Startup Stories - Mixergy
Andrew Warner interviews successful startup founders, asking challenging questions that uncover the real stories behind how their companies were built and grew.
Episodes
#2307 Eric Ries: Why Anthropic Won and How To Build Incurruptible companies
Eric Ries, who helped so many entrepreneurs build phenomenally successful businesses based on his Lean Startup philosophy, is back with a new book called Incorruptible. The book explains why some companies succeed over the long term, while others wither. I asked him to tell us the stories of the AI companies he’s worked with and studied, and talk about how he used AI help him research his bo
#2306 Polsia: AI Agent + Zero Employees = $10M Run Rate
The zero-human company with the $10 million run rate has a lot of skeptics online. I collected all the skeptics’ challenges and asked the founder about each one. This is my explosive second interview with Ben Cera, founder of Polsia, the company that will build you an AI-run company.
Ben Cera is the founder of Polsia, an AI platform that helps users launch businesses and software products using au
#2305 I earned $500k when AI replaced my managers
Chandler Bolt realized that much of what his sales managers did at Selfpublishing.com can be done better by good AI. Within a month, he built a first version with spiked sales. Now he’s replacing all his managers. This is his guide to doing it well.
Chandler Bolt is the founder and CEO of SelfPublishing.com, an education company that helps entrepreneurs and experts write, publish, and market books
#2304 “I make $4.5 million implementing AI”
I first heard about this guy on the Joe Rogan show. He built a hot business on a simple concept: Companies hire him to embed AI usage and thinking in their businesses. Now he’s creating his own agent software (a customized version of NeoClaw) that he’s installing in companies.
Best of all: Jon Cheney says what he built at GenAIPI can be built by people listening to this episode. We break down how.
#2303 Convos: Instant OpenClaw on your phone
On X, Shane Mac showed how he created an OpenClaw agent and asked it to copy an app. In this interview, he showed how his app Convos, does it. This interview is more visual than our usual ones, so you should head over to our YouTube channel for builders to see it.
Shane Mac is the founder of XMTP, the protocol behind Convos, a chat app that allows users to launch and interact with AI agents like O
#2302 Superpowering Claude with 10,000 apps
Zapier just announced a new way for founders to integrate all their favorite apps with their favorite AI model. Wade Foster, their co-founder, came on to show what we can build with it.
Wade Foster is the co-founder and CEO of Zapier, the automation platform that connects thousands of business apps and workflows. In this interview, he shares how he is using Zapier’s SDK and coding agents to automa
#2301 How Nat Eliason’s OpenClaw earned $177,417
When OpenClaw was released, I watched Nat Eliason create an agent, give it an X account and tell it to earn money. This is the story of how it worked and how you can build an AI agent as your co-founder or employee.
Nat Eliason is the operator behind Felix, an autonomous OpenClaw agent business that has generated nearly $200,000 in about two months through products, services, and agent-focused sof
#2300 Revenue jumped when he sold to AI agents
There are loads of apps that post to social media. So how did Nevo David get Postiz to take off? He started selling it to AI agents
Nevo David is the founder of Postiz, an open-source social media scheduling platform designed for automation and AI-driven workflows. By leaning into open source, building tools for agents like OpenClaw, and simplifying integrations through a CLI interface, Nevo turne
#2299 Zapier is using AI to sell to AI
In private conversations, I’m hearing a lot of founders describe how they’re starting to sell to AI agents, like OpenClaw’s. Zapier has more traction doing that than anyone else I met. So, in my monthly podcast with Zapier’s founder, Wade Foster, I asked him to show me how they’re doing it.
Wade Foster is the co-founder and CEO of Zapier, the automation platform used by hundreds
#2298 This AI generates $689K
Ben Cera used AI coding agents to build a company that generates $689K. The agent creates ads using AI-generated people, handles customer support, and even builds the product. This is the story of how he built Polsia and the future of business.
Ben Cera is the founder of Polsia, an AI platform that autonomously builds and operates online businesses. A serial entrepreneur and former operator at Clo
#2297 Elad Gil backed 40 unicorns. This is next
Elad Gil was an early investor in 40 unicorns, including major AI companies like Perplexity. I asked him what’s next for software companies now that AI can code better than humans, and what he’d invest in after AI.
Elad Gil is the Founder & Investor at Gil Capital, his private investment firm. He has backed some of the most iconic technology companies of the past two decades, including Airbnb,
#2296 The $7 Million Vibe Coded App
Josh Mohrer is the model of the kind of company that can be built with AI. He’s not a developer, but he vibe coded Wave AI into a $7 million / year note taking company. This is how he did it.
Josh Mohrer is the founder of Wave AI, an AI-powered audio note-taking app that records, transcribes, and summarizes conversations across meetings, phone calls, and real-world settings. Before Wave AI, Josh w
#2295 Ryan Carson: How AI does my marketing for me
When a new user signs up, most companies add them to a standard drip campaign. Ryan Carson found a better alternative: his AI agent sends customized drip messages to every new registrant. It helps his company close more business. It’s just one way he uses AI to act as his VP of marketing. In this interview, he breaks down how he automated his marketing.
Ryan Carson is a three-time founder an
#2294 He Claude Code: Build Me a YouTube Replacement
When YouTube kicked Pat Walls’ Starter Story channel off the platform, he spent a weekend getting Claude Code to build him a replacement. I wanted to see how it was done, so he walked me through it step-by-step.
Turns out it was a mistake and he’s back on YouTube, but the site he made was so good that it’s his company’s new homebase.
Pat Walls is the founder of Starter Story, a media and education
#2293 $2 million / year AI engineering firm
My friend created an AI engineering firm and every time I see him, he tells me how much his business is growing. So I asked him to tell me all about it in this interview.
This is the story of how Tarun Thummala created PressW, the Austin-based AI dev shop.
Tarun Thummala is the founder and CEO of PressW, an AI engineering firm that builds custom automation systems for real businesses in regulated,
#2292 AI Automation that makes cold calls
Yevgeniy Matsay was a real estate broker who hated making cold calls. So he built an AI automation to do it for him.
It worked so well that he created an agency that created cold calling automations for other brokers.
Today he’s turning his automation service into Rozera, a cold calling SaaS for real estate brokers.
Yevgeniy Matsay and Aidan Richards are the co-founders of Rezora, an AI-powered ou
#2291 He keeps launching AI businesses
Over a decade ago, Joe Apfelbaum was on the podcast, telling me how focusing on SEO helped him grow his agency. That was hard for the idea-a-minute founder. Now he’s back. And AI is enabling him to create more businesses. He broke down the 5 types of companies anyone could make
Joe Apfelbaum is the founder of Ajax Union, a digital marketing agency, and EvyAI, an AI-powered sales and social media a
#2290 He’s building an AI media empire
On the surface, it looks like Ricardo Vice Santos is selling AI-created books for your kids. But he’s aiming for something much bigger: a world where TV, movies, and every other media will be customized to you, using AI. He’s starting with children’s books because that’s what people will buy and what AI can do well today. This is the story of how he’s building DreamStories and how you can bu
#2289 Building companies using Zapier’s AI automations
Zapier used to be the software that connected all your other software. But it’s AI has become so powerful that people are using it to build software companies.
Founder Wade Foster joined me to talk about and show how they’re building on it.
Wade Foster is the co-founder and CEO of Zapier, the automation platform used by over 350,000 customers to connect more than 8,000 apps. He started Zapier in 2
#2288 She had people do AI’s work
Helen Hastings wanted to create better accounting software. To figure out what to build, she had humans do the work. This is the story of how she created Quanta, the accounting software that’s taking on QuickBooks with a more modern human+software approach.
Helen Hastings is the founder and CEO of Quanta, an AI-powered accounting platform built for modern software and services companies. Before Qu
#2287 AI made a “no code” founder into a coder
Ben Tossell used to listen to Mixergy interviews as he hunted for a big idea to launch. Then he nailed it. MakerPad, an educational company for people who wanted to build using no code. It did so well that he sold it for life-changing money. Then he started coding. Because of AI. This is his story.
Ben Tossell is the founder of Makerpad, the no-code education platform he sold to Zapier. Today he’s
#2286 Pepper: AI + people = > $10 million
Pepper is creating content for clients like Shopify, Adobe and Instacart. We’re talking hundreds of thousands of posts & videos. And this is content that leads to sales. In this interview, founder Anirudh Singla tell us how they do it by using AI and humans.
Anirudh Singla is the founder and CEO of Pepper, a global content marketing platform that blends AI and human creativity to produce conte
#2285 AEO: How to make ChatGPT promote you
Ethan Smith runs Graphite, the SEO & AEO company that helps brands like Webflow show up on Google’s page one and ChatGPT’s first answer.
This is how he does it
Ethan Smith is the founder and CEO of Graphite, a growth and SEO firm that’s now pioneering Answer Engine Optimization—helping brands rank inside AI-generated responses.
More interviews -> https://mixergy.com/moreint
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#2284 Why is Morning Brew’s founder selling “AI Transformation”?
Coming into this interview I wasn’t even sure what “AI Transformation” was, let alone why so many companies pay for it.
Here’s the deal: Tenex, the company founded by Alex Lieberman & Arman Hezarkhani, goes into companies hunting for ways to save or making them money using AI. Once they find that, it becomes a no brainer for companies to hire them to build it.
But Tenex does more than AI Trans
#2283 How Dan Shipper uses AI to build artisanal AI apps
“Why did you launch yet another voice dictation app?” I asked Dan Shipper, founder of Every.
I thought he’d tell me that there was some kind of research that showed people needed another one.
Nah.
It came down to his team’s taste and personal preference. They just wanted something different. So a single creator on the team built it.
AI makes it easier for more people to cre
#2282 Neil Patel’s insanely powerful AI sales machine
I’ve been talking with founders who used AI to build companies, but aren’t getting enough customers. I found the perfect person to show them how to grow.
Neil Patel has been on the cutting edge of AI marketing. He’s going to show us what’s working for his customers and his company.
At the end of the conversation, you’ll see the exact process his company, NP Digital, i
#2281 Garry Tan: Y Combinator Startups Growing 5X Faster – Here’s What Changed
AI changed everything. During their time at Y Combinator, startups typically grew revenue weekly by 2-4%. Now? 10-20%! PER WEEK. YC President Garry Tan told me the reason is simple: AI transformed software from a “nice to have” into an urgent necessity.
“Before it was like, ‘Yeah, I know I need to replace my software.’…Today it’s becoming, ‘Oh. I see
#2280 Read.ai is adding 50k users per day
How can Read.ai keep growing when 1) there are loads of meeting note taking apps, and 2) platforms like Zoom keep adding note-taking features?
That’s what I asked its founder David Shim
David Shim is the founder and CEO of Read.ai, the fastest-growing AI meeting assistant with millions of users worldwide. Previously, he was CEO of Foursquare following its acquisition of his location analytic
#2279 How are there so many AI agencies?
I keep seeing AI agencies pop up everywhere, offering to AI-ify businesses.
But what are they AI’ing? How are they doing it? Seems too general and unfocused to work. Still, they do.
I wanted to understand how, so I interviewed Rob Howard, who teaches agency owners how to sell and deliver AI services.
Rob Howard is the founder of Howard Development & Consulting (HDC.net) and the creator o
#2278 How to build a $15M/year AI company.
Pavel Doležal built Keboola to $15 million per year.
How he did it:
1. Start with consulting, so clients tell you what they need
2. Build software that makes companies’ chaotic data accessible. NO agents yet.
3. Create agents that take action. That’s the hardest part.
At the end of this interview, Pavel tells you how YOU should start an AI company and about the three successful compani
#2277 My Body Tutor: Remote Coaching as a Service
Ever wish someone would text you every day to make sure you stuck to your goals?
That’s exactly what Adam Gilbert built — first for fitness, now for business.
He’s the founder of My Body Tutor and DoneDaily, two remote coaching services powered by daily accountability. I invited him to share how he turned simple check-ins into a multi-million dollar company.
Adam Gilbert was a personal trainer who
#1001 The 1,000 interview celebration
On August 4, 2008, I posted a video up on Mixergy where I looked up into the web cam on my computer and I said “I failed.” And I said that I was going to shut down my invitation business and start doing interviews with entrepreneurs and people in general who I admire so I can learn from them and take back what I’ve learned from them to build a more successful company in the futur
#1050 How a former lawyer built a multi-million dollar company that teaches social skills – with Jordan Harbinger
How does a former lawyer build a multi-million dollar company that teaches social skills.
Jordan Harbinger is the co-founder of The Art of Charm, a company that teaches confidence and emotional intelligence.
Jordan Harbinger is the co-founder of The Art of Charm, a company that teaches confidence and emotional intelligence, and the host of The Jordan Harbinger Show, which interviews top performers
#715 HearAndPlay.com: Turning $70 Into A Multimillion Dollar Instruction Web Site – with Jermaine Griggs
Update: based on the comments we’re getting, Jermaine sent this PDF about Automation.
How does a high school senior from the inner city turn $70 into a multimillion dollar instruction web site?
Jermaine Griggs is the founder of HearAndPlay.com, which trains musicians to play by ear, trains them to play by ear with online music lessons and piano video tutorials.
Jermaine Griggs is the founder
#990 Andrew’s process for overcoming entrepreneurial stagnation – with Samantha Alford
A few weeks ago, Andrew was interviewed about his inner doubt by Samantha Alford of WomeninBusinesspodcast.com.
I (Arie Saint) thought it was too good not to share with our audience, so I’m publishing it on Mixergy.
Check it out and let’s talk about it in the comments.
Samantha Alford, the founder of the Women in Business Podcast.
Sponsored byWalker Corporate Law – Scott E
#214 How To Produce Like A Linchpin By Understanding Your Lizard Brain – with Seth Godin
You listen to my programs because I don’t do the cute “let’s get to know the author” interviews that others are known for. I hunt down information that you can use because I’m passionate about helping you build a business that your great-great-grandkids would admire you for.
That’s why I kept digging in this interview. I want you (and me too, frankly) to be able
#710 iContact Founder Returns To Mixergy After $169M Sale – with Ryan Allis
How does a wristband help a founder build a $169 million company?
Ryan Allis is the founder of iContact, a provider of email marketing tools for small businesses. And a company that was recently sold for $169 million to Vocus.
Here’s a quote from the last time I interviewed him, “we incorporated in July ’03, lived in the office, slept on futons, cooked on a George Foreman grill, did wh
#216 How Clever Entrepreneurs Turned 3 Air Mattresses Into Airbnb, The Site That Makes Any Home A Bed And Breakfast – with Brian and Joe
The founders of Airbnb are guys who couldn’t make rent a few years ago, but they kept turning desperation into creative solutions. In October 2007, eager to make extra money, they noticed that local hotels were booked up because of a conference. So they pumped up some inflatable mattresses and listed their place online as an “air bed and breakfast.” It was quirky and it worked. T
#400 Reddit Founder: “I Wish I Still Owned Reddit Now” – with Steve Huffman
Many founders I interviewed on Mixergy told me about how their companies virtually disappeared after they sold them. But 4 years after selling Reddit to Conde Nast, Steve Huffman is so proud of how much its grown that he’d be happy to still own it.
I asked him to teach me how he grew his community, why some Y Combinator-backed founders, like him, succeed while others don’t get any trac
#1417 How Sam Ovens is helping everyday people start their own consulting businesses
I’ll be honest with you. I felt guilt about an interview that I did years ago with today’s guest. This was back in, let me see here, 2013. I interviewed Sam Ovens about how he built up this consulting business and was teaching people how to do consulting.
I thought maybe I got taken for a ride. It was too good to be true. Then I started hearing people who were in his program talk about
#1453 The future of chat (and interacting with your customers)
About a year ago I realized that no matter how much effort we’ve put into my email list, I could never double the response rate. We kept growing it, but people were not using email much.
So I started looking around for solutions and I started looking at bots. Bots are basically software that communicates with humans via a chat app. I came across one company that looked too good to be true. I
#1524 When does a startup founder need a COO?
A topic we don’t talk about on Mixergy is how to actually manage a company. I remember when I was in NYU as an undergrad I loved all my business classes, but management just didn’t feel like me.
I always thought of the guys in Dilbert but entrepreneurs were the ones who were creating, the ones who were doing. Mixergy’s grown and I’ve been running it, but I have to be hones
#1559 Cameron Herold coaches me on hiring (so I don’t collapse at my desk)
Hiring has been a huge issue for me. And in a past interview with Cameron Herold, I brought it up because he’s the founder of the COO Alliance, the world’s leading network for the second in command.
I don’t get embarrassed by a lot of stuff. If you heard my interviews, you hear me get pretty frank about my flaws, my mistakes. But this issue is something I was embarrassed about. I
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