🎙️ Backstage Tech by George Helgesen

George Helgesen
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Podcast for software founders, investors and product leaders. Behind the scenes stories about trending tech and software development outsourcing industry.

  1. Aug 5

    7 Roles AI Can Supercharge (And You Should, Too)

    ▶️ Watch the full video on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@georgehelgesen 👉 Let's connect on LinkedIn — send me a request and mention the podcast. In this episode of my micro-podcast, I break down 7 roles where AI lets you grow output without growing headcount — pulled from real automations I've built with B2B founders. Pulling from 8+ years working shoulder-to-shoulder with software founders, here's where AI takes the first pass so your small team can take the money pass: Sales Rep — an AI voice bot calls warm leads minutes after they submit a form, before a human rep even sees the notification. The human takes over the second the lead is engagedWeb Designer — ship the MVP or landing page while your team's offline. AI does ~90%, a designer with taste refines the rest. Speed wins dealsQA Engineer — as dev speeds up, testing matters more. Point AI at the branch, check it against the specs, run it in the browser, and hunt for what's brokenCopywriter — feed it everything you've written, set the voice and audience, and it drafts blog content that actually sounds like you — not generic AI mushData Researcher — turn a name and a corporate email into real research on the company and the person, then pipe it straight into the first call or emailSMM Manager — one person runs the whole content pipeline at today's speed: clips, voice, video, lipsync, and graphicsSoftware Engineer — the one role you DO hire. Engineers don't write code by hand anymore. Your harness — not the model — decides how productive they areIf you own, fund, or lead a software product with a small team that struggles to deliver, this episode shows you how to move faster and win more business without growing your monthly burn. 👉 Want to talk through how to scale your software company? Email ogo@procoders.tech or connect with me on LinkedIn.

    7 Roles AI Can Supercharge (And You Should, Too)

  2. Jul 16

    Thomas England @ Origin: IoT, AI-Native Engineering, Velocity Trap

    Thomas England is the CTO of Origin Smart Controls — a company building software for IoT device management in commercial buildings. Origin came out of the mechanical and electrical engineering world, not the software world. That's the whole point: mechanical engineers and software engineers build the platform together, so it solves the problem the way a building engineer understands it, not the way a developer assumes it. Their clients include the NHS and a major UK broadcaster. In this episode, Thomas breaks down why velocity is the most dangerous thing AI gave engineering teams, and why point-solution SaaS companies should be watching their pricing very closely. Topics covered: Why most IoT dashboard platforms fail — they give you a toolbox, not a solutionThe engineering triangle: quality, accuracy, velocity — and why AI breaks the balanceWhy you can't blame Claude or Codex when your production breaksTwo types of AI resistance in engineering teams and how to handle eachWhy point-solution SaaS is in trouble — and what Atlassian should be worried aboutIf you're an engineering leader figuring out AI adoption, or a founder building in an old-school industry — this episode is for you. 👉 Follow George: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgehelgesen/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@georgehelgesen👉 Follow Thomas: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-england-09334280/Origin Smart Controls: https://originsmartcontrols.com/

    Thomas England @ Origin: IoT, AI-Native Engineering, Velocity Trap

  3. Jun 18

    Everything I Learned After 8 Years in SaaS: 10 Founder Lessons in 12 Minutes

    ▶️ Watch the full video on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@georgehelgesen 👉 Let's connect on LinkedIn — send me a request and mention the podcast. In this episode of my micro-podcast, I'm breaking down everything I learned in 8 years building software with B2B founders — 10 lessons in 12 minutes. Pulling from 8+ years working shoulder-to-shoulder with software founders, here's what separates the products that scale from the ones that stall: Integrate from day one — don't ask people to change how they work. Plug into their existing tools. People don't resist technology, they resist changeDistribution is not an afterthought — your product won't sell itself. Pay partners for customers who subscribe AND pay, not just signupsPrototype at zero cost — build the interface in Claude, show real users, validate, THEN spend on development. No more $50K MVPs nobody wantedEvery dollar needs an ROI — run the numbers on every single feature. 5x return? Ship it. No clear return? Skip it, no matter how cool it isProduct plus service — sell the service first, then let the product scale what the service delivered. Vsimple and Dig Insights both lead with serviceUse external teams as extensions — outsource the boring stuff so your core team stays excited. Happy engineers build better productsBecome AI-native — record every call, automate everything you can, but keep a human in the loop. AI is your co-pilot, not your autopilotIf you own, fund, or lead a software product, this episode gives you a practical 10-lesson framework to audit how you build — before you burn budget on things nobody wanted. 👉 Want to talk through how to scale your software company? Email ogo@procoders.tech or connect with me on LinkedIn.

    Everything I Learned After 8 Years in SaaS: 10 Founder Lessons in 12 Minutes

  4. Jun 8

    Which SaaS Survives in AI Era? 7 Things You Must Do to Survive

    ▶️ Watch the full video on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@georgehelgesen 👉 Let's connect on LinkedIn — send me a request and mention the podcast. In this episode of my micro-podcast, I'm breaking down 7 things every software founder must do to survive while AI eats the SaaS market around them. Pulling from 8+ years working shoulder-to-shoulder with software founders, here's what separates the products that become indispensable from the ones that get copied over a weekend: Educate your customers — if they can't figure out your product without emailing support, your onboarding is broken. Build real walkthroughs, not help docsFix customer experience — pick up the phone. Email support is a churn accelerator. Adyen does it right. Stripe doesn't. That gap is a competitive advantageBe more than software — stop selling a login, start selling outcomes. Dig Insights and Vsimple bundle services with their product. That's how you become a growth partner, not a vendorSell value, not features — Leadfeeder calculated my 25x ROI in the first five minutes. ContactOut just sold me contacts. One closed the deal, one didn't. Train your team accordinglyRemove UX bottlenecks — your users aren't telling you where they're stuck. They're just leaving. Use heatmaps and session recordings. Fix what's broken before it kills retentionIf you own, fund, or lead a software product, this episode gives you a practical 7-point checklist to audit your product right now — before your customers start building their own version. 👉 Want to talk through how to make your SaaS indispensable? Email ogo@procoders.tech or connect with me on LinkedIn.

    Which SaaS Survives in AI Era? 7 Things You Must Do to Survive

  5. May 19

    Richard Mole @ SDCN: Freight Exchange Tech, Why Copycats Fail

    Richard Mole is the founder of Same Day Courier Network (SDCN) — a well-respected B2B freight exchange marketplace in the UK, built over the last decade without outside investment. Richard has spent his career in transport, growing SDCN into a platform trusted by thousands of couriers, owner-drivers, and large transport companies. In this episode, Richard breaks down how copycats keep failing in this market and why he believes human-first customer service still beats AI in the transport industry. Topics covered: Why one of SDCN's competitors stopped taking new customersHow Richard built SDCN over 10 years with no investorsWhy human-first customer service still beats AI in transportHow competitors literally try to copy SDCN — screenshots, devs, the worksHow SDCN helps couriers kill "dead miles" and why TMS integrations are the next unlockIf you're a B2B software founder or you plan on building a transport tech solution — this episode is for you. 👉 Follow George: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgehelgesen/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@georgehelgesen👉 Follow Richard: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-mole-2431172b/SDCN: https://samedaycouriernetwork.com/

    Richard Mole @ SDCN: Freight Exchange Tech, Why Copycats Fail

  6. Apr 27

    Don't Hire Devshops (I'll Tell You Why)

    ▶️ Watch the full video on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@georgehelgesen 👉  Let's connect on LinkedIn — send me a request and mention the podcast. In episode #16 of "Backstage Tech", we're walking through a 10-point framework to tell whether you're talking to a real development partner — or a devshop that will burn your time and cash. Pulling from 8+ years working shoulder-to-shoulder with software founders, here's what separates a partner who moves your business forward from a vendor who hides behind documentation the moment something goes wrong: Ownership mindset — devshops spend your money, partners make you money. You feel the difference in the first conversationFounder accessibility — if you can't get anyone with real authority on a call before signing, imagine what happens after you payTeam retention — check LinkedIn before you commit. High turnover is a red flag that tells you everything about the cultureProactive suggestions — order takers wait for instructions. Real partners show up with ideas before you even askChase dynamic — if you're always hunting them down for updates, that's your answer. A real partner is chasing youIf you own, fund, or lead a software product, this episode gives you a practical checklist to use on your next agency discovery call — before you wire a single dollar. 👉 Want to talk through how to find the right dev partner for your product? Email ogo@procoders.tech or connect with me on LinkedIn.

    Don't Hire Devshops (I'll Tell You Why)

  7. Apr 15

    Steve Mast: The 3 Steps to Real AI Adoption | Co-Founder @ Twenty44

    Steve Mast is an entrepreneur, AI advisor, and co-founder of Twenty44 — a company helping organizations move from AI experimentation to real adoption. Steve spent over 3 decades building digital companies, including Delvinia, where he built Asking Canadians and Methodify before selling to Sago in 2021. Now he's focused on one problem: why 45% of organizations have invested in AI, but only 12% of employees are actually using it. In this episode, Steve breaks down why AI adoption is a people challenge, not a technology one, how Twenty44 diagnoses workforce readiness, and what it actually takes to move organizations from hype to habit. Topics covered: Why 45% of organizations have AI but only 12% of employees use itWhy most organizations are built on executors — and why that changes everything about AI trainingHow Twenty44's 3-step framework closes the adoption gapWhy embedding AI inside Salesforce drove more adoption than any standalone appHow to benchmark your workforce's AI readiness before spending on toolsWhy AI is the most accessible technology in history — and why that still isn't enoughWhether the Twenty44 assessment platform will become a self-serve SaaS productIf you're an enterprise leader or founder trying to turn AI investment into actual results — this episode is the playbook. 👉 Follow George: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgehelgesen/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@georgehelgesen👉 Follow Steve: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevemast/Twenty44: https://twenty44.co/

    Steve Mast: The 3 Steps to Real AI Adoption | Co-Founder @ Twenty44

  8. Mar 31

    Dig Insights Co-Founder: Bolting AI onto legacy SaaS doesn't work

    Ian Ash is the co-founder of Dig Insights — a global market research consultancy with its own SaaS platform, Dig One, trusted by McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Meta, Pernod Ricard and dozens of world-leading brands. What started as a traditional consultancy grew into an AI-native market research company with patented algorithms, a 30% compound annual growth rate over its first decade, and a successful exit to Behringer Capital. In this episode, Ian breaks down how Dig Insights evolved from traditional consulting into a tech-driven platform, why "service as a software" is replacing SaaS, and why he came back from semi-retirement because AI is moving too fast to watch from the sidelines. Topics covered: How Dig Insights went from traditional consultancy to building their own SaaS platformHow their patented "Tinder for products" algorithm predicts market share from simple swipesWhy winning Coca-Cola and Pernod Ricard globally was a step change for the companyWhy legacy SaaS companies that bolt on AI get punishedHow AI skills and agents are replacing prompt engineeringWhy Ian came back after exiting to Behringer CapitalIf you're a founder, product leader, or investor trying to figure out where AI fits into your SaaS business — this episode lays out the playbook from someone who's lived it. 👉 Follow George: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgehelgesenYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@georgehelgesen👉 Follow Ian: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ian-ash-dig/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ianash8585Dig Insights: https://diginsights.com

    Dig Insights Co-Founder: Bolting AI onto legacy SaaS doesn't work
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Podcast for software founders, investors and product leaders. Behind the scenes stories about trending tech and software development outsourcing industry.

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