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Episode Highlights / Timestamps

[00:00] Building AI software for companies, not just selling tools
[00:36] Crossing $2M in annual revenue
[01:12] A real-world AI document automation example
[02:15] Why hourly pricing breaks in AI services
[03:36] Using consulting to learn before building products
[06:09] Landing the first customers through relationships
[09:18] Founder-led sales and networking strategies
[10:39] Hosting events to build credibility and deal flow
[17:06] Why most AI pilots fail in production
[23:06] How Press W positions itself as an AI engineering firm
[27:09] Why “AI transformation” stopped working as a pitch
[36:36] Inside Press W’s AI-native operating system

In this episode of The Next New Thing, Andrew Warner sits down with Tarun Thummala, founder of PressW, to break down how his team builds custom AI systems for real businesses — and why services, not SaaS, were the right starting point.

Tarun runs an AI engineering firm that designs and ships production-grade AI applications for companies in regulated industries like finance, healthcare, and legal. Instead of selling vague “AI transformation,” his team focuses on concrete workflows: document processing, internal tools, sales ops, and systems that actually ship and get used.