The Harder It Is, The Better
#60

The Harder It Is, The Better

Corey shares how he moved from marketing into coding, why he still keeps technical co-founders on some products, and how he thinks about balancing services, software, and content. The group also digs into AEO, paid ads, churn in productized services, and why manual customer research still matters.

Timestamps:
00:00 - Intro
02:20 - Corey Haines and Conversion Factory
04:33 - Does everyone still need a technical co-founder?
06:21 - How Corey went from marketing to coding
10:08 - TrueList, Magister, and Corey’s other products
13:01 - Running several products instead of betting on one
15:26 - Building a business around a personal brand
17:33 - How AI changes testing ideas and building products
20:58 - Automated testing across 30 repos
24:50 - Spreading the risk across multiple products
27:24 - Josh Pigford and the debate over focus
31:31 - Why some products grow and then fade
34:33 - What to do when growth stalls
36:48 - SendFox, focus, and what counts as winning
38:52 - Churn and sales challenges in productized services
41:40 - Selling AI implementation and SEO services
46:14 - The value of talking to people
48:29 - What parts of marketing can you productize?
50:26 - SaaS marketing has changed—and Google feels it
52:52 - Which marketing channels should you try first?
56:24 - Finding the first customers for a niche product
59:14 - Learning how customers talk and buy
01:03:04 - AEO results: more visibility, traffic, and booked calls
01:05:24 - AEO beyond your own website
01:08:04 - The work AI still can’t skip
01:11:50 - Brian’s mix of ads, cold email, and experiments
01:16:03 - Growth curves and finding the next marketing channel
01:20:32 - Faster MVPs and choosing what to build
01:22:28 - Products Brian actually wants to work on
01:24:54 - Finding customers and problems worth solving

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