Sounds Good.

What if the goal isn’t to build the fastest-growing company — but one you’d actually be happy running for 30 years?Tom Buchok built and sold MailCharts in 2022. Today, he works with founders who want to build sustainable companies that support their lives instead of consuming them.We talk about why building a product is getting easier while building a real company is not, why founders themselves can become the biggest risk to their businesses, and what changes when you go from scrappy founder to CEO.We also get into AI and the temptation to run a company alone, why automating more doesn’t necessarily mean working less, how to think about an acquisition offer before one lands in your inbox, and why human relationships may become more valuable as the internet fills with AI-generated noise.Timestamps00:00 — Why Tom didn’t start another company after his exit 05:42 — Is building a “sustainable” business still sexy? 10:33 — Building a company that supports your life 12:39 — What do you actually need from your business? 17:47 — Going from a product to a real company 21:20 — Why founders still need other founders 24:30 — Remote work, AI and productivity 31:16 — Is the one-person AI company actually sustainable? 34:34 — Why working alone feels easier 36:36 — The problem with selling a founder-dependent company 38:25 — Going from founder to CEO 44:25 — How to know when an acquisition offer is good enough 51:30 — Could you run this business for 30 years? 56:15 — What’s exciting outside of AI? 57:27 — AI noise could make human work more valuable 01:02:21 — “I’ve never automated more — or worked more” 01:08:46 — AI lets us “unfuck more things at once”───sounds good. — a podcast with Anna Nadeina https://soundsgoodpod.com [email protected] good. is sponsored by saas.group — serial acquirer of profitable SaaS businesses. If you're thinking about an exit, they're worth a conversation. https://saas.group/

Bryan McAnulty, founder of LatchLoop and Heights Platform, has gone deep into AI agents — using them to build software, research, automate work, and rethink how his team operates.We talk about moving beyond simple prompting into actually delegating work to AI, where humans still matter, how to safely give agents access to your tools, and why understanding the work becomes even more important when AI can execute it. Bryan also shares a simple framework for AI adoption — automation loops, goal loops, and feedback loops — and explains why the real competitive advantage may not be the AI model you use, but the processes and knowledge you build around it.TIMESTAMPS00:00 — From Heights Platform to LatchLoop02:38 — What does 10 billion tokens actually mean?05:14 — More code doesn't necessarily mean better07:15 — AI makes experimentation incredibly cheap08:35 — What happens when AI gets expensive?12:40 — Can we actually trust AI agents?18:08 — How much access should you give AI?19:48 — Why human communities become more valuable22:58 — Is AI killing online courses?25:29 — What should creators actually automate?27:59 — Should you replace employees with AI?34:52 — Learn the job before automating it35:49 — "AI does the work. You come up with the ideas."36:30 — How to get your team to actually adopt AI38:00 — Automation loops, goal loops & feedback loops40:39 — Why AI workflows break42:52 — How to build better AI processes46:31 — What is an AI harness?50:12 — Competing with ChatGPT, Claude and the AI giants54:29 — From software as a service to "service as software"56:53 — What's exciting outside the AI bubble?Bryan McAnulty:LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryanmcanulty/LatchLoop: https://latchloop.com/Heights Platform: https://heightsplatform.com/─── sounds good. — a podcast with Anna Nadeinahttps://soundsgoodpod.comsounds good. is sponsored by saas.group — serial acquirer of profitable SaaS businesses. If you're thinking about an exit, they're worth a conversation.https://saas.group/

What if the best B2B marketing strategy in the age of AI is… being more human?Steve Armenti has spent 16+ years in marketing, including years running demand programs at Google. Now he’s the founder of twelfth agency and Howdy, where he’s betting on a very different version of AI-powered GTM: let AI do the research and repetitive work — then let humans create the relationship.Timestamps:00:00 - Meet Steve Armenti 02:40 - What ABM actually means 05:10 - Should a $9/month SaaS even think about ABM? 07:59 - When does ABM make sense for a startup? 10:47 - The economics behind a $1.4M pipeline campaign 12:00 - How Howdy turns personal signals into real experiences 15:42 - Why ABM can build more than pipeline 17:38 - Personalization vs. creepy: Europe, GDPR and trust 22:27 - Can AI research people without losing the audit trail? 25:42 - What should you actually automate with AI? 29:52 - Can AI audit AI? 34:52 - Why complicated AI workflows break 37:37 - Is field marketing becoming more important than demand gen? 41:14 - Why big B2B purchases still need humans 42:18 - How personal is too personal? 45:34 - Steve's AI disaster story 49:37 - What Steve is excited about that has nothing to do with AI 50:38 - The case for going for a walk 55:07 - Final thoughtsSteve Armenti:LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenarmenti/twelfth agency:https://twelfth.agency/Howdy:https://heyhowdy.ai───sounds good. — a podcast with Anna Nadeina https://soundsgoodpod.com sounds good. is sponsored by saas.group — serial acquirer of profitable SaaS businesses. If you're thinking about an exit, they're worth a conversation. https://saas.group/

AI has made it easier than ever to build a product.But has it made it any easier to build a company?Elizabeth McCalley, Founder & CEO of StartStak.ai, thinks we're confusing the two.In this episode, we get into what founders are missing when speed becomes the default. You can vibe code an MVP, launch faster than ever and automate huge parts of the operation — but you still need to know what company you're actually building, who it's for, what problem it solves, how it makes money, how it operates and why it should continue to exist when someone else can recreate the technology.Timestamps:00:00 — What StartStak is building01:19 — Lean Startup vs building an actual company04:33 — Does business planning still matter in the AI era?05:59 — Go fast and break things — but what are you actually building?07:00 — Building a product isn't building a company08:25 — What's missing from most founder business plans?09:42 — Can the one-person AI company actually exist?11:07 — Where early-stage founders usually struggle13:33 — The rise of “pufferfish companies”15:00 — Is there a perfect founding team?16:14 — The most common problems founders bring to StartStak16:32 — Why marketing problems are often product problems19:24 — How do you diagnose what's actually wrong?20:00 — A $9M company that didn't know who its customer was21:48 — Product-market fit is a continuous process24:01 — How AI changes company building25:33 — Where does your company sit in the AI stack?27:58 — SaaS, AI agents and outcome-based services29:08 — Niching down in AI31:10 — What if you know your AI startup will eventually die?33:30 — Building in the blind spots of larger companies34:37 — What should AI replace — and what still needs people?36:44 — What happens to accelerators in the AI era?39:12 — The 99% of founders existing programs don't serve41:34 — What can founders actually automate?42:12 — People do the work. AI is part of the process.44:37 — Building an AI-native company45:02 — Why are we still struggling with AI adoption?45:58 — Start with what you're already good at48:17 — The right AI model for the right job49:16 — Is there anything exciting left that isn't AI?49:47 — AI hasn't made us work less52:28 — Why sometimes you have to go slow to go fastElizabeth McCalley:https://www.linkedin.com/in/emccalley/StartStak.ai:https://startstak.ai/sounds good. — a podcast with Anna Nadeinahttps://soundsgoodpod.comsounds good. is sponsored by saas.group — serial acquirer of profitable SaaS businesses.If you're thinking about an exit, they're worth a conversation.https://saas.group/

A year ago, Jason Zigelbaum was running a SaaS business at roughly $1M ARR completely alone.A year later, he's approaching $2M — and he's still alone.So, how?Jason is one of the clearest real-world examples of what running an extremely lean SaaS with AI actually looks like. He uses AI to build product, analyze customer behavior, understand churn, identify his ICP, create marketing campaigns, build landing pages, analyze ad performance, and automate much of the work that would traditionally require a team.But this isn't a story about handing your company over to a bunch of autonomous agents.Jason is still very much in the driver's seat.We talk about how he structures AI workflows, why domain expertise makes AI dramatically more useful, and why the best tasks to delegate are often the ones you already know how to do — but simply don't have enough time to do yourself.We also get into one of the biggest questions facing SaaS founders right now: if anyone can build your product in a weekend, what makes your company defensible?For Jason, the answer is depth. Knowing your customer incredibly well, listening to their weirdly specific problems, and building solutions that someone starting from a blank prompt would never know to ask for.And despite automating almost everything, there's one thing Jason still refuses to hand over to AI: customer support.Because when you're the person answering every frustrated email, your customers are effectively writing your roadmap for you.Finally, we talk about the strange side effect of all this new leverage. AI was supposed to give us our time back. Instead, Jason is working harder, doing more, and moving the goalposts again.The next target?$4M ARR. Still solo.Timestamps:00:00 — From $1M to nearly $2M ARR — still solo02:04 — What actually drove the growth?03:23 — What Jason automated with AI05:16 — Using customer data to find your real ICP06:06 — Where should AI stop?08:08 — Jason's actual AI stack10:34 — Is this finally the one-person AI company?11:29 — What happens when AI stops working?13:07 — Why domain expertise makes AI better14:35 — Learning how to actually talk to AI16:28 — Can AI replace expertise?17:48 — Using AI for marketing without creating slop20:11 — Does building a founder brand actually drive growth?20:50 — Google vs Shopify vs LLMs22:20 — The one thing Jason refuses to automate24:11 — “Anyone could build this in a weekend”25:08 — How to make a SaaS defensible in the AI era27:56 — What happens if AI changes e-commerce completely?31:39 — Where should a bootstrapped founder spend the money?32:26 — The surprisingly hard problem of cash flow35:25 — Letting AI manage ad campaigns37:41 — Everything changed. Everything stayed the same.38:24 — Why Jason is finally building a personal brand40:07 — Automating your own content strategy42:32 — Why AI gets harder when teams get involved44:17 — What actually performs on LinkedIn?47:21 — What Jason is excited about outside AI49:13 — Is AI actually giving us more free time?50:43 — The goal: $4M ARR51:31 — See you next yearJason - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-zigelbaum/Zigpoll - https://www.zigpoll.com/sounds good. — a podcast with Anna Nadeinahttps://soundsgoodpod.comsounds good. is sponsored by saas.group — serial acquirer of profitable SaaS businesses.If you're thinking about an exit, they're worth a conversation.https://saas.group/