Podcast Summary: The Startup Ideas Podcast

Episode: "How I use AI Marketing and Claude Code to make $$"

Host: Greg Isenberg
Guest: Jonathan Courtney (aka Mr. Jai Scream, J Ice Cream)
Date: February 11, 2026

Overview

In this engaging episode, Greg Isenberg welcomes Jonathan Courtney—entrepreneur, AI marketer, and founder of AJ & Smart—to break down how to turn AI-powered projects into real revenue. The focus isn't just on building cool AI products ("vibe coding"); it's about promoting, selling, and leveraging marketing fundamentals, with AI as an unstoppable support tool. Jonathan pulls back the curtain on his revenue blueprint, shares practical AI/Claude Code workflows, and gives tough-love advice for would-be founders stuck in "builder mode."

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Crickets-to-Customers Dilemma

• Many builders launch products and see "crickets": no users, no revenue.
• Jonathan emphasizes the gap between technically building something and actually selling it.
• [02:26] Jonathan: "I use these tools like 20% of how much you and your audience use these tools. Most of my time is focused as a CEO on how do I actually make money... I just want to bring that cold money angle to all of this."

2. The CEO's Real Job: Promotion, Not Just Building

• There's a myth in the AI/building community that success = technical prowess.
• Successful AI founders are relentless promoters (think Sam Altman, Peter Levels).
• [05:43] Jonathan: "Your job as CEO is not... to use AI tools and get really good at them. Your job is not... to build cool little products. If you are not able to promote those things, no one's going to use them."
• Analogy: You can build a perfect automated restaurant, but if you don't tell anyone it exists, it'll die.

3. The Revenue Blueprint: From Attention to Sale

Jonathan visually shares (and verbally details) a four-step framework for monetizing any product:

A. Traffic Generation

• Organic: Podcasts, networking, content, social media.
• Paid: Meta ads, TikTok, YouTube ads.

B. The Holding Pattern

• Email lists, podcasts, YouTube channels, X (Twitter) feeds.
• Warming up leads and keeping them in your ecosystem.

C. Selling Events (Campaigns)

• Live webinars, product demos, targeted email campaigns, remarketing ads.
• Direct personal outreach, especially with enterprise leads.
• [14:12] Jonathan: "The selling event... is the bridge between I'm holding people in this space to now I'm moving them over to, they're buying something from me..."

D. The Feedback Loop

• After a selling event, non-buyers go back to the holding pattern for future opportunities.
• Track your funnel: more top-funnel traffic → more signups → more sales.

4. Real-World Marketing Energy

• “Promotion is the oxygen of the business.”
• Stop thinking marketing is cringey—if you don’t like promoting, find a cofounder who will.

[19:30] Jonathan: "This is the core element of your job as a CEO, to make money. And then AI is supporting these elements."

5. AI as CEO/Marketer's Secret Weapon: Claude & Claude Code in Action

Jonathan reveals his personal workflow for using AI to support every step of the blueprint:

1. Idea Dump & ADHD-Friendly Preparation

• Dictates raw ideas into his phone, transcribes with Whisper Flow, feeds into Claude for structure.
• Gets a scannable document and talking points for podcast guesting.

2. Research & Content Strategy

• Uses AI to analyze previous episodes, Greg’s social accounts, and surface what resonates.
• Builds instruction files in Claude for repeat use.

3. Blueprint Creation & Visualization

• Has Claude create visual assets (infographics, blueprints) to support presentations and lead magnets.
• Transfers context-rich files into Claude Code for more advanced automations.

4. Campaign Building

• Moves between Claude (for campaign ideation, copywriting) and Claude Code (for building landing pages, automating outreach).
• Compiles massive swipe files of winning emails, runs them through Claude for pattern recognition and synthesis.

5. Rapid Experimentation

• Speed: "This used to take a week, now: half a day."
• Focus is on abundance—not obsessive optimization. Use AI to scale output and run more simultaneous experiments.

[35:48] Jonathan: “This entire process of marketing for me... now we’re talking about half a day and it just feels so much faster. You can make one off campaigns that feel super custom to the content you’re creating.”

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the temptation to over-optimize with AI:
  [37:40] Jonathan: "Every single interaction, every single business process at AJ and Smart now has an AI automated element. But... it's very easy to optimize for the wrong thing and end up spending... [too long building tools instead of promoting]."

• On abundance over efficiency:
  [39:50] Jonathan: "I don't think being efficient right now is the play... The play is scaling up like crazy. If everyone's using these tools, you can do five campaigns a month instead of one... Abundance and going big instead of obsessive efficiency."

• On newbie founder traps:
  [41:03] Greg: "Don't be that person that measures twice... Yes, just cut everything. ... Don't over-prepare. Just start building and launch."

• On CEO DNA:
  [43:59] Jonathan: "If you just accept that your role as a CEO, you're a promoter and don't be embarrassed about it... It is literally the job of a CEO. You're supposed to be out there talking about your business."

Practical Claude/AI Use Cases (as Demonstrated)

| Segment | Time | Example | |-------------------|------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | Traffic | [20:26] | AI helps draft podcast pitches, write social posts, transcribe and repurpose content | | Holding Pattern | [21:02] | Claude crafts newsletter copy, summarizes webinars, rewrites podcast notes | | Selling Event | [21:02] | Claude writes email sequences, webinar invites, help with re-targeting ad copy | | Blueprint Creation| [22:22] | Used Claude Code to turn marketing blueprints/notes into shareable visual frameworks | | Lead Magnets | [30:28] | Claude suggests downloadable ideas—frameworks, swipe files, audits for newsletter capture|

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [00:49] Opening and Objective
• [03:19] Jonathan's Track Record—Why Listen
• [05:25] The CEO's Real Job: Promotion
• [10:30] Blueprint for Revenue: Traffic → Holding → Selling Event → Loop
• [17:15] Building Repeatable, Measurable Funnels
• [20:26] “Show AI Use Cases” Applied to Each Blueprint Step
• [22:21] Deep-dive: AI Workflow for Podcast Prep
• [30:28] Using Claude to Build Lead Magnets and Campaigns
• [35:48] Speeding Up Marketing with AI
• [39:50] Abundance Over Efficiency—Scaling via AI
• [41:03] Builder Traps and the Value of “Cutting”
• [43:59] Final Thoughts: The Un-cringey CEO Promoter Mindset

Tone & Takeaways

Conversational, fast-paced, and peppered with candid humor and practical warnings. Both Greg and Jonathan stress the importance of applied creativity, ruthless marketing, and the willingness to actually sell. AI (especially Claude and Claude Code) is portrayed not as magic, but as a force multiplier—one that lets even small teams run at big-company speeds, provided they stay relentlessly focused on results, not just fun tooling.

Bottom Line:
If you’re not promoting as much as you’re building, you aren’t running a real business. Use AI for leverage, but never forget: revenue follows attention and action, not just automation.

Further Resources

• Jonathan’s Blueprint Demo: [Link in show notes]
• Greg’s Startup Ideas Database: gregisenberg.com/30startupideas

For founders, marketers, and technical builders alike—this episode delivers a masterclass in no-BS, AI-supported business-building.