Podcast Summary

Podcast: Startup Stories - Mixergy
Host: Andrew Warner
Episode: #2296 The $7 Million Vibe Coded App
Date: February 3, 2026
Guest: Josh Moore, Founder of Wave AI

Overview

In this episode, Andrew Warner interviews Josh Moore, the solo founder of Wave AI—a profitable, one-person business behind a $7 million annual revenue audio note-taking app. They delve into how Josh built, scaled, and operates Wave AI nearly single-handedly, leveraging the latest AI technologies for coding, customer support, and product development. The conversation is a detailed, candid exploration of bootstrapping, product focus, AI empowerment, and modern solo entrepreneurship.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Current State of Wave AI

• Revenue & Team
  • $7 million ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue), flat for a few months
  • Profitability: Around $3 million kept after expenses
  • Team size: "You're talking to the whole team." (Josh) – he operates solo.
  • Occasional contractors for engineering/marketing, but most tasks are his own
  • Quote:

    “If you chat in the app with support, it’s me.” (Josh, 01:41)

2. Origin Story & Inspiration

• Came from being in "mini-retirement" after Uber, then ChatGPT’s launch in late 2022 sparked his interest in building software.

• Background in math, analytically inclined, but not a "real engineer" before using AI tools.

• Saw LLMs’ summarization ability as the "killer app," prompting him to build a tool that records, transcribes, and summarizes audio.

• Quote:

  “ChatGPT kind of opened the door of like, oh, you know, I’m 70% of the way there. … ChatGPT kind of let me do that … started helping me.” (Josh, 04:09)

3. Selecting the Right Idea: Why Audio Notes?

• Tried various AI ideas (legislation summarization, AI chat thread assistants, Shopify CS tools), but generalized audio note-taking stood out.

• Believes the biggest unmet use case is recording and summarizing in-person conversations, not just meetings.

• Competitive differentiation: Focused on quality, best-in-class AI models (Whisper, Deepgram, AssemblyAI) and relentless product polish.

• Quote:

  “Most people are doing meeting bots. … 90% of my volume is generic audio in physical space.” (Josh, 10:06)

4. Solo Founder + AI: Building and Scaling Alone

• Handles all product, engineering, and support work, using AI as a "supercharger" for productivity.

• Relentless focus on improvement and user feedback.

• Sees doing things solo as a personal preference that tech now enables at a higher level.

• Uses Stack Overflow, IDEs, and especially LLMs as "mentors" during development.

• Quote:

  “AI is just kind of supercharged that … allowed me to lean into my worst instincts about just sort of doing it all myself.” (Josh, 01:41)

5. Development Process: From Ideation to AI-First Coding

• Early versions coded “like an amateur developer,” but relied on LLMs for code reviews, fixes, and conceptual learning.

• Shifted architecture as he learned — e.g., moving audio processing to the server after realizing pitfalls of only local processing.

• Now deep into tools like Claude Code, Opus 4.5, using them for feature ideation, implementation, and even generating support docs.

• Quote:

  “I have the IDE on one side of my screen, have an LLM on the other. … Battling with the context windows, which were extremely small at that time.” (Josh, 16:27)
  “Hey, Claude code. You see that feature? Write the document about it and put it on Intercom.” (Josh, 00:11 and 33:03)

6. Tool Stack & Automation

• Cursor: Home base for code (app and web)

• Adapty: Central for subscriptions/purchases, AB tests paywalls

• Twilio: Handles phone recording and validation

• Intercom: For chat/UI—customizes support website with own code that hits Intercom API

• Next.js: Web framework of choice

• Zapier: Integration for user-requested workflows (e.g., sending recordings to CRMs)

• Sentry: Error monitoring tool

• Philosophy: Build as much as possible himself, leveraging AI to eliminate middle layers

• Quote:

  “Whereas I previously used a SaaS tool … now I just ask the AI to build it from scratch … anything that’s sitting between you and the code is potentially going to just get in the way.” (Josh, 27:15)

7. Marketing & Growth

• Customer acquisition:

  • Primary: Apple Search Ads (iOS), Google Ads (Android)
  • Secondary: Organic App Store search, word of mouth
  • Meta (Facebook/Instagram) Ads formerly successful, but now saturated and nonperformant

• Retention: Focus on reviews (4.9 stars, 11,000+), product polish, and direct user engagement

• SEO Ideas: Built Wave Pod and Wave Tube for SEO, but found little conversion to Wave user base

• Virality: Most growth now from direct installs and in-app conversion rates (1-in-10 installs converted to paid)

• Quote:

  “On the App Store I have 4.9 star, like 11,000 reviews. So it just comes across as trustworthy.” (Josh, 42:28)
  “If you’re good, things might work out. … The Internet is good at surfacing quality.” (Josh, 49:55)

8. Profit, Pricing & Business Model

• Monetization: Mix of weekly, monthly, and especially annual subscriptions (with annuals providing the majority of revenue)

• App store tax: Apple/Google take significant cut; profit lands at about $3 million/year

• Pricing: Evolved from complicated to simpler, focusing on what users actually buy (trials, annuals)

• Business philosophy: Not running an equity play; aims for sustainable income, not unicorn status

• Hopes to simply “grow year over year” rather than chase VC-style outsized returns.

• Quote:

  “This isn’t an equity play. This is to make money now, as a business. I’m the business owner. I’m the small business owner.” (Josh, 34:13)
  “Gross was like seven. … Maybe I keep three or something like that.” (Josh, 54:51)

9. Reflections & The Future of Solo AI-Driven Software

• Sees future as a proliferation of "corner store" caliber software: inexpensive, plentiful, niche, and individually sustainable.

• Believes that AI enables more of these digital "corner shops," with many small operators rather than only massive platforms.

• Not concerned about being a unicorn; content running a highly profitable, owner-operated business.

• Product differentiation may become less significant, but quality plus personal investment still wins loyalty.

• Quote:

  “What I’m doing looks more like running a corner store that I work in full time and I sweep out at the end of the day myself… more like that I just work on. I have a shop in cyberspace, if you will, and I sell things to a small number of people.” (Josh, 34:13)

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Solo Founding & AI Superpowers

  “AI is just kind of supercharged that … allowed me to lean into my worst instincts about just sort of doing it all myself.” (01:41)

• On Meeting Market Needs

  “If you can make a customer so mad that you think they want to murder you, you might be onto something there.” (13:30)

• On Product Focus

  “No, no, no, no. I just want to tap a button and have it record and then it does that magic summary thing. … That’s all you want?” (53:00)

• On App Store Success

  “On the App Store I have 4.9 star, like 11,000 reviews. So it just comes across as trustworthy.” (42:28)

• On the Future of Software

  “I wonder if software will have a similar kind of thing where there’s just a lot of it, there’s a lot of options. Which one you use doesn’t really matter.“ (34:13)

Timestamps for Key Segments

| Segment | Timestamp | |-------------------------------------------------------|------------| | Opening, ARR, profit, and team insights | 00:00–01:41| | How ChatGPT enabled solo product development | 02:25–05:07| | Idea selection, early prototypes | 05:07–09:38| | Differentiation among competitors | 09:38–12:53| | Product-market fit, user signals | 13:30–15:05| | Coding with AI tools | 16:23–19:32| | Using Claude Code and Opus | 19:32–22:33| | Stack/tools and DIY philosophy | 25:14–30:15| | Zapier integrations & facilitating data flow | 30:47–33:03| | AI-generated knowledge base articles | 33:03 | | The future: more/personalized software | 34:13–37:40| | Not seeking a unicorn, priorities, business goals | 37:40–41:55| | Customer acquisition: ads, app store, reviews | 42:13–43:52| | Subscription model, learning from user behavior | 44:11–45:18| | User feedback & continuous improvement | 46:24–48:33| | SEO side products, effectiveness, conversion | 48:33–49:43| | Product philosophy: quality, virality, focus | 49:55–53:00| | Closing: Profit, sustainability, goals | 54:38–55:14|

Conclusion

Josh Moore’s story is a case study in how a single driven founder armed with modern AI tools can build and scale a highly profitable SaaS business—without a large team, VC backing, or flashy marketing. His philosophy is one of relentless product quality, user empathy, and building only what adds real value—using AI as a “force multiplier” for both development and support.

Wave AI’s success is rooted in product polish, direct user relationships, and the kind of single-minded focus that only an owner-operator can provide. This episode is a blueprint for solo founders in the age of AI, demonstrating both the promise and pitfalls of building world-class products, one code commit and customer ticket at a time.