<description>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.
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://mixergy.com/interviews/ai-made-a-no-code-founder-into-a-coder/"&gt;&lt;img src="https://mixergy.com/interviews/ai-made-a-no-code-founder-into-a-coder/?get-twitter-card=true&amp;amp;v=14&amp;amp;time=1765188211" alt="" class="alignnone size-full"/&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;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 &lt;a href="https://factory.ai/"&gt;Factory&lt;/a&gt;, where he helps shape the AI coding agent used by developers worldwide. When he’s not working, he’s hanging with his twins.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;More interviews -&amp;gt; &lt;a href="https://mixergy.com/moreint" target="_blank"&gt;https://mixergy.com/moreint&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
Rate this interview -&amp;gt; &lt;a href="https://mixergy.com/rateint" target="_blank"&gt;https://mixergy.com/rateint&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description>

Ben Tossell of Factory

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.
<a href="https://mixergy.com/interviews/ai-made-a-no-code-founder-into-a-coder/"><img src="https://mixergy.com/interviews/ai-made-a-no-code-founder-into-a-coder/?get-twitter-card=true&amp;v=14&amp;time=1765188211" alt="" class="alignnone size-full"/></a>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 <a href="https://factory.ai/">Factory</a>, where he helps shape the AI coding agent used by developers worldwide. When he’s not working, he’s hanging with his twins.
More interviews -&gt; <a href="https://mixergy.com/moreint" target="_blank">https://mixergy.com/moreint</a> 
Rate this interview -&gt; <a href="https://mixergy.com/rateint" target="_blank">https://mixergy.com/rateint</a>

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

<description>Pepper is creating content for clients like Shopify, Adobe and Instacart. We’re talking hundreds of thousands of posts &amp;amp; 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.
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://mixergy.com/interviews/pepper-ai-people-10-million/"&gt;&lt;img src="https://mixergy.com/interviews/pepper-ai-people-10-million/?get-twitter-card=true&amp;amp;v=14&amp;amp;time=1763382856" alt="" class="alignnone size-full"/&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Anirudh Singla is the founder and CEO of &lt;a href="https://www.pepper.inc/"&gt;Pepper&lt;/a&gt;, 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 —recently crossing $10M in annual recurring revenue. Pepper now operates across writing, design, video, and localization, helping brands drive measurable growth through AI-powered content systems.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;More interviews -&amp;gt; &lt;a href="https://mixergy.com/moreint" target="_blank"&gt;https://mixergy.com/moreint&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
Rate this interview -&amp;gt; &lt;a href="https://mixergy.com/rateint" target="_blank"&gt;https://mixergy.com/rateint&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description>

Anirudh Singla of Pepper

Pepper is creating content for clients like Shopify, Adobe and Instacart. We’re talking hundreds of thousands of posts &amp; 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.
<a href="https://mixergy.com/interviews/pepper-ai-people-10-million/"><img src="https://mixergy.com/interviews/pepper-ai-people-10-million/?get-twitter-card=true&amp;v=14&amp;time=1763382856" alt="" class="alignnone size-full"/></a>Anirudh Singla is the founder and CEO of <a href="https://www.pepper.inc/">Pepper</a>, 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 —recently crossing $10M in annual recurring revenue. Pepper now operates across writing, design, video, and localization, helping brands drive measurable growth through AI-powered content systems.
More interviews -&gt; <a href="https://mixergy.com/moreint" target="_blank">https://mixergy.com/moreint</a> 
Rate this interview -&gt; <a href="https://mixergy.com/rateint" target="_blank">https://mixergy.com/rateint</a>

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

<description>Ethan Smith runs Graphite, the SEO &amp;amp; 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
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://mixergy.com/interviews/aeo-how-to-make-chatgpt-promote-you/"&gt;&lt;img src="https://mixergy.com/interviews/aeo-how-to-make-chatgpt-promote-you/?get-twitter-card=true&amp;amp;v=14&amp;amp;time=1762840657" alt="" class="alignnone size-full"/&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Ethan Smith is the founder and CEO of &lt;a href="https://graphite.io/"&gt;Graphite&lt;/a&gt;, a growth and SEO firm that’s now pioneering Answer Engine Optimization—helping brands rank inside AI-generated responses.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;More interviews -&amp;gt; &lt;a href="https://mixergy.com/moreint" target="_blank"&gt;https://mixergy.com/moreint&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
Rate this interview -&amp;gt; &lt;a href="https://mixergy.com/rateint" target="_blank"&gt;https://mixergy.com/rateint&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description>

Ethan Smith of Graphite

Ethan Smith runs Graphite, the SEO &amp; 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
<a href="https://mixergy.com/interviews/aeo-how-to-make-chatgpt-promote-you/"><img src="https://mixergy.com/interviews/aeo-how-to-make-chatgpt-promote-you/?get-twitter-card=true&amp;v=14&amp;time=1762840657" alt="" class="alignnone size-full"/></a>Ethan Smith is the founder and CEO of <a href="https://graphite.io/">Graphite</a>, a growth and SEO firm that’s now pioneering Answer Engine Optimization—helping brands rank inside AI-generated responses.
More interviews -&gt; <a href="https://mixergy.com/moreint" target="_blank">https://mixergy.com/moreint</a> 
Rate this interview -&gt; <a href="https://mixergy.com/rateint" target="_blank">https://mixergy.com/rateint</a>

#2285 AEO: How to make ChatGPT promote you

<description>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 &amp;amp; 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.
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://mixergy.com/interviews/why-is-morning-brews-founder-selling-ai-transformation/"&gt;&lt;img src="https://mixergy.com/interviews/why-is-morning-brews-founder-selling-ai-transformation/?get-twitter-card=true&amp;amp;v=14&amp;amp;time=1762348095" alt="" class="alignnone size-full"/&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Alex Lieberman and Arman Hezarkhani are the co-founders of &lt;a href="https://www.tenex.co/"&gt;Tenex&lt;/a&gt;, a company blending high-performance engineering with AI transformation consulting. Their model aligns incentives around output rather than time, helping enterprises and startups build software faster and integrate AI across people, processes, and tools. Together, they’re building what they call the “McKinsey for AI”—a hybrid of dev shop, consultancy, and innovation lab helping companies thrive in the post-AI era.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;More interviews -&amp;gt; &lt;a href="https://mixergy.com/moreint" target="_blank"&gt;https://mixergy.com/moreint&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
Rate this interview -&amp;gt; &lt;a href="https://mixergy.com/rateint" target="_blank"&gt;https://mixergy.com/rateint&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description>

Alex Lieberman & Arman Hezarkhani of Tenex

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 &amp; 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.
<a href="https://mixergy.com/interviews/why-is-morning-brews-founder-selling-ai-transformation/"><img src="https://mixergy.com/interviews/why-is-morning-brews-founder-selling-ai-transformation/?get-twitter-card=true&amp;v=14&amp;time=1762348095" alt="" class="alignnone size-full"/></a>Alex Lieberman and Arman Hezarkhani are the co-founders of <a href="https://www.tenex.co/">Tenex</a>, a company blending high-performance engineering with AI transformation consulting. Their model aligns incentives around output rather than time, helping enterprises and startups build software faster and integrate AI across people, processes, and tools. Together, they’re building what they call the “McKinsey for AI”—a hybrid of dev shop, consultancy, and innovation lab helping companies thrive in the post-AI era.
More interviews -&gt; <a href="https://mixergy.com/moreint" target="_blank">https://mixergy.com/moreint</a> 
Rate this interview -&gt; <a href="https://mixergy.com/rateint" target="_blank">https://mixergy.com/rateint</a>

#2284 Why is Morning Brew’s founder selling “AI Transformation”?

<description>&amp;#8220;Why did you launch yet another voice dictation app?&amp;#8221; I asked Dan Shipper, founder of Every.
I thought he&amp;#8217;d tell me that there was some kind of research that showed people needed another one.
Nah.
It came down to his team&amp;#8217;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&amp;#8217;s the differentiator? From what I got in this interview &amp;#8212; over and over &amp;#8212; it&amp;#8217;s the creator&amp;#8217;s taste.
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://mixergy.com/interviews/how-dan-shipper-uses-ai-to-build-artisanal-ai-apps/"&gt;&lt;img src="https://mixergy.com/interviews/how-dan-shipper-uses-ai-to-build-artisanal-ai-apps/?get-twitter-card=true&amp;amp;v=14&amp;amp;time=1762437428" alt="" class="alignnone size-full"/&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Dan Shipper is the founder and CEO of &lt;a href="https://every.to/"&gt;Every&lt;/a&gt;, a hybrid media and software company creating AI-powered tools for productivity and creativity. The company publishes one of the most widely read newsletters on technology and builds products like Monologue (AI dictation), Spiral (AI ghostwriting), and Cora (AI email assistant).&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;More interviews -&amp;gt; &lt;a href="https://mixergy.com/moreint" target="_blank"&gt;https://mixergy.com/moreint&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
Rate this interview -&amp;gt; &lt;a href="https://mixergy.com/rateint" target="_blank"&gt;https://mixergy.com/rateint&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description>

Dan Shipper of Every

&#8220;Why did you launch yet another voice dictation app?&#8221; I asked Dan Shipper, founder of Every.
I thought he&#8217;d tell me that there was some kind of research that showed people needed another one.
Nah.
It came down to his team&#8217;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&#8217;s the differentiator? From what I got in this interview &#8212; over and over &#8212; it&#8217;s the creator&#8217;s taste.
<a href="https://mixergy.com/interviews/how-dan-shipper-uses-ai-to-build-artisanal-ai-apps/"><img src="https://mixergy.com/interviews/how-dan-shipper-uses-ai-to-build-artisanal-ai-apps/?get-twitter-card=true&amp;v=14&amp;time=1762437428" alt="" class="alignnone size-full"/></a>Dan Shipper is the founder and CEO of <a href="https://every.to/">Every</a>, a hybrid media and software company creating AI-powered tools for productivity and creativity. The company publishes one of the most widely read newsletters on technology and builds products like Monologue (AI dictation), Spiral (AI ghostwriting), and Cora (AI email assistant).
More interviews -&gt; <a href="https://mixergy.com/moreint" target="_blank">https://mixergy.com/moreint</a> 
Rate this interview -&gt; <a href="https://mixergy.com/rateint" target="_blank">https://mixergy.com/rateint</a>

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

Business tips for startups by proven entrepreneurs

Startup Stories - Mixergy

Details

Recent Episodes