SaaS isn't dead. UI is. The moat just moved.

Assaf Weinberg (Co-Founder & CEO, SetSale) joins Andrew Duncan to dismantle the LinkedIn narratives about software in the age of AI: "code is free," "SaaS is dead," and the founder myth that hiring a developer is the bottleneck.

Chapters

Topics

Guest

Assaf Weinberg, Co-Founder & CEO, SetSale

https://www.setsale.ai/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/assafweinberg/

https://x.com/assafweinberg

Resources mentioned

Sense and Respond by Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden: https://www.amazon.com/Sense-Respond-Successful-Organizations-Continuously/dp/1633691888

Granola (AI notetaker): https://www.granola.ai/

Supastarter (Next.js SaaS boilerplate): https://supastarter.dev/

Cursor: https://www.cursor.com/

Connect

Andrew Duncan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-b-duncan/

Vertice Labs: https://www.verticelabs.io

Subscribe

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/64yoHwDdhBd0vik2sev6xs

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gh/podcast/shipping-excellence/id1794200466

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@shippingexcellence

RSS: https://media.rss.com/shippingexcellence/feed.xml

AI doesn't fix your broken processes. It amplifies them.

Jason Macht (Whitespace Solutions) joins Andrew Duncan to break down what actually changes — and what doesn't — when you build with AI.

Chapters

00:00 Intro

00:40 Guest introduction

02:51 Vibe coding vs. engineering rigor

04:02 AI as amplifier — good and bad processes

04:39 Spec-driven development

06:57 The death of traditional agile

09:35 Agentic systems and guardrails

15:27 New business viability — the solopreneur opportunity

32:09 AI as thought partner and echo chamber risks

49:45 Closing

Topics

• Why AI amplifies good and bad engineering practices equally
• Spec-driven development: engineering at the speed of thought
• The difference between vibe coding and production-ready software
• How solopreneurs can now build niche software businesses without VC
• Agentic systems, guardrails, and what happens when AI has real-world access
• Using AI as a strategic thought partner — and avoiding echo chambers
• Why traditional agile is losing to fast betting cycles

Guest

Jason Macht — Founder, Whitespace Solutions

• https://www.whitespacesolutions.ai/
• https://jasonmacht.com/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonmacht/

Resources Mentioned

• Cursor: https://cursor.com/
• Replit: https://replit.com/
• Bolt: https://bolt.new/

Connect

Andrew Duncan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-b-duncan/

Vertice Labs: https://www.verticelabs.io

Subscribe

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/64yoHwDdhBd0vik2sev6xs

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gh/podcast/shipping-excellence/id1794200466

RSS: https://media.rss.com/shippingexcellence/feed.xml

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@shippingexcellence

In this episode of Shipping Excellence, Andrew Duncan sits down with Christopher Garvis (former AWS manager, worked on CDK) to unpack a core reality of the AI era:

AI makes speed cheap, judgment priceless.

They start with the practical: how experienced builders are using AI day to day, why “skills” (constrained context + tools) are emerging as the next standard beyond agents, and what happens when heavy integrations like MCP feel slow or token expensive.

From there, the conversation shifts to the business implications. If AI compresses the time to ship, teams hit decision points faster, with less time to react. That makes judgment and ownership the highest leverage skills. They discuss why AI amplifies whatever process you already have, why “vibe coding” often hits a ceiling without scar tissue, and why the durable moat is still culture: integrity, follow through, and loving the customer by truly understanding them.

They close on the human side of technology: authenticity in a world where it’s harder to know what’s real online, the importance of “third places,” and why remote teams need intentional in person time to build trust and momentum.

Topics covered

• Why AI makes speed cheap, and why judgment becomes the premium skill
• Skills vs agents: constrained context, tool boundaries, and predictable workflows
• Parallel AI workflows: running multiple streams across code and content
• MCP vs lightweight tools: when a CLI beats a server integration
• Emergent behavior: when the model bypasses tools for simpler paths
• AGI and what “human” means beyond text: embodiment, emotion, and social bounds
• AI amplifies process: discipline compounds quality, chaos compounds failure
• Why ownership still matters: “AI isn’t responsible for outcomes, humans are”
• Vibe coding, security gaps, and what breaks at real customer scale
• The new moat: integrity, customer support, follow through, and reputation
• Authenticity vs perfection in an AI saturated internet
• Remote work done right: high bandwidth FaceTime, offsites, and trust currency
• Community and “third places” as technology reshapes connection

Key takeaways

• AI accelerates execution, but it does not remove the need for judgment and ownership.
• The faster you can ship, the faster weak assumptions and bad decisions compound.
• Strong engineering discipline gets supercharged with AI; weak discipline gets exposed.
• Technology is commoditizing, so culture and integrity become defensible advantage.

About the guest

Christopher Garvis is a veteran engineer and former AWS engineering leader who led the AWS CDK team. He focuses on practical AI workflows, tool constrained systems, and shipping with strong engineering fundamentals.

About Shipping Excellence

Shipping Excellence is a podcast about building exceptional software products: practical engineering, strong delivery, and the systems that help teams ship.

Links

• Vertice Labs: https://verticelabs.io
• Follow Andrew Duncan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-b-duncan/

#ShippingExcellence #AINative #SoftwareEngineering #ProductDevelopment #Leadership #RemoteWork #Agents #Skills #MCP #AWS #StartupExecution

Most software projects drift — scope grows, timelines slip, and clients spend more time managing the vendor than shipping product. Robert Randolph, CEO of Executive Linguist Agency, hired Vertice Labs to build two apps. Both shipped on time. Both on budget. Here's what made it different.

Robert runs a professional language services firm with a remote team of interpreters. He needed a HIPAA-compliant messaging platform and an internal iOS app — and he needed them fast. The experience became a useful lens on what actually makes software partnerships work: not charisma, not promises, just execution, clarity, and trust.

Chapters

00:00 The first problem: getting an app in the App Store fast

02:50 Hesitations before starting — and why there weren't many

07:38 HIPAA-compliant interpreter messaging: the gap in the market

08:26 "You got us to market so fast I didn't have time to build a sales strategy"

10:01 What no-BS looks like in a pitch

12:20 $40K consulting with nothing to show for it

14:33 Executive Linguist: Vertice Labs' ideal client

17:29 How a Stripe security incident revealed the team's character

19:01 Speed and organization: the biggest differentiator

21:00 "You could have milked us — and you didn't"

24:20 Who should hire a software partner

31:15 What made this client relationship work

35:00 How watching the process improved their internal operations

Topics

• What makes a software partnership actually work

• Clear scope of work as a trust foundation

• Transparency, autonomy, and accountability on a dev team

• Speed without sacrificing quality

• What to look for in a software partner — and what disqualifies one

• Building HIPAA-compliant apps for specialized industries

Guest

Robert Randolph, CEO — Executive Linguist Agency

https://www.executivelinguist.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-randolph-a86ab4111

Resources mentioned

Linear — https://linear.app

Stripe — https://stripe.com

TestFlight — https://developer.apple.com/testflight/

Connect

Andrew Duncan — https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-b-duncan/

Vertice Labs — https://www.verticelabs.io

Subscribe

Spotify — https://open.spotify.com/show/64yoHwDdhBd0vik2sev6xs

Apple Podcasts — https://podcasts.apple.com/gh/podcast/shipping-excellence/id1794200466

YouTube — https://www.youtube.com/@shippingexcellence

RSS Feed — https://media.rss.com/shippingexcellence/feed.xml

In this episode of Shipping Excellence, Andrew Duncan sits down with Aram Hammoudeh, a Principal AI-Native Engineer at Vertice Labs, to explore how AI coding agents are transforming the way software gets built.

Aram shares what it feels like to go from “grunt developer” to directing a team of AI agents, how tools like Cursor, Copilot, and Claude accelerate delivery, and why the real role of engineers today is shifting toward strategy, architecture, and orchestration.

We cover:

• How AI coding agents give engineers 10x productivity gains
• The difference between GPT-4.0 and GPT-5 in real development work
• Why AI is best thought of as a “junior developer” you can delegate to
• How MCP servers and Linear integrations automate project management
• Guardrails and feedback loops that keep AI-generated code reliable
• The mindset engineers need to thrive in an AI-native world

Whether you’re a technical leader, founder, or engineer in the trenches, this conversation shows what it really looks like to deliver production-ready software with AI agents as part of the team.

In this episode of Shipping Excellence, Andrew Duncan sits down with Sergio Visinoni — a seasoned technology leader turned solopreneur, advisor, and fractional CTO. Sergio shares insights from his provocative article “Is GenAI Digital Cocaine?” and explores the parallels between generative AI, social media, and productivity hacks that may carry hidden costs.

We dive into:

• Why Sergio believes over-reliance on GenAI could weaken cognitive skills
• The lessons he brings from 20+ years as a software engineer, VP of Engineering, and CTO
• His journey from corporate leadership to solopreneurship and advisory work
• How his newsletter Pseudo Make Me a CTO helps engineering leaders grow
• The balance between productivity gains and long-term impacts of new technologies

About Sergio Visinoni: Sergio is a solopreneur in the tech space with over two decades of experience. He advises companies as a fractional CTO, coaches engineering leaders, and writes the popular newsletter Pseudo Make Me a CTO.

Links & Resources:

• GenAI is Digital Cocaine Article: https://makemeacto.substack.com/p/is-genai-digital-cocaine
• Connect with Sergio on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/piffio/
• Read Pseudo Make Me a CTO: https://makemeacto.substack.com/
• Subscribe to Shipping Excellence for more conversations on building and shipping exceptional software products.

What does it take to turn a struggling product launch into a $50M success? In this episode, Wonder Cave President Webb Bostick reveals the leadership moves, technical pivots, and team-building strategies that made it happen.

You’ll learn:

• How to embed technical leadership that drives focus and results
• The keys to building a lean, high-performing engineering culture
• Why “hire the right people” beats “hire more people” every time
• How Wonder Cave scaled to handle Fortune 50-level clients
• Real-world examples of moving fast without sacrificing quality

Whether you’re leading a startup, scaling a product team, or navigating complex builds, this conversation is packed with practical insights you can apply right now.

In this episode of Shipping Excellence, host Andrew Duncan sits down with Drew Burdick, Managing Partner of StealthX, and co-author of the AI North Star Playbook. They dive into how businesses should think about AI adoption, the rise of AI agents, and how solopreneurs and enterprises alike can leverage AI to drive efficiency and growth. The discussion covers everything from practical AI implementations, agentic workflows, the evolution of work, and the massive opportunities AI presents for early adopters.

Key Topics Discussed

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to AI and the North Star Playbook

03:02 Current Trends in AI Adoption

05:53 AI in Business Processes

08:37 Success Stories in AI Implementation

10:59 The Future of AI in Customer Service

13:26 The Evolution of Business with AI

15:51 Mapping Value Streams with AI

18:40 The Role of Human Insight in AI Development

20:38 Embracing Change in the Age of AI

23:56 The Rise of Solopreneur Unicorns

26:18 AI in Education: A Real-World Success Story

28:40 Democratization of Business: The New Age of Entrepreneurship

30:37 Differentiation in a Noisy Market

32:34 Understanding Customer Needs for Product Success

33:29 Agentic Workflows: The Future of AI

39:06 The Evolution of AI Agents in Business

41:57 Building AI Workflows: From Simple to Complex

44:15 The Future of AI: Hands-Off Interfaces and AGI

Resources Mentioned

📖 AI North Star Playbook – Get the roadmap for building AI-powered solutions.

📚 Range by David Epstein – A must-read on why generalists thrive in specialized fields.

🔗 More resources & insights: verticelabs.io

In this episode of the Shipping Excellence Podcast, Duncan speaks with John Main, founder of Farsight, about his journey from finance to technology leadership. John shares insights on building effective teams, navigating the challenges of product management, and the importance of aligning finance with development. He discusses his experiences at Modernizing Medicine and Strax, emphasizing the need for clear communication, prioritization of features, and maintaining team morale in high-stress environments. The conversation highlights the critical balance between innovation and resource management in tech startups.

Takeaways

Chapters

00:00 Building a Team at Modernizing Medicine

09:28 Transitioning from Finance to Product Management

17:02 Prioritizing Features and Managing Expectations

27:07 Finding Common Ground Between Development and Finance

In this episode, Andrew Duncan discusses the emerging trends in AI and software development as we approach 2025. He highlights the shift towards in-house AI solutions, the importance of ecosystems in maximizing AI's impact, and the evolving nature of training architectures. The conversation emphasizes the need for interconnected frameworks that foster collaboration and innovation in the tech ecosystem.

Takeaways