NOROBOTS

Digital Octane
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Conversations on building websites, growing businesses, and the marketing behind great web work. https://norobots.co

Episodes

  1. 1d ago

    ChatGPT Ads Actually Work (But Only Under $100)

    ChatGPT ads hit a $1B run rate in under 200 days. But do they actually work? Jack Paxton, founder of Top Growth Marketing, has spent tens of thousands of dollars testing ChatGPT ads across a range of DTC brands. His agency has been running paid ads for over 12 years, now manages a few million dollars a month in ad spend, and handles ads, email and SMS for Shopify brands on Meta, Google, TikTok and Snapchat. In this episode he breaks down what the tests showed: Why products under $100 convert on ChatGPT ads and products over $200 don’t Why ChatGPT ads are NOT the new early Facebook ads (CPMs tell the story) Where a small brand with a limited budget should put its money first: Google, Meta, creator collaboration ads or ChatGPT Why ChatGPT ads should stay at 20% of your budget as an experimental channel, not a core one Why AEO/GEO is the real early-mover opportunity right now, and why GEO traffic converts 2–3x better than old organic traffic What happened to the clients who left the agency for cheaper AI-only options Why AI hasn’t made agencies more profitable, just raised the bar for everyone How AI is killing junior roles and what that means for the industry in 5 years What agency Jack would start today if he was starting from scratch Jack Paxton: https://topgrowthmarketing.com   / jackpaxton   NoRobots — human-curated directory of agencies and startups, hiring platform, and founder podcast: https://norobots.co Digital Octane - engineering team working for agencies,start-ups and ecommerce brands https://digitaloctane.co

  2. 5d ago

    Make ChatGPT Recommend Your Brand in 2026.

    How does a brand actually get recommended by ChatGPT? In this episode of the NoRobots Podcast, Vlad sits down with Kateryna Vakulenko, co-founder of SOUP Agency in Australia, to break down what a new brand (or an established one) needs in place before AI search engines will cite it, and what to ignore. Kateryna has launched multiple consumer tech brands into the Australian market and runs SEO, GEO and paid campaigns for clients across e-commerce and B2B. She walks through the order of operations: making the site crawlable by AI agents first, building content that answers the questions people type into ChatGPT, getting reviews and third-party citations, and then checking where the AI is actually pulling its answers from for your category. She also explains why being cited isn't the same as getting sales, why most of GEO is still SEO, and what to do when ChatGPT keeps picking your competitor. What we cover: The first things to fix on a new brand's website before anything else Can you use AI-generated content? (Yes, with one condition) Content vs backlinks: which matters more now Which external sources to target: reviews, Reddit, directories, publications Should you do GEO yourself or hire an agency? How to track AI visibility: Peec, Semrush, GA4, Search Console, and the simplest method of all Why being cited by ChatGPT doesn't mean you're winning Fake reviews, bought Reddit threads and AI spam: do they work? How a small brand competes with a big one in AI search How a GEO engagement is structured: audit, 3–6 month plan, technical first Do you need to be on Amazon? Does Shopify vs custom matter? Connect with Kateryna Vakulenko: Website: https://www.soupagency.com.au NoRobots is a human-curated directory of agencies and startups, a hiring platform, and a podcast with founders: https://norobots.co This episode is brought to you by Digital Octane, a development partner for agencies, startups and ecommerce brands: Shopify, WordPress, custom React/Node.js builds and SEO/GEO optimization. https://digitaloctane.co

  3. 5d ago

    Don’t Pay for a Logo Until This Happens. - Jeremy Slagle

    Don't pay for a logo. Don't generate one either. Type your business name in a good font and get to work. That is what Jeremy Slagle tells most people who call him, and he is a brand designer. He runs Slagle Design, a one-man studio in Columbus, Ohio, with clients from farmer's market bakeries to Target, Nationwide, Harley-Davidson and Major League Soccer. He co-founded and ran an agency for 12 years, then went out on his own 17 years ago. By his estimate, 90% of businesses will never hire a designer for a logo, and he is fine with that. His argument against AI logos is not that they are ugly. It is that they can only repeat the past: ask for a coffee shop, and you get beans and mugs; ask for a dentist, and you get molars; ask for pickleball, and you get two paddles and a ball. And AI is now training on its own output, so he expects the results to get worse, not better. A logo built that way can't carry what makes a business different, because the owner doesn't know that yet either. That knowledge comes from a few seasons of selling, learning what moves and who buys it. That is the moment to hire a designer, and around 70% of Jeremy's work comes from exactly those people: founders who started with a $100 logo or a generated one, outgrew it, and now need signage, packaging, and uniforms they are not willing to build on a placeholder. We also talk about where he does use AI (research and the occasional drawing reference, nothing else), why AI-generated photos are already hurting brands, how it is hitting young designers including his own two kids, why "made by a human" is becoming a selling point, and the one piece of advice he gives every new designer: carry a sketchbook and draw it before you touch a computer. Guest: Jeremy Slagle, founder of Slagle Design Website: https://slagledesign.com Instagram:   / slagledesign   NoRobots is a human-curated directory of agencies and startups, plus a founder podcast. Find agencies or list yours: https://norobots.co Digital Octane is a web-development agency working for brands, agencies, and start-ups: https://digitaloctane.co/

  4. Oct 23

    Internet used to be magic. AI slop is killing it. — Eric Jordan, 2Advanced Studios

    Remember when websites felt like movies? In this episode of the NoRobots podcast, Vlad sits down with Eric Jordan, co-founder and Chief Creative Officer of 2Advanced Studios and a designer and motion graphics artist with 27 years in the industry, to talk about what made the early web feel magic and why so much of today’s internet feels disposable. Eric explains why the magic was never the technology. It was intention, storytelling, and people who cared about every detail. We talk about how the web drifted from immersive Flash experiences to templates and identical long-scroll sites, why AI slop feels soulless, and where the line sits between using AI as a tool and letting it make your creative decisions for you. We also cover: Why skipping the decision-making process kills creativity How clients now use AI to explain their ideas before handing projects to real teams Going from a 35-person studio to solo, and what gets lost without a team Rebuilding classic Flash-era sites with Rive, and the Prophecy archive winning FWA Site of the Day Whether agencies still need teams when AI makes everyone faster The one thing you can do to bring the magic back into your work

  5. Oct 1

    "I Can Get Another Client. I Can't Get Another Life." — Founder on 29 Years of Never Selling Out.

    He can get another client. He can't get another life. That is the rule Keith White runs his agency on, and it explains most of the last 29 years. He started ParkerWhite in 1997 with Cindy Parker, his business partner then and his wife now. It is still a 13-person healthcare and medical-device branding agency in San Diego, and it is still theirs. Not for lack of interest: at least once a month someone reaches out wanting to buy it, and agency roll-ups pay six to eight times EBITDA for a firm like his. His answer has not changed: "I never really wanted to sell out for a big payday." The dream is for the employees to carry it on after he and Cindy step back. The same rule sits behind a long line of other refusals. No stock options during the dot-com boom, when the San Diego agencies that took them went under. No client allowed above 20% of his billings. No tobacco accounts, giant budgets or not. No outreach in ten years. When COVID emptied the office on March 16, 2020, he could not bring himself to lay people off, and by April 30 his team had voted to come back. And about once every two years he resigns a client who makes the work miserable. That is where the line comes from: "I can go get another account. I can't go get another life." In this episode Keith walks Vlad through the rest: how you market a medical device when the FDA will not let you promise an outcome, why he and Cindy brought in an outside CEO after nearly three decades (four grandkids: "They're not gonna raise themselves"), why AI tools rank his agency #1 or #2 in its category and he cannot tell you how, where AI turns 30 hours of research into two and where he never trusts its first answer, the client red flag that ends a relationship, and the very different agency he would start in 2026.

  6. Sep 22

    "AI Didn't Take My Job. It Took the Job I Started In." — Studio Founder on Who AI Really Replaces.

    AI didn't take his job. It took the job he started in. Austin Schulenburg started Pen & Mug as a college freelancer, ran it for five years on the side while working a corporate design job, and only went full-time once the business could carry him. Today Pen & Mug is an 8-person creative studio in Nashville working on retainers with tech companies, events (IndyCar, Major League Pickleball) and nonprofits. In this episode Austin breaks down how a small studio actually runs: why he didn't quit his job sooner, how he structures retainers so hours never become a fight, how he hires freelancers without test projects, where his clients really come from (spoiler: Clutch and ChatGPT, not Instagram), and the one thing AI has already taken from the design industry — the cheap first project that every junior used to start on. Guest: Austin Schulenburg, founder of Pen & Mug Website: https://penandmug.com LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/austin-schulenburg-84901b123 NoRobots is a human-curated directory of agencies and startups, plus a founder podcast. Find agencies or list yours: https://norobots.co Digital Octane is a web-development agency working for brands, other agencies and start-ups: https://digitaloctane.co/

  7. Sep 18

    "We Don't Hire Developers Anymore" — Silicon Valley Agency CEO on 100% AI-Written Code

    An 18-year-old Silicon Valley development agency now ships 100% of its code with AI, has cut project costs 3x, and runs 30–40 agents in production. In this episode of the NoRobots Podcast, Vlad sits down with Vadim Peskov, CEO of Diffco, to talk about what actually changed, what clients pay for when AI writes the code, and why "developer" is no longer a job title his company hires for. Vadim went from a physics degree in Saratov to running a Silicon Valley agency that has been selling AI and computer vision projects since 2016, long before ChatGPT. He breaks down the shift from hourly billing to fixed-cost delivery, why the staffing model is dying, the real cost of maintaining vibe-coded products, who is liable when AI-generated code leaks data, and whether there is still a path for junior developers. What we cover: Why a $1M project now costs under $300K What percentage of client code is AI-written (and where it still fails: pixel-perfect front end) "The prototype was easy, why is your quote $200K?" — how to answer clients Replacing a SaaS tool after a 10x price hike in minutes with open source Why 95% of security incidents come from people, not code Pen tests for $3K vs. accepting the risk Why senior developers with 15 years of experience are "becoming juniors" Hiring architects who design systems that build themselves Will agencies shrink or grow? 30–40 agents and counting Full write-up: https://norobots.co/ai-agent-developm... Connect with Vadim Peskov: LinkedIn:   / vadimpeskov   X: https://x.com/vadimpeskov Diffco: https://diffco.us NoRobots — human-curated agency directory, hiring platform, and founder podcast: https://norobots.co Digital Octane - a web-development agency: https://digitaloctane.co/ Find the best agencies: https://norobots.co Hire vetted talent: https://norobots.co/jobs

  8. Sep 8

    Why 10,000 Users in a Week Meant Nothing | Harsha Gaddipati, Slashy (YC S25)

    Harsha Gaddipati got 10,000 users in the first week of his first product. Then again with his second. Both times he saw the same thing: users came for one task and never came back. So he asked a harder question — which workflow can you actually own for years? — and that led him to email. Today he's the founder of Slashy, an AI-native email platform that writes in your voice, chases your follow-ups, handles your scheduling, and is coming straight for Superhuman. In this episode: why being "the tool people use when ChatGPT fails" is a death sentence, what a 40-hour build session actually looks like, how Slashy learns from your past emails and your own edits, why he killed usage-based pricing, the feature everyone begged for that nobody used, and a cold email approach built on a person's interests rather than their job title.

  9. Aug 29

    From $0 to $70K/Month in ONE Day — With a Single LinkedIn Post | Nick Stagge - The Grounded Company

    What if one LinkedIn post could replace your entire sales funnel? In this episode, Nick Stagge, founder of The Grounded Company, shares how a single post announcing he was going fractional turned into two major clients within 24 hours — and then a call that had him agreeing to onboard 10 brands for an agency he hadn't even registered yet. He set up the business license by Friday and started Monday at $70K/month. Six years later, Grounded has grown into three agencies (Grounded, Adapted, Fusion) — fully bootstrapped, no investors, no ads, no cold outreach. We cover: What working 60 jobs before age 19 taught him about risk The exact story of going from $0 to $70K/month in one day What content actually works in 2026 (and why shelf life is shorter than ever) Client red flags — and when to walk away from money Why AI-generated creative "gives you the average" His #1 rule for starting anything: sell it before you build it Connect with Nick Stagge: LinkedIn: Nick Stagge Website: https://thegroundedcompany.com Norobots - HR platform, agency and start-up listing: https://norobots.co/ Digital Octane - a web-dev company: https://digitaloctane.co/

  10. Aug 24

    How a 6-Person Startup Landed Google & AT&T | James Zammit, Roark (YC W25)

    James Zammit spent two years as a senior engineer at AngelList before leaving to co-found Roark (YC W25) — a testing and observability platform for voice AI agents. About a year in: a team of six, millions of call minutes processed every month, and clients like Google and AT&T. In this episode of the NoRobots podcast, James breaks down exactly how they did it — and why his first two startups didn't work. We cover: Why AngelList is a "stepping stone" to becoming a founder Startup #3 vs #1: shipping in ~2 weeks instead of 1.5 years How a 6-person team wins enterprise clients with zero ad spend The 20+ internal AI agents replacing headcount — a changelog agent, an on-call agent that opens fix PRs, prospecting agents What YC actually evaluates in your application (it's not just the product) Cascading vs speech-to-speech voice models — and what still breaks Where voice AI should and shouldn't replace humans His prediction: "Anyone with a publicly facing phone number will be a voice agent" 🔗 Guest James Zammit — Co-Founder & CEO, Roark (YC W25) Website: https://roark.ai (free self-serve tier available) Email: james@roark.ai LinkedIn:   / zammitjames   NoRobots Human-curated agency & startup directory + founder interviews. https://norobots.co Digital Octane - a dev agency - https://digitaloctane.co Subscribe for more conversations with founders and company owners.

  11. Aug 13

    How to Get Your Brand Into ChatGPT's Answers - Elad Hefetz, Airfleet

    Elad Hefetz turned CodersClan — a "Stack Overflow with payments" for developers — into Airfleet, a 55-person global agency building websites exclusively for enterprise B2B tech companies (cybersecurity, AI, fintech). We cover why saying no to paying clients was his best growth decision, why he still bets on WordPress after a failed Gatsby.js migration (7 clients moved back, some for free), and how GEO actually works: why mentions beat backlinks, why Wikipedia is overrated for AI visibility, and what to do first if you want ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini to recommend your brand. Connect with Elad: Website: https://airfleet.co LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eladh/ NoRobots — a human-curated directory of vetted agencies and startups: https://norobots.co Digital Octane - a web-development agency: digitaloctane.co New episodes with agency founders and startup owners every week. Subscribe so you don't miss the next one.

  12. Aug 5

    How 3 Brothers Built an Inc. 5000 Agency — Josh Webber, Big Red Jelly

    How do you build and grow a marketing agency? Josh Webber co-founded Big Red Jelly with his two brothers in 2017 and grew it into an Inc. 5000 agency. In Episode 1 of the NoRobots Podcast, Vlad (co-founder of NoRobots and Digital Octane) sits down with Josh to break down exactly how. In this episode: Running an agency with family: strict "swim lanes," clear KPIs, and keeping it professional, not personal Cutting the "fluff" agencies sell and reverse-engineering every project from the client's P&L AI, ChatGPT and Claude website builders, and GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) in modern agency work - why AI is "rocket fuel" that makes human connection more valuable, not less Pricing with bronze/silver/gold tiers and shifting to retainers and recurring revenue Client red flags that make Josh walk away, from bad payment terms to clients who won't trust expertise Hiring when one role gets 800 applications, and Big Red Jelly's paid internship pipeline Why Utah's Silicon Slopes is a competitive edge, and the up-and-coming cities Josh is watching His advice for new founders and freelancers: "Be the best at everything that requires zero talent" Guest: Josh Webber, CEO and Co-Founder of Big Red Jelly NoRobots is a human-vetted directory of the best agencies and startups - curated by people, not algorithms. Browse the directory or list your agency. This episode is brought to you by Digital Octane - a white-label web development partner for agencies. Shopify, WordPress, React/Node and custom builds. Subscribe for more conversations with agency founders and startup builders. #MarketingAgency #AgencyGrowth #Podcast

  • 12 Episodes

About

Conversations on building websites, growing businesses, and the marketing behind great web work. https://norobots.co

Information

  • Creator
    Digital Octane
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    12
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Digital Octane
  • Show Website
    NOROBOTS