Builder's Growth Lab

Tired of AI products that all sound the same? We sat down with brand and community powerhouse Mallory Lore (formerly Bolt.new and Discord) to unpack how real brands are built in a crowded market & why the “vibe” only works when it’s backed by clarity, consistency, and care. From picking a narrow target to speaking in users’ own words, Mallory shows how positioning and language can turn a tool into a movement people want to join.

We dig into practical brand metrics—awareness, sentiment, and that all-important word-of-mouth flywheel—and how to actually move them with social listening, focused messaging, and programs for superfans. Mallory explains why consumer trust craters when companies lean on jargon or fear-mongering (“AI will replace your team”) and how plain, human storytelling wins more hearts. We also talk community as a growth lever: rewarding loyal users, staying present in the channels they live in, and making CX the front line of brand experience.

You’ll get a rare behind-the-scenes tour of the world’s largest hackathon: how a month-long format, builder packs, heavyweight judges, and constant live ops brought 100k+ builders together. Plus, we reflect on the AWS outage and what single-point failures do to brand trust, along with the transparency playbook for when things go sideways. Mallory also shares her next chapter with Kind Of Sorta Agency, focused on brand, community, and content for consumer-focused teams.

If you’re building in AI and want your product to stand out, this conversation is your blueprint: define your wedge, speak human, reward believers, and show up when it counts. If this helped you think differently about brand and community, follow the show, share with a teammate, and leave a quick review—what’s the one phrase you want users to use when they describe your product?

In this episode, Conor and Charlie talk about their careers before getting into AI, their backgrounds in digital marketing agencies (and before that!) and how they met.  

In Episode 20 of AI Code Central, Charlie and Conor sit down with Joseph Perla, CEO of Hangout.FM, to explore the tension between human connection and artificial intelligence in product design. Joseph, a Princeton ML researcher who helped build Facebook’s News Feed and self-driving systems at Lyft, has taken a bold stance, his new music discovery platform says “no” to AI recommendations.

The conversation dives into Hangout’s recent build-a-thon with Lovable, the “humans-only” philosophy behind music curation, and a practical framework for when builders should use AI—and when they should resist it.

This episode gives founders and AI builders a rare look at what it means to balance cutting-edge tech with authentic human experience.

https://hangout.fm/

In Episode 19 of AI Code Central, Charlie and Conor sit down with Pete McPherson, founder, builder, and the voice behind Do You Even Blog. Pete has launched and sold multiple AI apps, and he shares practical insights on how to move from idea to exit. The conversation covers choosing the right stack, working with AI models, and striking the balance between product features and business goals.

Pete opens up about the reality of pricing AI tools, finding early traction, and the difficult decisions that come with scaling. Listeners will come away with strategies they can apply immediately to build stronger, more market-ready AI products.

In the second half, Conor provides a clear breakdown of Google Ads for AI founders. He explains how to set up campaigns, test messaging, and use paid search as a validation tool. By combining first-hand founder experience with tactical marketing advice, Episode 19 delivers actionable takeaways for anyone building in the AI space.

At just 19 years old, Mark Vassilevskiy is running the top design agency in Silicon Valley, closing clients like ClickUp, Contra, and Bolt.new. But what really caught our attention is the claim that one of his websites helped a startup reach a $67 million valuation without an app, users, or a marketing budget.

In this episode of AI Code Central, Charlie sits down with Mark to unpack how design can transform startups, accelerate fundraising, and even make VCs stop scrolling. Mark shares his journey from learning design during lockdown in Kazakhstan, to becoming a top Medium writer, to building high-conversion sites in Framer that outperform traditional stacks.

https://skale.solutions/

Description: Colin Lawlor went from marketing Guinness in Dublin to building Sleep.ai - the company with the world's largest sleep dataset and fresh $5.5M in funding. Instead of selling another $300 sleep ring, they power other companies with AI sleep intelligence.

In this episode, we dive into:

• How smartphone sonar technology turns any phone into a clinical-grade sleep monitor
• Building an 800+ million hour sleep dataset as a competitive moat
• Technical integration for developers - APIs, SDKs, and sleep data challenges

Colin shares the reality of sleep deprivation in startup culture, navigating healthcare regulations, and why "sleep is not for wimps" but actually the ultimate performance enhancer.

Perfect for AI builders, health tech entrepreneurs, and anyone running on 4 hours of sleep wondering if there's a better way.

https://www.sleep.ai/ 

In this episode of AI Code Central, Conor & Charlie break down how to use email marketing to get your first customers and turn signups into paying users.

Conor walks through the essentials of email strategy for early-stage AI apps, covering why email still delivers the highest ROI, how to build a simple signup form, and how to launch a 3-email welcome flow that converts. Charlie jumps in with the questions every founder is thinking: “Isn’t email outdated?” “What if I don’t have content yet?” and “How often should I send without being annoying?”

You will learn how to capture your first subscribers, structure a frictionless opt-in, set up an automated sequence, and track the metrics that matter most. Whether you are building on Bolt, Lovable, Replit, or shipping your first AI app, this episode gives you the practical steps to launch your email engine quickly.

By the end, you will know how to set up your first email system, what to send, and how to use email as a growth channel for your AI app.

This week on AI Code Central, Caz & Charlie sit down with David Bressler, founder of FormulaBot, the AI tool that turns plain English into Excel formulas, charts, and full-blown data analysis. David shares how he built the MVP during paternity leave, survived a $5,000 API bill, dealt with Microsoft’s cease-and-desist letter, fended off copycats, and turned user emails into a product roadmap. From scrappy ESPN Excel ads to scaling past ChatGPT competition, David’s story is a masterclass in solopreneurship, scrappiness, and building AI that lasts.

www.formulabot.com

In Episode 14, Charlie and Conor take a hands-on approach to one of the most important parts of setting up analytics: event tracking in Google Analytics 4 (GA4) using Google Tag Manager (GTM).

After some weekend stories about concerts and mountain biking, the hosts jump into a practical, step-by-step walkthrough of how to correctly configure event tracking. Conor explains what events are in GA4, why the data layer matters, and how to track actions that go beyond simple page views like form fills or pricing page visits.

Listeners get a clear, real-world demo of installing Tag Manager, linking GA4 with a measurement ID, creating custom triggers and tags, and validating events in real time.

In Episode 13, we sit down with Mindaugas Petrutis (MP) from Lovable, a dynamic leader at the intersection of growth, collaboration, and creative marketing. From working with influencers and handling high-level partnerships to building robust marketing strategies, MP gives us a look inside his multifaceted role at the company everyone in AI is talking about.