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.

TIMESTAMPS

00:00 — From Heights Platform to LatchLoop

02:38 — What does 10 billion tokens actually mean?

05:14 — More code doesn't necessarily mean better

07:15 — AI makes experimentation incredibly cheap

08:35 — 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 valuable

22:58 — 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 it

35:49 — "AI does the work. You come up with the ideas."

36:30 — How to get your team to actually adopt AI

38:00 — Automation loops, goal loops & feedback loops

40:39 — Why AI workflows break

42:52 — How to build better AI processes

46:31 — What is an AI harness?

50:12 — Competing with ChatGPT, Claude and the AI giants

54:29 — 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 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/

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 thoughts

Steve 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 building
01:19 — Lean Startup vs building an actual company
04:33 — 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 company
08:25 — 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 struggle
13:33 — The rise of “pufferfish companies”
15:00 — Is there a perfect founding team?
16:14 — The most common problems founders bring to StartStak
16:32 — Why marketing problems are often product problems
19:24 — How do you diagnose what's actually wrong?
20:00 — A $9M company that didn't know who its customer was
21:48 — Product-market fit is a continuous process
24:01 — How AI changes company building
25:33 — Where does your company sit in the AI stack?
27:58 — SaaS, AI agents and outcome-based services
29:08 — Niching down in AI
31:10 — What if you know your AI startup will eventually die?
33:30 — Building in the blind spots of larger companies
34:37 — 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 serve
41:34 — What can founders actually automate?
42:12 — People do the work. AI is part of the process.
44:37 — Building an AI-native company
45:02 — Why are we still struggling with AI adoption?
45:58 — Start with what you're already good at
48:17 — The right AI model for the right job
49:16 — Is there anything exciting left that isn't AI?
49:47 — AI hasn't made us work less
52:28 — Why sometimes you have to go slow to go fast


Elizabeth McCalley:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/emccalley/

StartStak.ai:
https://startstak.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/