Show Notes
In this episode, Andrew Warner, founder of Mixergy, host of over 2,500 founder interviews, and creator of The Next New Thing, reveals why the most exciting business opportunity in AI right now isn't building another chatbot or SaaS tool. It's building for AI agents as customers. Andrew shares how one founder went from $3K to $70K/month by simply pivoting his social media tool to serve AI agents instead of humans, why Jason Fried at Basecamp is now adding agent-first features, and what this means for every entrepreneur and operator watching the AI wave.
Andrew breaks down his own AI tech stack (Claude Code, VS Code, Atlas Browser, OpenClaw), why he keeps a separate laptop just for AI agent work, and the brutal honesty about how much time we're all spending "playing" with AI vs. actually building revenue-generating products. He and Liam go deep on the "SaaSpocalypse" debate, whether intelligence becoming a utility makes audience and distribution the only real moats, and why the agent-to-agent economy, where software sells to other software, might be the biggest shift since mobile.
Key Topics Covered
How Andrew built a $30M/year email newsletter business in his 20s and what he learned about monetization
The origin story of Zapier: Andrew was their first paying customer before they even had a product
Why AI's "shiny object syndrome" is the biggest trap for builders right now
Andrew's daily AI tech stack: Claude Code, VS Code, Atlas Browser, Claude Desktop, and WhisperFlow
How Postiz went from $3K to $70K/month by becoming the social media tool for AI agents
The agent-to-agent economy: why your next best customer might not be human
Is SaaS dead? Andrew's nuanced take after 2,500+ founder interviews
Why audience and platform stickiness are the only real moats when intelligence becomes a utility
Liam's Claude automation workflows: auto-generating guest research, marketing assets in 5 minutes
Vibe video editing and the future of AI-powered content production
Episode Timestamps
00:00 - Introduction and welcome
00:28 - Andrew's background: building a $30M email newsletter empire
02:00 - Selling the business in his mid-20s and traveling the world
06:19 - Starting Mixergy and doing 2,500+ founder interviews
09:39 - The founders Andrew admires most: Wade Foster and Zapier's origin story
12:07 - How solving problems for free changes your career
12:51 - AI's shiny object syndrome: building for fun vs. solving real problems
14:36 - Andrew's mission: helping AI builders find real revenue
17:45 - Andrew's AI tech stack: VS Code, Claude Code, Atlas Browser, WhisperFlow
22:32 - The ideal future of work with AI agents
24:31 - What's most impressive and most underwhelming about AI right now
25:20 - Building a social listening tool with AI
27:08 - The SaaSpocalypse debate: can you vibe-code your own tools?
36:12 - Postiz: from $3K to $70K/month by selling to AI agents
38:17 - The agent-to-agent marketplace future
40:06 - Liam's Claude automation: auto-generating guest research briefs
43:19 - Real-time AI workflows with WhisperFlow and Claude
48:02 - Why investing time in AI compounds exponentially
50:05 - Creating marketing assets in 5 minutes with Claude
51:27 - Vibe video editing: the next frontier for content creators
53:42 - Thought experiment: what's defensible when intelligence is a utility?
55:39 - The bread maker analogy: why SaaS won't actually die
58:01 - What makes software defensible: switching costs and stickiness
01:00:47 - Postiz deep-dive: the agentic social media scheduling tool
01:03:26 - Agent-first businesses: newsletters, chat apps, and tools built for agents
01:08:51 - Where to find Andrew and closing thoughts
Andrew's Socials:
LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewwarner/
Website — https://thenextnewthing.ai
Partner Links
Book Enterprise Training — https://www.upscaile.com/
Subscribe to our free newsletter — https://www.theaireport.ai/subscribe
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