Startup Stories - Mixergy

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...

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 a...

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...

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....

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...

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 autom...

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 so...

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 turn...

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...

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 Cl...

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,...

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...

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...

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 educatio...

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...

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 o...

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...

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...

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...

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 Q...

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...

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 cont...

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 inter...

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...

“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...