The Next New Thing

Andrew Warner
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Creating with AI is fun. Turning it into a growing business is even more fun.

  1. 3D AGO

    Revenue jumped when he sold to AI agents

    Presented by Zapier https://zapier.com/ Episode Highlights / Timestamps00:00 Revenue explodes after building for AI agents00:18 The origin of Postiz as an open-source social media scheduler01:12 Finding a “blue ocean” inside a crowded market01:57 Adding MCP and early AI integrations02:42 Why automation dramatically reduces churn03:54 Growing Postiz to $17K–$20K MRR04:03 Discovering OpenClaw and the shift toward agent-driven software05:06 Building a CLI so agents can control Postiz05:51 The viral “Larry” OpenClaw agent story07:48 Why agents need strong documentation and skills09:18 Turning a full API into a simple CLI with Claude11:51 Why CLI tools may become the default interface for agent startups12:45 The next startup idea: agent-native UGC video generation13:03 Why CLI reduces token usage compared to APIs16:21 Using Claude to build the CLI automatically17:06 Postiz reaches $45K MRR In 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.

    17 min

  2. MAR 3

    Zapier is using AI to sell to AI

    Presented by Zapierhttps://zapier.com/ Episode Highlights / Timestamps00:00 Marketing to agents, not humans00:45 What “agent marketing” actually means01:30 How agents decide which products to pick02:15 What works: clean docs, fast pages, agent-friendly content03:54 How people are testing and tracking agent recommendations04:48 Is SaaS dead?04:57 Zapier’s CPTO vibe-codes a meeting recorder05:24 Why they still won’t cancel SaaS subscriptions06:27 When vibe coding is worth it (and when it isn’t)06:45 Software spend vs headcount spend07:57 The “War Council” Claude skill08:33 How it spins up subagents + personas09:54 How Wade built it fast using Cursor + Granola notes11:06 Skills as a commodity vs software as a business12:54 Using War Council for hiring decisions14:51 Using it to analyze sales performance + feedback16:21 Wade’s Cursor setup + switching between models17:42 Using Codex to critique Claude when it gets stuck18:09 How Wade structures personal context files21:18 Building an AI chief-of-staff system22:03 Using Zapier MCP to draft emails / run actions24:09 Getting 800 people at Zapier using Cursor / Claude Code / Codex25:39 Example: AI reviewing 4 massive spreadsheets fast31:03 The “NO” hat and staying focused32:06 Wrap  📄 War Council Skill (Claude Skill mentioned in the episode): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CU674IKmPCAZm2xuqMGklTA-Bq1xr1GNQW6hNydxXrE/edit?tab=t.0 Are 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 that’s 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 “selling to a person.” You’re trying to get ChatGPT, Claude, and other models to recommend you instead of a competitor — and the tactics are different. Wade explains what “agent marketing” 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 — but they’re 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 he’s using AI daily as a “second brain” inside Cursor — 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 — without hype.

    32 min

  3. MAR 2

    This AI generates $689K

    Presented by Zapierhttps://zapier.com/  Episode Highlights / Timestamps00:00 AI that runs your company01:03 How Polsia’s agents are structured02:33 One-click Meta ads explained04:30 Why friction kills growth06:18 Subscription model + nightly CEO agent08:24 Launching multiple companies as a “fund”10:21 Revenue split: 80/20 alignment14:24 The Polsia economy vision16:30 A real customer story19:39 Should you build elsewhere first?24:09 How Polsia grew from $20K to $600K+ run rate25:12 The AI fundraising stunt27:00 Live revenue dashboard explained34:57 Live demo: launching a company42:18 Tasks, credits, and iterations49:30 Solo founder with AI engineers52:12 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 — 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 — just weeks after launch. But here’s 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 isn’t about overnight unicorns. It’s 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 — aligning incentives with the founder.

    53 min

  4. FEB 24

    Investor Elad Gil’s next moves

    Presented by Zapierhttps://zapier.com/ Episode Highlights / Timestamps00:00 The first billion-dollar solo company (Minecraft)00:27 Elad’s investing track record01:12 What “making it” really means04:03 Where today’s “toys” become tomorrow’s giants08:51 AI puts building power in millions of hands09:45 Will more builders mean smaller outcomes?13:03 AI service shops and vertical software15:00 AI cutting permitting time from months to hours16:39 Does AI replace CRMs and SaaS?19:12 Is off-the-shelf software dead?23:15 The shift from seats to AI labor units27:36 Alexandria: translating the world’s most important books30:36 How Elad uses AI personally35:06 Where new AI ideas come from37:48 What’s exciting for the next decade “The first billion-dollar one-person company? That already happened. It was Minecraft.” In this episode of The Next New Thing, Andrew Warner sits down with legendary investor Elad Gil — early backer of companies like Airbnb, Coinbase, Stripe, Instacart, and more — to talk about where AI is really going… and what founders are getting wrong. Elad argues that we’re still in the early innings of AI — and that “software is AI.” The shift isn’t just better SaaS. It’s a move from seat-based software to metered digital labor. From buying tools… to buying units of work. They discuss: Whether “toy” AI apps can become real businessesWhy small vibe-coded projects can turn into giant companiesThe agent shift (and why it changes TAM completely)How AI eats into labor markets, not just software categoriesWhether CRMs, ERPs, and landing page tools surviveWhy some companies should be bought and rebuilt with AIThe real opportunity in foundation models beyond language Elad also shares what he’s personally experimenting with — scraping and interrogating large datasets using Claude, OpenAI, and Deep Research — 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 — including a project called Alexandria aimed at translating the world’s most important books into languages covering 80%+ of humanity.

    45 min

  5. FEB 3

    How Josh Mohrer built Wave AI

    Presented by Zapierhttps://zapier.com/ Episode Highlights / Timestamps 00:00 $7M ARR as a solo founder01:21 Profit, margins, and team size02:51 Josh’s path from Uber to Wave05:24 Choosing ideas in the early AI days06:18 Why summarization felt like the killer app08:15 Competing with Otter, Fireflies, and others10:21 Recording real-world audio vs meeting bots12:18 Spending more on AI to improve quality13:39 Knowing you’re onto something from user emotion15:09 Why Wave stayed general instead of vertical16:12 Learning to build with ChatGPT18:00 How Wave’s architecture evolved19:39 Using Claude Code day-to-day21:00 AI agents analyzing analytics and logs25:21 The tools behind Wave (Cursor, Twilio, Adapt)27:27 Building instead of buying SaaS tools30:00 Using AI to ship features faster32:06 Why Zapier matters for data portability34:03 The future of cheap, abundant software36:09 Running Wave like a corner store, not a startup40:12 Growth goals without VC pressure42:18 How Wave gets customers today49:03 Why SEO side projects didn’t convert50:24 “If you’re good, things might work out”54:45 Revenue breakdown and take-home profit What does it look like when a single founder builds a profitable AI company — alone — 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 — and how modern AI tools fundamentally changed what’s possible for solo founders. Josh previously helped scale Uber in its early days, but Wave AI is a very different story. It’s 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.

    56 min

  6. JAN 26

    Ryan Carson uses AI to customize email drip

    Presented by Zapierhttps://zapier.com/ Episode Highlights / Timestamps 00:00 Why every email should be personalized00:18 Ryan’s background and what Untangle does00:45 Rethinking traditional email drips01:12 Customizing emails based on user situations01:39 A real example that led to a signup02:06 Daily automated marketing insights via email03:00 Doing things that don’t scale with AI04:03 Walking through the AI email system05:06 Using lead magnets and contextual data06:09 Enriching leads and storing user context06:45 Hourly cron jobs and email scheduling07:39 Feeding context into the LLM correctly08:15 Preventing hallucinated features08:24 Sending emails with Resend09:18 Measuring clicks instead of opens10:12 Layering engagement-based follow-ups10:39 Long-term personalized nurture loops12:00 Turning marketing emails into real value13:03 Building vertical-specific AI agents14:15 Using Zapier and modern automations16:12 Building systems with AI coding agents18:27 Running multiple AI agents at once21:27 Deciding what to build in a world of “free code”24:09 Daily AI-generated growth recommendations27:45 Using AI to generate and validate ideas31:03 Increasing insight frequency, not brilliance34:21 Why personalized email is a massive opportunity34:48 Final takeaways Why isn’t every email completely customized for the person receiving it — 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 “standard” 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 — based on each user’s situation, behavior, and engagement — and adapts over time.

    35 min

  7. JAN 23

    Step-by-Step build with Claude Code

    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 platforms In 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 — 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 you’ve ever wondered how far AI can really take you in building real products, this episode shows exactly what’s possible today.

    51 min
  8. He’s building AI for companies

    JAN 12

    He’s building AI for companies

    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 “AI transformation” stopped working as a pitch[36:36] Inside Press W’s AI-native operating system In 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 — 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 “AI transformation,” his team focuses on concrete workflows: document processing, internal tools, sales ops, and systems that actually ship and get used.

    41 min
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Creating with AI is fun. Turning it into a growing business is even more fun.

Information

  • Creator
    Andrew Warner
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    22
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2025 Bootstrapped Giants
  • Show Website
    The Next New Thing

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