Episode highlights:

[00:00:00] Joe’s businesses and revenue breakdown
[00:00:45] Five ways to make money with AI
[00:00:54] Selling AI headshots as a done-for-you service
[00:02:06] Delivering with VAs and prompts
[00:03:36] Getting customers via LinkedIn polls and ads
[00:06:00] Teaching AI while learning it yourself
[00:08:24] Selling ideas before creating the product
[00:09:27] Building a course entirely with AI
[00:14:15] Selling AI-generated infographics to franchises
[00:17:24] Using AI to build landing pages and funnels
[00:22:21] ChatGPT as a co-founder and therapist
[00:25:30] Scaling an agency without adding employees
[00:30:00] Monetizing AI education and communities
[00:34:03] Building basic software and prompt generators
[00:40:03] Creating MVPs without developers
[00:45:27] Focusing ideas into one scalable product
[00:49:03] Rebuilding after COVID, divorce, and burnout

In this episode, Andrew Warner sits down with Joe Apfelbaum, founder of Ajax Union and EvyAI, to break down five practical ways to make money using AI right now — without needing to code, raise money, or build complex software.

Joe walks through real examples from his own businesses, including AI-powered services, courses, and lightweight software tools that generate revenue fast. More importantly, he explains why these models work: people want outcomes, not software — and AI lets you deliver those outcomes with tiny teams and massive leverage.

This is a raw, tactical conversation about turning AI into income, rebuilding after setbacks, and designing businesses that scale without adding people.

Episode highlights:

[00:00:00] The vision: media customized to one person
[00:02:15] Why revenue isn’t the point — yet
[00:03:18] Seeing early personalization at Spotify
[00:06:00] Why kids’ content felt broken
[00:07:48] Making the child the hero of the story
[00:08:42] The hardest problem: image consistency
[00:11:24] Why scaling AI products is nothing like demos
[00:14:06] Personalized media won’t replace broadcast — it adds new behavior
[00:16:21] Why parents are the buyer, not the consumer
[00:20:51] Bedtime as a repeatable ritual
[00:23:42] Why Dream Stories is a service, not a novelty product
[00:28:12] Distribution is the real bottleneck
[00:32:15] Why repeat purchases beat subscriptions
[00:39:00] From “pull” products to “push” experiences
[00:45:00] Context and memory as the real moat
[00:50:06] Learning directly from customers
[00:54:09] Synthetic data and AI-generated avatars
[00:59:06] Automating PR and support with AI

In this episode, Andrew Warner talks with Ricardo, founder of Dream Stories, a company using AI to create fully personalized children’s books where each child becomes the hero of their own story.

Ricardo shares how a simple idea — making a better bedtime story for his own son — turned into a scalable business with tens of thousands of unique characters created. But more importantly, he lays out a bold vision: a future where movies, TV shows, books, and media are customized for a single person, not the masses.

They dive deep into what it actually takes to build a consumer AI company beyond demos and hype — from image consistency problems and synthetic data, to distribution, paid acquisition, and turning one-time novelty purchases into repeat behavior.

This is a rare, honest look at where AI-generated media is headed — and what founders should really be building right now.

Episode highlights:

[00:00:00] Businesses built entirely on Zapier
[00:01:30] The roofer-turned-automation-agency story
[00:03:54] What AI enables that wasn’t possible before
[00:07:12] OpenAI Agents vs. Zapier workflows
[00:11:15] Connecting AI agents to real business tools
[00:13:03] Building a meeting-prep agent live
[00:18:00] Why AI is great at building workflows, not just running them
[00:23:06] Zapier customers, revenue, and bootstrapping discipline
[00:28:57] AI-powered lead qualification in real time
[00:33:18] Automation agencies and speed-to-lead economics
[00:40:03] Why Zapier is positioned to last
[00:42:45] Using AI as a neutral leadership coach
[00:47:06] AI tools Wade personally uses

In this episode, Andrew Warner sits down with Wade Foster, co-founder and CEO of Zapier, to explore how AI agents, automation, and workflows are reshaping how modern businesses operate — from solo founders to companies doing hundreds of millions in revenue.

Wade shares real examples of people who’ve gone from running local service businesses to launching automation agencies powered almost entirely by Zapier. Together, they break down how AI changes what workflows can do, why agents and automations are complementary (not competitors), and how founders can turn speed-to-lead, personalization, and internal tooling into real revenue.

You’ll see a live walkthrough of building AI agents inside Zapier — including meeting prep, lead qualification, and internal coaching — all without writing code.

👉 Join us: https://thenextnewthing.ai/

👉 Team member feedback Zap: https://l.thenextnewthing.ai/r/Pdja7P