 How people are testing and tracking agent recommendations
04:48 Is SaaS dead?
04:57 Zapierâs CPTO vibe-codes a meeting recorder
05:24 Why they still wonât cancel SaaS subscriptions
06:27 When vibe coding is worth it (and when it isnât)
06:45 Software spend vs headcount spend
07:57 The âWar Councilâ Claude skill
08:33 How it spins up subagents + personas
09:54 How Wade built it fast using Cursor + Granola notes
11:06 Skills as a commodity vs software as a business
12:54 Using War Council for hiring decisions
14:51 Using it to analyze sales performance + feedback
16:21 Wadeâs Cursor setup + switching between models
17:42 Using Codex to critique Claude when it gets stuck
18:09 How Wade structures personal context files
21:18 Building an AI chief-of-staff system
22:03 Using Zapier MCP to draft emails / run actions
24:09 Getting 800 people at Zapier using Cursor / Claude Code / Codex
25:39 Example: AI reviewing 4 massive spreadsheets fast
31:03 The âNOâ hat and staying focused
32:06 Wrapđ War Council Skill (Claude Skill mentioned in the episode):
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CU674IKmPCAZm2xuqMGklTA-Bq1xr1GNQW6hNydxXrE/edit?tab=t.0Are you marketing to humans⊠or to agents?
In this episode of The Next New Thing, Andrew Warner sits down with Wade Foster to unpack a shift thatâs already starting to change how companies grow:
AI agents are beginning to choose products on behalf of humans.
That means you may no longer be âselling to a person.â Youâre trying to get ChatGPT, Claude, and other models to recommend you instead of a competitor â and the tactics are different. Wade explains what âagent marketingâ actually means, what agents care about (and what they ignore), and why teams are already building tools to measure how models mention their brand.
They also tackle a question every founder is asking:
Is SaaS dead?
Wade shares an example from inside Zapier: their CPTO vibe-coded a meeting recording tool internally. It worked as a proof of concept â but theyâre not canceling their SaaS subscriptions. Wade breaks down why building is cheaper than ever, but maintenance, polish, and focus are still what make commercial software worth paying for.
Then the conversation gets tactical: Wade shows how heâs using AI daily as a âsecond brainâ inside Cursor â including a Claude skill he calls The War Council, which spins up sub-agents (ruthless CFO, wartime operator, hiring expert, design visionary, etc.) to debate decisions and return a synthesized recommendation.
This is a real look at how AI-native leadership works inside an 800-person company â without hype.
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Presented by Zapier
https://zapier.com/Episode Highlights / Timestamps
00:00 AI that runs your company
01:03 How Polsiaâs agents are structured
02:33 One-click Meta ads explained
04:30 Why friction kills growth
06:18 Subscription model + nightly CEO agent
08:24 Launching multiple companies as a âfundâ
10:21 Revenue split: 80/20 alignment
14:24 The Polsia economy vision
16:30 A real customer story
19:39 Should you build elsewhere first?
24:09 How Polsia grew from $20K to $600K+ run rate
25:12 The AI fundraising stunt
27:00 Live revenue dashboard explained
34:57 Live demo: launching a company
42:18 Tasks, credits, and iterations
49:30 Solo founder with AI engineers
52:12 Humans selling to humans vs agents selling to agents
In this episode of The Next New Thing, Andrew Warner interviews Ben Cera, creator of Polsia â a platform where autonomous agents build, market, and operate companies with minimal human involvement.Polsia sets up the infrastructure (server, database, email, GitHub), builds the MVP, runs Meta ads, sends cold emails, posts on Twitter, answers support, and even iterates on product decisions.
Ben is a solo founder. Zero employees.
And Polsia is already showing a ~$600K+ run rate across subscriptions, tasks, ad usage, and revenue share â just weeks after launch.
But hereâs the surprising part:
Most of the companies on the platform are only weeks old. The biggest revenue-generating startup inside Polsia is still early. This isnât about overnight unicorns. Itâs about a new operating model.
You bring the idea.
Polsia spins up the company.
You decide the budget.
The agents execute.And Polsia takes 20% of revenue â aligning incentives with the founder.
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Presented by Zapier
https://zapier.com/Episode Highlights / Timestamps
00:00 The first billion-dollar solo company (Minecraft)
00:27 Eladâs investing track record
01:12 What âmaking itâ really means
04:03 Where todayâs âtoysâ become tomorrowâs giants
08:51 AI puts building power in millions of hands
09:45 Will more builders mean smaller outcomes?
13:03 AI service shops and vertical software
15:00 AI cutting permitting time from months to hours
16:39 Does AI replace CRMs and SaaS?
19:12 Is off-the-shelf software dead?
23:15 The shift from seats to AI labor units
27:36 Alexandria: translating the worldâs most important books
30:36 How Elad uses AI personally
35:06 Where new AI ideas come from
37:48 Whatâs exciting for the next decade
âThe first billion-dollar one-person company? That already happened. It was Minecraft.âIn this episode of The Next New Thing, Andrew Warner sits down with legendary investor Elad Gil â early backer of companies like Airbnb, Coinbase, Stripe, Instacart, and more â to talk about where AI is really going⊠and what founders are getting wrong.
Elad argues that weâre still in the early innings of AI â and that âsoftware is AI.â The shift isnât just better SaaS. Itâs a move from seat-based software to metered digital labor. From buying tools⊠to buying units of work.
They discuss:
Whether âtoyâ AI apps can become real businesses
Why small vibe-coded projects can turn into giant companies
The agent shift (and why it changes TAM completely)
How AI eats into labor markets, not just software categories
Whether CRMs, ERPs, and landing page tools survive
Why some companies should be bought and rebuilt with AI
The real opportunity in foundation models beyond languageElad also shares what heâs personally experimenting with â scraping and interrogating large datasets using Claude, OpenAI, and Deep Research â and why he believes the next decade will look like the early SaaS boom⊠but bigger.
And in a surprising turn, he talks about something very un-Silicon Valley: monuments, art, and rebuilding public beauty â including a project called Alexandria aimed at translating the worldâs most important books into languages covering 80%+ of humanity.
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Presented by Zapier
https://zapier.com/Episode Highlights / Timestamps
00:00 $7M ARR as a solo founder
01:21 Profit, margins, and team size
02:51 Joshâs path from Uber to Wave
05:24 Choosing ideas in the early AI days
06:18 Why summarization felt like the killer app
08:15 Competing with Otter, Fireflies, and others
10:21 Recording real-world audio vs meeting bots
12:18 Spending more on AI to improve quality
13:39 Knowing youâre onto something from user emotion
15:09 Why Wave stayed general instead of vertical
16:12 Learning to build with ChatGPT
18:00 How Waveâs architecture evolved
19:39 Using Claude Code day-to-day
21:00 AI agents analyzing analytics and logs
25:21 The tools behind Wave (Cursor, Twilio, Adapt)
27:27 Building instead of buying SaaS tools
30:00 Using AI to ship features faster
32:06 Why Zapier matters for data portability
34:03 The future of cheap, abundant software
36:09 Running Wave like a corner store, not a startup
40:12 Growth goals without VC pressure
42:18 How Wave gets customers today
49:03 Why SEO side projects didnât convert
50:24 âIf youâre good, things might work outâ
54:45 Revenue breakdown and take-home profitWhat does it look like when a single founder builds a profitable AI company â alone â and quietly grows it to millions in revenue?
In this episode of The Next New Thing, Andrew Warner sits down with Josh Mohrer, creator of Wave AI, to unpack how he built a $7M ARR AI business with no full-time team â and how modern AI tools fundamentally changed whatâs possible for solo founders.
Josh previously helped scale Uber in its early days, but Wave AI is a very different story. Itâs a one-person, profitable SaaS built around a deceptively simple idea: record real-world conversations, transcribe them, and generate high-quality summaries people actually trust. No hype. No venture capital. No big team.
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Presented by Zapier
https://zapier.com/Episode Highlights / Timestamps
00:00 Why every email should be personalized
00:18 Ryanâs background and what Untangle does
00:45 Rethinking traditional email drips
01:12 Customizing emails based on user situations
01:39 A real example that led to a signup
02:06 Daily automated marketing insights via email
03:00 Doing things that donât scale with AI
04:03 Walking through the AI email system
05:06 Using lead magnets and contextual data
06:09 Enriching leads and storing user context
06:45 Hourly cron jobs and email scheduling
07:39 Feeding context into the LLM correctly
08:15 Preventing hallucinated features
08:24 Sending emails with Resend
09:18 Measuring clicks instead of opens
10:12 Layering engagement-based follow-ups
10:39 Long-term personalized nurture loops
12:00 Turning marketing emails into real value
13:03 Building vertical-specific AI agents
14:15 Using Zapier and modern automations
16:12 Building systems with AI coding agents
18:27 Running multiple AI agents at once
21:27 Deciding what to build in a world of âfree codeâ
24:09 Daily AI-generated growth recommendations
27:45 Using AI to generate and validate ideas
31:03 Increasing insight frequency, not brilliance
34:21 Why personalized email is a massive opportunity
34:48 Final takeawaysWhy isnât every email completely customized for the person receiving it â especially now that AI can do it for us?
In this episode of The Next New Thing, Andrew Warner sits down with Ryan Carson, a three-time founder currently building Untangle, to walk through a very practical, very real AI system he uses every day to grow his business.
Ryan has spent over 25 years building startups, but while setting up a âstandardâ email drip for Untangle, he stopped and asked a simple question: why are we still sending the same emails to completely different people? Instead of writing dozens of templates, he built an AI-powered workflow that generates fully personalized emails â based on each userâs situation, behavior, and engagement â and adapts over time.
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Presented by Zapier
Episode Highlights / Timestamps
[00:00] Why Pat decided to build his own video platform after YouTube strikes
[02:06] Rebuilding a YouTube-style site in just a few hours with Claude Code
[07:30] Designing the video experience before worrying about features
[14:06] Using modern frameworks without writing code
[23:06] Adding video streaming with third-party APIs instead of building from scratch
[34:03] Letting AI debug and test the app automatically
[42:00] Deploying the app live with one command
[48:18] Why your website should be the hub, not social platformsIn this episode of The Next New Thing, Andrew Warner talks with Pat Walls, founder of Starter Story, about how he used AI coding tools to quickly rebuild a version of YouTube after his channel was hit with content strikes.
Pat walks through how he used Claude Code to design, build, debug, and deploy a working video platform in real time â without writing traditional code. Along the way, he explains why founders should treat social platforms as distribution, not infrastructure, and how owning your audience and your software changes how you think about risk, growth, and leverage.
If youâve ever wondered how far AI can really take you in building real products, this episode shows exactly whatâs possible today.
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Presented by Zapier
Episode Highlights / Timestamps
[00:00] Building AI software for companies, not just selling tools
[00:36] Crossing $2M in annual revenue
[01:12] A real-world AI document automation example
[02:15] Why hourly pricing breaks in AI services
[03:36] Using consulting to learn before building products
[06:09] Landing the first customers through relationships
[09:18] Founder-led sales and networking strategies
[10:39] Hosting events to build credibility and deal flow
[17:06] Why most AI pilots fail in production
[23:06] How Press W positions itself as an AI engineering firm
[27:09] Why âAI transformationâ stopped working as a pitch
[36:36] Inside Press Wâs AI-native operating systemIn this episode of The Next New Thing, Andrew Warner sits down with Tarun Thummala, founder of PressW, to break down how his team builds custom AI systems for real businesses â and why services, not SaaS, were the right starting point.
Tarun runs an AI engineering firm that designs and ships production-grade AI applications for companies in regulated industries like finance, healthcare, and legal. Instead of selling vague âAI transformation,â his team focuses on concrete workflows: document processing, internal tools, sales ops, and systems that actually ship and get used.
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Presented by Zapier
https://zapier.com/Episode Highlights / Timestamps
[00:00] A broker replaces himself with an AI voice agent
[00:45] Early pricing and first customers
[01:30] The reality of cold calling expired listings
[04:21] Why off-the-shelf AI voice tools werenât good enough
[05:15] First AI-booked listing appointment
[08:15] Launching without a website using Meta lead forms
[12:27] Using Zapier to glue the system together
[14:51] Why this model works beyond real estate
[16:12] Fine-tuning models for sales conversations
[19:12] Shutting down a profitable agency to build SaaS
[22:12] Founder roles and co-founder fit
[30:00] What AI coding tools really do (and donât) replace
[32:42] Breaking down the early revenue
[35:24] Naming the company and what comes nextWhat happens when someone is so fed up with cold calling that they build an AI to do it for them â and it actually works?
In this episode of The Next New Thing, Andrew Warner sits down with Yevgeniy Matsay and Aidan Richards, co-founders of Rezora. They share how a frustrating real-estate sales job turned into an AI voice-agent business that generated real revenue â and why they ultimately shut down a profitable agency model to build scalable software instead.
Yevgeniy started as a real estate agent, spending entire days cold calling expired listings. When early AI voice agents emerged, he decided to build one tailored specifically for sales conversations. It landed listing appointments almost immediately. Instead of keeping it to himself, he sold it as a service to other brokers, validating demand fast â but also running into the limits of manual setup and constant customization.
From there, the conversation digs into how they:
Proved demand with a scrappy agency-style rollout
Used tools like Zapier and voice AI to stitch together a working system before SaaS existed
Learned why âjust promptingâ breaks down for sales calls
Transitioned from custom workflows to a self-serve product built on fine-tuned language models
Thought about scalability, founder roles, and when to pause revenue to build the right thingThis is a grounded, technical, and honest look at turning AI automations into a real business â including the tradeoffs, the hard parts, and what actually works in practice.
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Episode highlights:
[00:00:00] Joeâs businesses and revenue breakdown
[00:00:45] Five ways to make money with AI
[00:00:54] Selling AI headshots as a done-for-you service
[00:02:06] Delivering with VAs and prompts
[00:03:36] Getting customers via LinkedIn polls and ads
[00:06:00] Teaching AI while learning it yourself
[00:08:24] Selling ideas before creating the product
[00:09:27] Building a course entirely with AI
[00:14:15] Selling AI-generated infographics to franchises
[00:17:24] Using AI to build landing pages and funnels
[00:22:21] ChatGPT as a co-founder and therapist
[00:25:30] Scaling an agency without adding employees
[00:30:00] Monetizing AI education and communities
[00:34:03] Building basic software and prompt generators
[00:40:03] Creating MVPs without developers
[00:45:27] Focusing ideas into one scalable product
[00:49:03] Rebuilding after COVID, divorce, and burnout
In this episode, Andrew Warner sits down with Joe Apfelbaum, founder of Ajax Union and EvyAI, to break down five practical ways to make money using AI right now â without needing to code, raise money, or build complex software.Joe walks through real examples from his own businesses, including AI-powered services, courses, and lightweight software tools that generate revenue fast. More importantly, he explains why these models work: people want outcomes, not software â and AI lets you deliver those outcomes with tiny teams and massive leverage.
This is a raw, tactical conversation about turning AI into income, rebuilding after setbacks, and designing businesses that scale without adding people.
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Episode highlights:
[00:00:00] The vision: media customized to one person
[00:02:15] Why revenue isnât the point â yet
[00:03:18] Seeing early personalization at Spotify
[00:06:00] Why kidsâ content felt broken
[00:07:48] Making the child the hero of the story
[00:08:42] The hardest problem: image consistency
[00:11:24] Why scaling AI products is nothing like demos
[00:14:06] Personalized media wonât replace broadcast â it adds new behavior
[00:16:21] Why parents are the buyer, not the consumer
[00:20:51] Bedtime as a repeatable ritual
[00:23:42] Why Dream Stories is a service, not a novelty product
[00:28:12] Distribution is the real bottleneck
[00:32:15] Why repeat purchases beat subscriptions
[00:39:00] From âpullâ products to âpushâ experiences
[00:45:00] Context and memory as the real moat
[00:50:06] Learning directly from customers
[00:54:09] Synthetic data and AI-generated avatars
[00:59:06] Automating PR and support with AIIn this episode, Andrew Warner talks with Ricardo, founder of Dream Stories, a company using AI to create fully personalized childrenâs books where each child becomes the hero of their own story.
Ricardo shares how a simple idea â making a better bedtime story for his own son â turned into a scalable business with tens of thousands of unique characters created. But more importantly, he lays out a bold vision: a future where movies, TV shows, books, and media are customized for a single person, not the masses.
They dive deep into what it actually takes to build a consumer AI company beyond demos and hype â from image consistency problems and synthetic data, to distribution, paid acquisition, and turning one-time novelty purchases into repeat behavior.
This is a rare, honest look at where AI-generated media is headed â and what founders should really be building right now.
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Episode highlights:
[00:00:00] Businesses built entirely on Zapier
[00:01:30] The roofer-turned-automation-agency story
[00:03:54] What AI enables that wasnât possible before
[00:07:12] OpenAI Agents vs. Zapier workflows
[00:11:15] Connecting AI agents to real business tools
[00:13:03] Building a meeting-prep agent live
[00:18:00] Why AI is great at building workflows, not just running them
[00:23:06] Zapier customers, revenue, and bootstrapping discipline
[00:28:57] AI-powered lead qualification in real time
[00:33:18] Automation agencies and speed-to-lead economics
[00:40:03] Why Zapier is positioned to last
[00:42:45] Using AI as a neutral leadership coach
[00:47:06] AI tools Wade personally usesIn this episode, Andrew Warner sits down with Wade Foster, co-founder and CEO of Zapier, to explore how AI agents, automation, and workflows are reshaping how modern businesses operate â from solo founders to companies doing hundreds of millions in revenue.
Wade shares real examples of people whoâve gone from running local service businesses to launching automation agencies powered almost entirely by Zapier. Together, they break down how AI changes what workflows can do, why agents and automations are complementary (not competitors), and how founders can turn speed-to-lead, personalization, and internal tooling into real revenue.
Youâll see a live walkthrough of building AI agents inside Zapier â including meeting prep, lead qualification, and internal coaching â all without writing code.
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đ Team member feedback Zap: https://l.thenextnewthing.ai/r/Pdja7P
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đ§ Highlights:
[00:00:00] Humans doing the work of AI â before AI existed
[00:01:12] Why accounting is mostly about language, not numbers
[00:02:33] Shadowing bookkeepers to find automation opportunities
[00:06:00] Manual work Quanta knew software had to replace
[00:07:30] Why building on top of legacy systems wasnât enough
[00:08:24] Rebuilding the ledger from the ground up
[00:10:12] Continuous reconciliation vs. monthly closes
[00:11:24] From Affirm to founding Quanta
[00:13:30] Why delayed financials are useless for startups
[00:16:03] Validating willingness to pay before building
[00:17:42] Using humans for the âlast mileâ while automating the rest
[00:20:15] Solving trust and data-ownership concerns
[00:22:48] Why most QuickBooks challengers failed
[00:26:33] Saying no to customers to protect quality
[00:33:36] Why AI makes real-time margins mandatory
[00:36:45] Raising $15M Series A ($20M total)
[00:37:21] Prism: asking your financials questions in plain English
In this episode, Andrew Warner interviews Helen Hastings, founder of Quanta, an AI-powered accounting platform built for modern software companies.Before AI could reliably understand financial data, Helen and her team had humans doing what AI does today â reading receipts, interpreting memos, categorizing transactions, and reconciling books by hand. That hands-on approach helped her uncover where automation really mattered, leading to a ground-up rebuild of accounting software that works in near real time.
Helen shares how Quanta replaces legacy systems by owning the data end-to-end, combining clean ledgers, continuous reconciliation, and AI-powered analysis â and why this approach helped the company raise $15M in Series A funding (over $20M total) and land nearly 100 customers so far.
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