{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"The Next New Thing","title":"How Josh Mohrer built Wave AI","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":3350,"description":"Presented by Zapier\nhttps://zapier.com/\nEpisode Highlights / Timestamps\n00:00 $7M ARR as a solo founder\n01:21 Profit, margins, and team size\n02:51 Josh’s path from Uber to Wave\n05:24 Choosing ideas in the early AI days\n06:18 Why summarization felt like the killer app\n08:15 Competing with Otter, Fireflies, and others\n10:21 Recording real-world audio vs meeting bots\n12:18 Spending more on AI to improve quality\n13:39 Knowing you’re onto something from user emotion\n15:09 Why Wave stayed general instead of vertical\n16:12 Learning to build with ChatGPT\n18:00 How Wave’s architecture evolved\n19:39 Using Claude Code day-to-day\n21:00 AI agents analyzing analytics and logs\n25:21 The tools behind Wave (Cursor, Twilio, Adapt)\n27:27 Building instead of buying SaaS tools\n30:00 Using AI to ship features faster\n32:06 Why Zapier matters for data portability\n34:03 The future of cheap, abundant software\n36:09 Running Wave like a corner store, not a startup\n40:12 Growth goals without VC pressure\n42:18 How Wave gets customers today\n49:03 Why SEO side projects didn’t convert\n50:24 “If you’re good, things might work out”\n54:45 Revenue breakdown and take-home profit\nWhat does it look like when a single founder builds a profitable AI company — alone — and quietly grows it to millions in revenue?\nIn this episode of The Next New Thing, Andrew Warner sits down with Josh Mohrer, creator of Wave AI, to unpack how he built a $7M ARR AI business with no full-time team — and how modern AI tools fundamentally changed what’s possible for solo founders.\nJosh previously helped scale Uber in its early days, but Wave AI is a very different story. It’s a one-person, profitable SaaS built around a deceptively simple idea: record real-world conversations, transcribe them, and generate high-quality summaries people actually trust. No hype. No venture capital. No big team.","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/NyHHieTlmHDUHZCr0-GqsmgcxwwW_QdWcFQKUIrpKnI/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9mZGY1/YWFlNGYzMTA0ZWY1/ZmRlNGY0NDIxMjA0/ZDQyYy5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}