# What It Takes to Build a $100M AI Company at 17

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/in-the-blink-of-ai-with-georgie-healy-7077303/what-it-takes-to-build-a-100m-ai-company-at-17
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/in-the-blink-of-ai-with-georgie-healy-7077303/what-it-takes-to-build-a-100m-ai-company-at-17.md
Podcast: [In The Blink of AI with Georgie Healy](https://stenobird.com/podcast/in-the-blink-of-ai-with-georgie-healy-7077303)
Published: 2026-02-05T20:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://dayone.fm/show/in-the-blink-of-ai
Audio file: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/prfx.byspotify.com/e/episodes.captivate.fm/episode/ee3a0298-0eab-444e-94e7-9d8e78ff3a3a.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/in-the-blink-of-ai-with-georgie-healy-7077303/episodes/what-it-takes-to-build-a-100m-ai-company-at-17
Duration seconds: 2969

## Resource

Win $2,000 in credits with the Day One Network — take our 2-minute audience survey before 30 June: dayone.fm/survey Episode Summary Liam Millward is one of Australia’s most watched young founders, but this conversation goes way beyond the headline of raising a record pre-seed at 17. Liam breaks down how Instant is building an AI powered marketing manager for e-commerce brands, why retention marketing is the real lever for growth, and how personalisation at scale changes the economics of marketing teams. Georgie and Liam unpack what it actually takes to win in B2B SaaS right now, why “nice-to-have dashboards” are getting crushed, and what young founders should do instead of spending their time posing with VCs. Liam also shares the downside of raising big too early, his bet on Google winning the model race, and the one tool he has mandated across Instant’s engineering team. Plus: why New York (not SF) is the next chapter for Instant, how Australian buying habits can create painful customers, and Liam’s spicy prediction that AI agents will become the majority of internet traffic shockingly soon. Time Stamps 01:35 – Meet Liam Millward and the record-breaking pre-seed story 03:40 – Using AI to hire better and have deeper interviews 07:55 – What Instant actually does and why retention beats acquisition 12:00 – How AI personalization changes loyalty, margins, and growth 16:30 – Is B2B SaaS dead or just getting ruthless? 20:45 – Raising big too early, age bias, and proving people wrong 28:30 – Teenage founders, VC hype, and why starting small still wins 34:15 – New York expansion, Google vs OpenAI, and Claude Code 43:50 – AI agents, Australia’s talent drain, and what comes next 44:38 – Saying no to customers: Australia’s “buy from friends” trap 45:32 – Structure at Instant: ob…

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