{"podcast":{"title":"NC Tweener Talks","slug":"nc-tweener-talks-7053588","podcast_index_feed_id":7053588,"rss_url":"https://feeds.transistor.fm/triangle-tweener-talks","website_url":"http://www.tweenertalks.com","image_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/9aT0T2c4UZ-gsEZYm2CzGW4xqhiP5yWQBs5vC31qklI/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:1400/h:1400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS80NjBh/YWVhZTA4ZTUyY2Fl/MDdhNzQwZWFhNDI4/MDc3Zi5wbmc.jpg","author":"Scot Wingo","episode_count":117,"summary":"A podcast for builders by builders in North Carolina. We explore the startup journey and stories with NC founders, from the idea to the exit and everything in between. NC Tweener Talks is hosted by Scot Wingo, presented and produced by NC Tweener Fund, with creative assets and design support from Walk West.","last_synced_at":"2026-09-11T02:21:14.352220+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/nc-tweener-talks-7053588"},"episode":{"title":"Jesse Lipson, CEO & Founder of Levitate: Building AI Features Won't Save You but Here's What Will","slug":"jesse-lipson-ceo-founder-of-levitate-building-ai-features-won-t-save-you-but-here-s-what-will","published_at":"2026-06-25T06:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/nc-tweener-talks-7053588/jesse-lipson-ceo-founder-of-levitate-building-ai-features-won-t-save-you-but-here-s-what-will","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/nc-tweener-talks-7053588","url":"https://share.transistor.fm/s/f652c4b5","audio_url":"https://media.transistor.fm/f652c4b5/3f4f61b7.mp3","summary":"Jess Lipson, founder and CEO of Levitate, joins host Scot Wingo for a focused, framework-driven conversation on how SaaS founders should think about their businesses in the age of AI. Jess has been building SaaS since before the category had a name. His first company, ShareFile, sold to Citrix and eventually became a billion-dollar business. At Citrix, he ran the company's entire SaaS portfolio. Now at Levitate, a relationship marketing platform serving nearly 9,000 small businesses, he's spent the last year working out a clear-eyed answer to one of the most common questions Scot hears from Triangle founders: what do you actually do about the SaaSpocalypse? In this episode, Jess introduces two tests every SaaS founder should run: the Removal Test (if you strip AI out of your product, does it still function?) and the Growth Re-acceleration Test (is your growth rate going up or down, and what does that signal to investors?). Scot adds a third indicator from what he's seeing across the Tweener Fund portfolio: churn driven by customers who are now vibe-coding their own replacements. Together, they walk through how the buy-vs.-build equation has shifted 10 to 100 times, why having AI features is now table stakes rather than a competitive advantage, and what it looks like to build a business where new frontier model releases feel like tailwinds instead of threats. Timestamps 00:00 Cold Open & Welcome 00:29 Sponsors: Robinson Bradshaw & Bank of America 01:24 Scot's Intro: The SaaSpocalypse 02:31 The February Tweener Times Piece 03:05 Why This Episode Exists 04:08 Welcome Jess Lipson 04:37 How Scot & Jess Know Each Other 05:10 Jess's SaaS Pedigree: ShareFile to Citrix 05:49 SaaS Multiples Have Collapsed 07:00 Salesforce, HubSpot & Workday Are Down Too 08:13 AI…","meta_description":"Jess Lipson, founder and CEO of Levitate, joins host Scot Wingo for a focused, framework-driven conversation on how SaaS founders should think about their…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":1537,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/nc-tweener-talks-7053588/episodes/jesse-lipson-ceo-founder-of-levitate-building-ai-features-won-t-save-you-but-here-s-what-will/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/nc-tweener-talks-7053588/jesse-lipson-ceo-founder-of-levitate-building-ai-features-won-t-save-you-but-here-s-what-will.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}