The Startup Ideas Podcast

Hosted by Greg Isenberg

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392

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Nov 2026

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About the show

Get your creative juices flowing with The Startup Ideas Podcast. Published twice a week, we bring you free startup ideas to inspire your next venture. Hosted by Greg Isenberg, CEO of Late Checkout and former advisor to Reddit and TikTok. Subscribe so you don't miss out. For more startup ideas, we created a database of 30+ startup ideas you can take at https://gregisenberg.com/30startupideas

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November 11, 202648 min

I'm Obsessed With Grok Bot. Here's Why

I sit down with Ras Mic to see how he runs his work and his life through Grok Bot. He calls himself a Grok Bot maxi, and he uses it as a personal agent and as an orchestrator that hands engineering work to Claude Code. He walks me through five areas: engineering, design, content ideation, business and finance, and shopping. Along the way he shows his bots, his prompts, and the projects they shipped, including Pluto, Bezalel, a Rust trading app, and a Shopify store for his brother's clothing brand. If you ship ideas, this episode gives you a setup you can copy today. Timestamps 00:00 – Intro 01:55 – Engineering Bot 07:57 – Why use Grok Bot as an Orchestrator 14:01 – Grok Bot + Claude Code 19:43 – Security Checks 21:54 – Designer Bot 31:12 – Content Bot 37:19 – Business & Finance Bot 42:41 – Shopping Bot 44:53 – Closing Thoughts Key Points Give each serious project its own bot, keep one general engineering bot for random ideas, and delete bots once they stop being useful. Use Grok Bot to orchestrate and Claude Code with Opus 5.5 to write the code. Ras Mic says the $200-a-month Claude Code plan is worth $8,000 to $12,000 in API credits, so he leans on subscriptions. Lock the design in Paper before any code gets written, with a design system the agent can reference. A YouTube bot scans X at 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. and sends three video topics with tweets, title ideas, and resources. Finance bots connected through Plaid give Ras Mic's advisor bot enough context to talk him out of shiny objects. The #1 tool to find startup ideas/trends - https://www.ideabrowser.com LCA helps Fortune 500s and fast-growing startups build their future - from Warner Music to Fortnite to Dropbox. We turn 'what if' into reality with AI, apps, and next-gen products https://latecheckout.agency/ FIND ME ON SOCIAL X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenberg Instagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisenberg/ FIND MIC ON SOCIAL X/Twitter: https://x.com/Rasmic Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@rasmic

November 10, 202619 min

Claude Fable 5.2: How I’d Make Money With It

In this solo episode, I share 12 prompts for Fable 5.2 across four areas: making money, productivity, video and content, and hardware. I run several of them live, including an audit of my design agency, a freelance job Fable 5.2 found on Upwork, a 100-niche research sweep with subagents, and a minimalist phone it designed from one prompt. I cover why Fable 5.2 can work 10 to 12 hours on its own, why it now admits when it lacks an answer, and how to sell results as a fixed-price service. If you want to make money, get more done, or build hardware with Fable 5.2, this episode gives you prompts you can copy today. Timestamps 00:00 – Intro 01:00 – Prompt 1: Audit Your Entire Business 02:05 – Prompt 2: A Freelance Job End to End 03:46 – Prompt 3: A Hundred Niches at Once 04:33 – Prompt 4: Rebuild the Ancient Software 05:25 – Prompt 5: Deal Checker for a Boring Business 06:54 – Results from Prompts 08:53 – Prompt 6: Grill Me 09:33 – Prompt 7: Operate Legacy Apps 10:07 – Prompt 8: Red Team My Plan 11:11 – Video and Marketing Engineering 12:39 – Prompt 9: Short-Form Editor 13:05 – Prompt 10: Niche Explainer Videos 13:24 – Prompt 11: One Episode, Every Format 13:56 – Prompt 12: One person Hardware Company 16:42 – A Minimalist Phone Idea 17:41 – Design and Mockups 18:31 – Closing Thoughts Key Points Fable 5.2 works 10 to 12 hours on its own, so I hand it jobs that take a high-end consultant a week. Freelance jobs and software rebuilds can now sell per output, where people used to bill by the hour. Stronger subagents let me research 100 niches in one prompt and get back one ranked table. Fable 5.2 now admits uncertainty, which opens up finance and legal work like checking a seller's P&L. Videos at $1 to $5 each let me build faceless channels and own distribution. One prompt gets me a parts list, circuit design, firmware, and a printable enclosure for a device. The #1 tool to find startup ideas/trends - https://www.ideabrowser.com LCA helps Fortune 500s and fast-growing startups build their future - from Warner Music to Fortnite to Dropbox. We turn 'what if' into reality with AI, apps, and next-gen products https://latecheckout.agency/ FIND ME ON SOCIAL X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenberg Instagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisenberg/

November 9, 202652 min

AI Agents are too good at marketing now

I sit down with Cody Schneider, to break down how to become a top 0.1% marketer with GrokBot, Claude Code, and the tools around them. Cody shows the environment an agent needs to do marketing work: data in a warehouse, write access to ad platforms, and API tools for images, video, and leads. We build static ads live for Idea Browser, Late Checkout, Cursor, and more, then make a UGC avatar video ad with motion graphics for about $5. I add two pieces of my own: a swipe warehouse of creative references and a creative director agent that scores every ad. If you build products and hear crickets, this episode gives you workflows you can set up today. Timestamps 00:00 – Intro 04:29 – Agents are now Marketers 09:56 – Data Pipelines & Warehouses 13:56 – Getting your agent access to data 16:15 – The tools for your agent 18:08 – Agents become .1% marketers 20:43 – Swipe Warehouse and Context 22:35 – Creating Static Ads 29:08 – Static Ads Results 30:03 – Creating UGC Avatar Ads 36:28 – Running the Workflow 37:58 – UGC Ad Results 39:51 – Human Creators Through Tribe and Sideshift 41:42 – Reviewing the Static Ads 43:29 – The role of Creative Director 50:49 – Closing Thoughts Key Points Agents do marketing's middle work once they have data, platform access, and tools. A data pipeline into a warehouse gives agents full-funnel data and keeps them off rate-limited APIs. Agents write to Facebook and Google Ads through their APIs and read data only from the warehouse. One skill turns a brand URL into five researched, on-brand static ads. A UGC avatar ad with motion graphics costs about $5, compared with $300 to $500 from humans. Creative velocity wins, since Facebook's algorithm matches good creative to the right buyer. The #1 tool to find startup ideas/trends - https://www.ideabrowser.com LCA helps Fortune 500s and fast-growing startups build their future - from Warner Music to Fortnite to Dropbox. We turn 'what if' into reality with AI, apps, and next-gen products https://latecheckout.agency/ FIND ME ON SOCIAL X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenberg Instagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisenberg/ FIND CODY ON SOCIAL: Cody’s startup: https://www.graphed.com/ X/Twitter: https://x.com/codyschneiderxx Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@codyschneiderx

November 4, 202622 min

8 AI-Proof Businesses I'd build in 2027

In this solo episode, I lay out how I think about building an AI-proof business now that anyone can press a few buttons and spin up a company in seconds. Layoffs keep coming, people copy products pixel for pixel, and I still see more opportunity than ever. I walk through eight categories: atoms, permission, attention, timing, belonging, liquidity, unique data, and outcomes. I share examples like Hampton, final.com, and Cars & Bids, say how I'd rank the categories, and show how to mix them. If you're an employee looking at a startup or a founder worried about getting copied, this episode gives you a map for building something with value when AI makes software, content, and answers almost free. Timestamps 00:00 – Intro 01:17 – Atoms: Physical Businesses 02:26 – Permission: Licenses, Regulation, and Partnerships 04:10 – Attention: Building a Media Machine 06:28 – Timing: Spotting Trends Early 08:24 – Belonging: Paid Communities and IRL Events 10:59 – Liquidity: Marketplaces 14:38 – Unique Data: Data Brokers and Curated Directories 18:31 – Outcomes: Customers Paying for Results 20:44 – Closing Thoughts Key Points Physical businesses hold up against overnight clones, and I expect their valuations to rise as tech money moves in. Licenses, regulation, and preferred-vendor deals are permission that a copycat has a hard time getting on day one. Media is underrated, and AI lets you run a content machine around a micro niche. A first mover's product may be easy to copy, while the data, brand, and trust it collects stay AI-proof. Marketplaces rank among the stickiest businesses of all time, and agents let a team of one to five run one. I rank physical and licensed businesses near the top and outcomes at the bottom, and you can mix categories. The #1 tool to find startup ideas/trends - https://www.ideabrowser.com LCA helps Fortune 500s and fast-growing startups build their future - from Warner Music to Fortnite to Dropbox. We turn 'what if' into reality with AI, apps, and next-gen products https://latecheckout.agency/ FIND ME ON SOCIAL X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenberg Instagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisenberg/

November 2, 202649 min

The $1M+ Solo Grok Bot Business (Full Course)

I sit down with Nick, co-founder of Orgo, to break down how to build a custom Grok Bot for a business and sell it for $25,000 up front with a $3,000-a-month retainer. Nick demos Bops, the agent platform he built in a 36-hour weekend, where each bot has its own phone number, email, and computer with four screens. He walks me through his research, design, and build process, the stack behind each bot, and the offer he takes to business owners. We also cover how to pick a niche by calling 50 people you know and how to turn one free case study into warm referrals. If you want to sell AI employees to businesses, this episode gives you the stack, the offer, and an open source repo you can fork today. Links Mentioned Nick’s Bops: https://startup-ideas-pod.link/bops Timestamps 00:00 – Intro 03:09 – Bops, Custom Grok Bot Team 05:07 – Dumb SaaS vs. Custom Apps 07:02 – Selling AI Agent Teams 09:49 – Demoing Bop 13:57 – One Agent per Platform 15:07 – Step 1: Research 17:49 – Step 2: Design 22:12 – Step 3: Picking The Stack 26:43 – Step 4 and 5: Hosting and Shipping Fast 27:21 – The Offer and Business Model 38:02 – Why start this now 40:21 – Finding your first client 47:27 – Closing Thoughts Key Points Busy owners want their problems solved, so a GrokBot built for their industry wins over a platform they have to set up. Nick builds in three steps: research the category, design in Paper, then pick a stack and read the docs. Each bot gets its own email, phone number, computer, and connectors through Agent Mail, Agent Phone, Orgo, and Composio. The SMB offer is $25,000 up front for a system the owner keeps, plus an optional $3,000-a-month retainer. A free website redesign, a money-back guarantee, and free lead magnets make the offer easy to accept. Call 50 people you know, do the first build free, and trade the case study for warm intros. The #1 tool to find startup ideas/trends - https://www.ideabrowser.com LCA helps Fortune 500s and fast-growing startups build their future - from Warner Music to Fortnite to Dropbox. We turn 'what if' into reality with AI, apps, and next-gen products https://latecheckout.agency/ FIND ME ON SOCIAL X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenberg Instagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisenberg/ FIND NICK ON SOCIAL Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@nickvasiles Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nickvasilescu/ Personal Website: https://www.nickvasilescu.com/

October 29, 202611 min

SaaS is dead?

In this solo episode, I explain why I say SaaS is dead and what I see taking its place. For 15 years, SaaS meant paying engineers to build a tool and charging per seat, and now models like Opus 5.5, GPT-6, and Argon make the tool easy to build. I walk through what I call smart SaaS: give the tool away for free, collect data and network effects, and make money by upselling AI agents and human services. I share a calorie tracking example, three ways to charge, and why enterprises still pay per seat. If you build software, this episode gives you a map for building something people want in a market where the tool is free. Timestamps 00:00 – Intro 00:47 – SaaS 1.0 02:56 – SaaS 2.0: The New Business Model 05:12 – How to monetize SaaS 2.0 06:18 – Service is the new Software 07:22 – SaaS Is Dead, Long Live SaaS 08:58 – SMB vs Enterprise 10:31 – Closing Thoughts Key Points AI makes the tool easy to build, so the per-seat model of the last 15 years has run its course. Smart SaaS gives the tool away and collects data and network effects as payment. The money comes from upselling intelligence from AI agents and services from humans. Agents can charge by token or by outcome, and human services by the week or month. SaaS for SMBs, prosumers, and individuals trends toward free, while enterprises still pay something per seat. The market for getting things done is bigger than the market for tools, so the total market for SaaS grows. The #1 tool to find startup ideas/trends - https://www.ideabrowser.com LCA helps Fortune 500s and fast-growing startups build their future - from Warner Music to Fortnite to Dropbox. We turn 'what if' into reality with AI, apps, and next-gen products https://latecheckout.agency/ FIND ME ON SOCIAL X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenberg Instagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisenberg/

October 28, 202649 min

Stop building AI wrappers. Start building agent harnesses.

I sit down with Jon Noronha, co-founder and chief product officer of Gamma, to break down agent harnesses and the startup openings around them. Jon explains how Gamma rebuilt its product as a creative agent this year and walks me through the roughly 20 models and 200 calls behind one finished presentation. We talk about AI smell, why taste carries more weight than evals in creative work, how Gamma tests a new model within the hour, and the fast mode test that lost to good friction. Jon also shares the harnesses he wants to see, from a Slack agent that learns his voice to a couch shopping tool that checks the fit in your room. If you want to build a vertical agent, this episode gives you a clear model of what a harness is and where your edge can come from. This episode was made possible thanks to Anthropic (the team behind Claude) for hosting us at Claude Founder house and sponsoring the episode. Timestamps 00:00 – Intro 01:23 – What Is an Agent Harness 03:36 – Harnesses as the New Wrappers 04:25 – Inside One Gamma Prompt 08:23 – Where Vertical Harnesses Fit 11:08 – Finding Your Edge 11:56 – Opportunities for Harnesses 13:09 – Designing a Niche Harness 13:48 – AI Smell 15:49 – Evals and Taste 18:40 – Who Pays for AI 19:44 – The Gamma for X 20:19 – A Harness for Slack 22:01 – Building on Other People's Models 23:28 – Closed vs. Open Source Models 24:11 – A Broad but Shallow Stack 24:57 – Prompts vs. Fine-Tuning 25:30 – Testing New Models 26:25 – Running Experiments 29:10 – The Marketing Engineer 32:26 – Interesting Automations 33:33 – The Top 1% Marketing Engineer 35:00 – Everyone Is Now a VP of Agents 36:19 – Experiments as a Numbers Game 38:26 – Underhyped: AI Image Models 40:42 – Startup Opportunities 45:40 – What Jon Would Build Next 47:26 – Closing Thoughts Key Points An agent harness is the set of tools an agent uses to act, check its own work, and deliver a finished result. One Gamma presentation uses about 20 models and 200 calls, including rounds of visual QA. Strong harness ideas sit in subjective work, where people care about the output and want a human in the loop. Your edge comes from a distinct vision, proprietary data, or a business that mixes AI with the physical world. Gamma gets 98% of its value from prompts and treats fine-tuning as a cost and quality optimization. Experiments reward volume, and Gamma's fast mode test showed that good friction raised paid conversion. FIND ME ON SOCIAL X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenberg Instagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisenberg/ FIND JON ON SOCIAL X/Twitter: https://x.com/thatsjonsense?lang=en LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonnoronha/

October 26, 202644 min

How to sell AI to Main Street (Full Playbook)

Get Your Complete Financial OS at https://startup-ideas-pod.link/brex_SIP I sit down with James Dickerson, the Boring Marketer, who owns Diesel Dudes, a mobile diesel repair business in Charlotte, North Carolina, and spent years running agencies for local businesses. James shows how to sell AI-built funnels to Main Street trades businesses doing $2 million to $20 million a year, starting with a Boring Funnels search that found 100 Dallas plumbers worth pitching. He walks through the leaks he finds on their landing pages, the funnel offers he'd sell, and how he'd win clients with the Dream 100, lumpy mail, and local meetups. If you know how to use coding agents, this episode gives you a full playbook for a service business built around booked jobs. Build funnels that sell: https://startup-ideas-pod.link/boring_funnels Timestamps 00:00 – Intro 01:23 – Sponsor: Brex 02:08 – Why sell AI to Main Street 03:05 – James's Background 04:32 – Finding and Picking a Niche 07:26 – The $2M to $20M Opportunity 09:02 – Plumbing and HVAC Market Size 10:56 – Underserved Trades Niches 12:38 – Auditing Five Dallas Plumbers 13:50 – Personal Agents vs. Google 15:02 – Selling Booked Jobs and Phone Calls 17:41 – Funnel Offer Overview 19:43 – Funnel Example 23:19 – Matching Ads to Funnels 24:14 – Chet Holmes and the Dream 100 28:18 – Branding your Firm 30:04 – Meta Ads for your firm 31:37 – Stacking Old School and New School Marketing Strategy 34:31 – Find, Pitch, Deliver 36:02 – Showing Owners the ROI 37:37 – Pricing your Offer 41:45 – Reporting With AI 42:33 – Closing Thoughts Key Points Main Street trades businesses doing $2 million to $20 million a year have budgets and few useful pitches in their inbox. James sells booked jobs and phone calls, since owners care about revenue and ROI over AI. The biggest leaks sit on the landing page: missing ad promises, hidden Google ratings, and buried booking buttons. Funnels with tripwires, instant prices, quizzes, and owner videos turn paid traffic into booked jobs. The Dream 100, lumpy mail, and local meetups build trust with owners over months. One free build in exchange for a case study gets you to paid work. The #1 tool to find startup ideas/trends - https://www.ideabrowser.com LCA helps Fortune 500s and fast-growing startups build their future - from Warner Music to Fortnite to Dropbox. We turn 'what if' into reality with AI, apps, and next-gen products https://latecheckout.agency/ FIND ME ON SOCIAL X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenberg Instagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisenberg/ FIND JAMES ON SOCIAL X/Twitter: https://x.com/boringmarketer LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jadickerson/

October 21, 202631 min

The 9 Stages of AI Agent Adoption, Explained

In this solo episode, I break down the war on AI agents, from Amazon blocking Meta's Muse to Delta treating outside booking agents as unauthorized automated activity to Yelp charging agents for access. I share how I think about an agent, as a customer with a credit card who reads your site instead of looking at it, and the ladder of trust that runs from research to prepare to pay. Then I walk through each big player's bet, my nine stages for how this war plays out, five moves any business can make this week, and the startup ideas I see between agents and the businesses they buy from. If you run a store or build products, this episode gives you a map for selling to customers who send an agent to shop for them. Timestamps 00:00 – Intro 02:09 –The Three Camps 05:08 – How I Define an Agent 06:52 – The Ladder of Trust 08:54 – Real Reasons to Block Agents 09:48 – What Agents Skip 12:57 – How Each Company is Playing it 17:06 – Lessons From Mint and Plaid 17:49 – The 9 stages of The War on Agents 21:56 – What to do this week 24:39 – Startup Idea 1: Agent Readiness 25:48 – Startup Idea 2: Plaid for One Vertical 26:22 – Startup Idea 3: Insurance for Agents 26:57 – Startup Idea 4: Analytics for Agent Traffic 27:26 – Startup Idea 4: Agent Specialist 28:05 – Closing Thoughts Key Points Agents read product details, prices, shipping, and return policies, so plain-text facts on the page decide whether they pick you. Agents climb a ladder of trust from research to prepare to pay, and the whole fight happens on the pay rung. Many blocks protect the ad and upsell revenue that agents skip on the way to the sale. The biggest stores block, the biggest audiences open the door, and payment and security companies want the toll booth. I expect a Plaid moment for agent identity and payments, followed later by ads that buy an agent's first recommendation. Vertical Plaids, agent insurance, and agent analytics are open lanes for startups right now. The #1 tool to find startup ideas/trends - https://www.ideabrowser.com LCA helps Fortune 500s and fast-growing startups build their future - from Warner Music to Fortnite to Dropbox. We turn 'what if' into reality with AI, apps, and next-gen products https://latecheckout.agency/ FIND ME ON SOCIAL X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenberg Instagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisenberg/

October 19, 202624 min

Making $$$ with Meta Muse AI

Get Your Complete Financial OS at https://startup-ideas-pod.link/brex_SIP In this solo episode, I break down how to make money with Meta Muse by mining Facebook groups, Marketplace, and Instagram to match buyers with sellers. The idea came after my wife and I had a baby and the agency we hired for a night nurse admitted it found candidates in Facebook groups. I demo Muse finding night nurses at $30 an hour in Montreal, show how to give it a phone number through Bland AI, and share the Marketplace and Instagram tactics I'd use. I close with my four-level framework for growing a matching side business into a trusted list, a community, and a vertical software company. Timestamps 00:00 – Intro 01:19 – Sponsor: Brex 03:22 – Meta Muse 03:52 – Why this is a big opportunity 04:33 – Picking a Niche, City, and Rules 05:44 – Owning the asset and data 06:51 – Cleaning Data You Own 08:27 – Lessons From eBay 10:37 – A Phone Number With Bland AI 11:30 – Undervalued Facebook Groups 12:55 – Business Pages and IG Niche Pages 13:46 – Prompting Muse Into Facebook Groups 15:19 – Mining FB Marketplace and Instagram 17:20 – Four Levels of Personal Agent Arbitrage 20:38 – Results From Montreal Groups 21:40– Goods vs. Services 22:15 – Muse vs. Dots and Instinct 24:09 – Closing Thoughts Key Points Muse mines public Facebook groups, Marketplace, and Instagram to match buyers and sellers in any niche and city. A clean list of names, needs, prices, and trust signals is an asset I own and can sell later. Facebook groups, business pages, and IG niche pages look undervalued as Muse agents start crawling them. I tell Muse where to look, and Facebook groups gave me the highest quality data. My four levels: mine the data, own the list, own the room, then build technology. A lean cost structure lets me charge a success fee of a few hundred dollars and keep high margins. The #1 tool to find startup ideas/trends - https://www.ideabrowser.com LCA helps Fortune 500s and fast-growing startups build their future - from Warner Music to Fortnite to Dropbox. We turn 'what if' into reality with AI, apps, and next-gen products https://latecheckout.agency/ FIND ME ON SOCIAL X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenberg Instagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisenberg/