Corey Haines

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 YOU ARE THE PANEL – send us your thoughts 🗣️ 🎤 Send us an audio or video message 📧 Email us: panelpodcastshow@gmail.com Links mentioned in this episode: Ruben’s comment on AI and marketing Josh Pigford’s new startup Corey Haines on GitHub Magister Marketing — AI Marketing Agent Jason Cohen’s “Elephant in the Room” Brian Casel on selling Productize Tim Soulo: “The only competitive advantage left is effort.” Conversion Factory — On-Demand Marketing for Tech Companies Corey Haines — Marketer, Builder, Writer Marketing Skills for Claude Code and AI Agents Truelist — Email Validation Platform Marc Lou on X Charleston AI — AI Engineering, Classes & Repair