Corey shares how he moved from marketing into coding, why he still keeps technical co-founders on some products, and how he thinks about balancing services, software, and content. The group also digs into AEO, paid ads, churn in productized services, and why manual customer research still matters.

Timestamps:
00:00 - Intro
02:20 - Corey Haines and Conversion Factory
04:33 - Does everyone still need a technical co-founder?
06:21 - How Corey went from marketing to coding
10:08 - TrueList, Magister, and Corey’s other products
13:01 - Running several products instead of betting on one
15:26 - Building a business around a personal brand
17:33 - How AI changes testing ideas and building products
20:58 - Automated testing across 30 repos
24:50 - Spreading the risk across multiple products
27:24 - Josh Pigford and the debate over focus
31:31 - Why some products grow and then fade
34:33 - What to do when growth stalls
36:48 - SendFox, focus, and what counts as winning
38:52 - Churn and sales challenges in productized services
41:40 - Selling AI implementation and SEO services
46:14 - The value of talking to people
48:29 - What parts of marketing can you productize?
50:26 - SaaS marketing has changed—and Google feels it
52:52 - Which marketing channels should you try first?
56:24 - Finding the first customers for a niche product
59:14 - Learning how customers talk and buy
01:03:04 - AEO results: more visibility, traffic, and booked calls
01:05:24 - AEO beyond your own website
01:08:04 - The work AI still can’t skip
01:11:50 - Brian’s mix of ads, cold email, and experiments
01:16:03 - Growth curves and finding the next marketing channel
01:20:32 - Faster MVPs and choosing what to build
01:22:28 - Products Brian actually wants to work on
01:24:54 - Finding customers and problems worth solving

YOU ARE THE PANEL – send us your thoughts 🗣️

🎤 Send us an audio or video message

📧 Email us: panelpodcastshow@gmail.com

📺 Leave a comment on YouTube

🦋 Reply on Bluesky

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Ruben’s comment on AI and marketing
• Josh Pigford’s new startup
• Corey Haines on GitHub
• Magister Marketing — AI Marketing Agent
• Jason Cohen’s “Elephant in the Room”
• Brian Casel on selling Productize
• Tim Soulo: “The only competitive advantage left is effort.”
• Conversion Factory — On-Demand Marketing for Tech Companies
• Corey Haines — Marketer, Builder, Writer
• Marketing Skills for Claude Code and AI Agents
• Truelist — Email Validation Platform
• Marc Lou on X
• Charleston AI — AI Engineering, Classes & Repair

Is DHH right in his prediction that handcrafted coding is done, is trying to "be the best" the best strategy, and can you skip the hard work and just do the easy parts of product launching and still find success?

Chapters:

• (00:11) - Welcome to the Panel Podcast
• (03:04) - DHH's Flamethrower Keynote
• (09:07) - The End of Handcrafting Code
• (12:35) - Who Wants It the Most
• (16:08) - Marketing with AI and Manual Grind
• (24:56) - Being the Best in Your Category
• (35:49) - Product Decision Making in 2026
• (47:46) - Sam Altman's Advice on Focus
• (54:01) - Risk and Opportunity in AI
• (01:00:33) - Building vs Acquiring Businesses
• (01:19:30) - The Independent Sponsor Model
• (01:33:16) - Staying in Motion and Shipping

Links:

• DHH keynote at Rails World
• Derrick Reimer on finding business ideas
• Ruben Gamez tweet
• Olly tweet
• MicroConf Europe
• AngelList
• TinySeed
• Amp
• Grok
• Muse
• Instinct
• Grok Bot
• ElevenLabs
• Reception.ai
• DocuSign
• Flywrite
• Mimeo
• Miro
• Evernote
• Bending Spoons

We’re joined by Aaron Francis who shares his experience after joining Laravel, Laravel's evolution, marketing strategies, and the future of cloud computing. How is Jev changing the cost and way we use LLMs. And what is the future of education and training on the web?

Timestamps:
00:00 - Intro
03:03 - Aaron's Laracon reveal and why he took the job
09:03 - Open source roots, cloud money, and VC-scale growth
14:58 - Who Laravel Cloud is actually built for
19:07 - Taylor's "best in category" tweet, unpacked
22:52 - Ambition and care beat chasing every feature
27:02 - Founders need a point of view, not just a new tool
31:46 - PHP's culture keep Laravel grounded
35:25 - Justin's Vegas Retreat
45:10 - Introducing Jev, and how it's different from an LLM
58:23 - Rosie, ChatGPT Live, and whether full-stack agents are any good
62:16 - "Eat the pain" for your customers as a strategy
77:41 - Aaron's Astra 3D office walkthrough demo
81:11 - Are courses dead? Where dev education goes next

YOU ARE THE PANEL – send us your thoughts 🗣️

🎤 Send us an audio or video message

📧 Email us: panelpodcastshow@gmail.com

📺 Leave a comment on YouTube

🦋 Reply on Bluesky

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Jev announcement post
• Syntax: WTF is Jev?
• Aaron's product - Solo
• Aaron's 3D modeling with Astra
• 90s PC game: Incredible Machine
• New Builder Methods page
• Aaron Francis
• Introducing GPT-Live | OpenAI
• TypeSafe AI
• Free AI Voice Generator & Voice Agents Platform | ElevenLabs
• Compare AI Models: Pricing, Context & Benchmarks | OpenRouter