Always Be Testing

Michael Gants, founder and CEO of Encore, breaks down how apps can turn unused "streak" and celebration screens into a new revenue stream, without a single ad or paywall. He shares how brands like Disney, Uber, and Apple are paying to reach users in their happiest moments, and why founders should be more afraid of a broken CAC/LTV ratio than of running a monetization experiment.

Brook Schaaf, co-founder of FMTC and author of the new book Affiliate Hypotheses, joins Tye to make the case that affiliate marketing might be the internet's best — and sometimes only — way to monetize the open web. They dig into why walled gardens like Google and Meta get outsized credit for conversions, and why AI search is putting the open web's survival at risk.

Vikram Chalana, CEO and founder of Pictory, joins the show to unpack how his AI video platform went from 50 customers to 5,000 in just 60 days — and why the breakthrough came from changing the market, not the product. He digs into Pictory's State of Video report (AI adoption has no Silicon Valley bias — Florida and Indiana are leading users), the design principles that keep Pictory out of the "timeline" trap of tools like Premiere, and what's next: code-generated, interactive video that could reinvent how content gets made and consumed.

Remy's Danielle Sakher explains how her team balances speed with observability and security as AI coding tools move from novelty to enterprise infrastructure. She shares what it's really like selling an AI builder to security-conscious industries like financial services, plus a wild stat: alpha users have already spent $300K in AI compute.

Darryl Yearwood, who leads partnerships at Apollo, makes the case that a smaller, higher-quality partner roster beats chasing volume every time. He and Tye get into what "not plug-and-play" really means in affiliate marketing and how to build partnerships that actually move revenue.