PODCAST

Startup Stories - Mixergy

Andrew Warner

Business tips for startups by proven entrepreneurs

business management & marketing

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#2291 He keeps launching AI businesses

Startup Stories - Mixergy ·

2025/12/30

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 makeJoe Apfelbaum is the founder of Ajax Union, a digital marketing agency, and EvyAI, an AI-powered sales and social media assistant used by thousands of businesses worldwide. A longtime Mixergy guest, Joe previously grew Ajax

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#2290 He’s building an AI media empire

Startup Stories - Mixergy ·

2025/12/29

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 build a similar company. Ricardo is the founder of DreamStories, a company creating AI-powered,

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#2289 Building companies using Zapier’s AI automations

Startup Stories - Mixergy ·

2025/12/19

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 2011 with just $1.2M in seed funding and grew it into a profitable company generating hundreds of

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#2288 She had people do AI’s work

Startup Stories - Mixergy ·

2025/12/17

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 Quanta, she was a software engineer at Affirm, where she specialized in building financial ledgers and

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#2287 AI made a “no code” founder into a coder

Startup Stories - Mixergy ·

2025/12/08

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 the Head of Developer Relations at Factory, where he helps shape the AI coding agent used by developers

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#2286 Pepper: AI + people = > $10 million

Startup Stories - Mixergy ·

2025/11/17

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 content at scale. What began as his side hustle on Upwork has grown into a company serving Fortune 500s

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#2285 AEO: How to make ChatGPT promote you

Startup Stories - Mixergy ·

2025/11/11

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 Rate this interview -> https://mixergy.com/rateint

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#2284 Why is Morning Brew’s founder selling “AI...

Startup Stories - Mixergy ·

2025/11/05

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 Transformation. They also run a dev shop where their developers use AI to build super fast for clients. Alex

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#2283 How Dan Shipper uses AI to build artisanal AI apps

Startup Stories - Mixergy ·

2025/10/30

“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 create apps. So what’s the differentiator? From what I got in this interview — over and over

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#2282 Neil Patel’s insanely powerful AI sales machine

Startup Stories - Mixergy ·

2025/10/24

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, is using AI to scrape yellow pages, create custom offers, and get clients. Neil Patel is the co-founder

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#2281 Garry Tan: Y Combinator Startups Growing 5X...

Startup Stories - Mixergy ·

2025/10/17

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 a demo. It’s really impressive… I need it right now. When can you start?'” Garry Tan

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#2280 Read.ai is adding 50k users per day

Startup Stories - Mixergy ·

2025/09/15

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 analytics company, Placed, which had earlier been acquired by Snap. Today, David is building Read into the

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#2279 How are there so many AI agencies?

Startup Stories - Mixergy ·

2025/09/10

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 of Innovating with AI, a program that has helped over 1,000 people start and grow AI consulting

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#2278 How to build a $15M/year AI company.

Startup Stories - Mixergy ·

2025/09/03

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 companies that followed his advice. Pavel Doležal is the co-founder and CEO of Keboola, a cloud-based data

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#2277 My Body Tutor: Remote Coaching as a Service

Startup Stories - Mixergy ·

2025/07/09

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 was frustrated by seeing clients not follow through on the diet and exercise programs they committed

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#2276 Close: The $50 Million / Year CRM

Startup Stories - Mixergy ·

2025/06/18

How is Close doing so well in the CRM space against such big competitors?The answer: focus. Instead of chasing enterprise clients or trying to build a CRM that does everything from web hosting to calendaring, Steli Efti focused on sales teams at small and mid-sized businesses. And he built a product with a tight set of features focused on more client conversations and less data entry. Steli Efti is the co-founder and CEO of Close, a CRM platform designed to eliminate manual data entry and make

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#2275 He’s doing SEO on ChatGPT

Startup Stories - Mixergy ·

2025/05/12

Have you noticed how AI search results are now linking to websites?Today’s guest runs an SEO agency that helps his clients’ sites show up in those chat responses. I invited Chirag Kulkarni founder of Taco to talk about how he’s doing it and how he built his agency. Chirag Kulkarni is the founder and CEO of Taco, an AI-powered SEO firm helping brands dominate emerging search platforms. Chirag and his team are building Taco into the go-to partner for companies navigating the shift

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#2274 1440: $20+mil / year newsletter

Startup Stories - Mixergy ·

2025/04/29

After closing a company that failed, Tim Huelskamp decided to keep it simple. He launched an email newsletter that briefed smart people about the day’s top news.Today his company, 1440, has over 4 million subscribers and generates over $20 million in annual revenue Tim Huelskamp is the co-founder of 1440, the fact-focused daily newsletter. Tim and his team are building 1440 into a trusted source for intellectually curious readers who want an inch-deep, mile-wide view of the world. More

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#2273 What happened to our partnership?

Startup Stories - Mixergy ·

2025/03/05

Before I partnered with Jesse Pujji, we were buddy-buddy. Texting all the time. When we got started, we got excited about the world of possibilities for our company.Now? Something is missing. I asked him about it. And about where he put his money, why he’s not launching more companies now, what he’s building with AI, and more. Jesse Pujji is the founder of Gateway X, the venture studio. Jesse & Andrew are building Bootstrapped Giants, a resource for ambitious, unfunded

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#2272 Aux: >$10mil advising private equity

Startup Stories - Mixergy ·

2025/02/21

When Kasey Grelle heard that private equity companies paid marketing agencies to evaluate companies they wanted to buy, she spotted a business opportunity. That realization became Aux Insights, the firm that’s become “the office of the CMO” for private equity companies. Listen to how they got clients & built their business.Kasey is a former reporter who founded Aux Insights, a global advisory firm that acts as the office of the CMO for private equity firms, specializing in

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Startup Stories - Mixergy

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