Media · 2026-08-19 · 2 min read
Featured on the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur Podcast
Brian Lofrumento had me on episode 1543 to break down the AI operating system behind GoogiPet and OptiCommerceAI: how one person runs two businesses on AI, and how any business can start.
Brian Lofrumento has spent more than 1,500 episodes asking founders the same honest question: how did you actually do it? This week he pointed that question at me.
Episode 1543 of the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur Podcast is called "The AI Operating System That Runs a Million-Dollar Brand," and it is the most complete telling yet of how OptiCommerceAI came to be. Watch it on YouTube, or find it on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or the episode page.
The short version of the story
I quit my job in January 2026, three months after my son was born. Everyone thought I was crazy. Three weeks later I had closed my first three deals.
That bet only made sense because of what I had already seen AI do inside a real business. My brothers and I run GoogiPet, a seven-figure natural dog supplement brand, and piece by piece we rebuilt how it operates around an AI second brain: one system that pulls in Amazon, Shopify, and TikTok data and shows us lifetime value and profit by SKU on demand. No more guessing, no more spreadsheet archaeology.
OptiCommerceAI exists to build that same kind of operating system for other businesses.
What Brian and I get into
- How the AI second brain actually works, and why one dashboard beats five
- How my brother, with zero coding experience, shipped software that now manages our Amazon PPC bidding
- Why launching new products is the inflection point for scaling an e-commerce brand
- Why a solo founder can now build in weeks what used to take a funded team years
- My honest advice for anyone still at a 9 to 5: just start
The written feature
The Wantrepreneur team also published a written profile ahead of the episode: The AI Secret Weapon: Michael La Spisa's Bold Move to Quit His Job and Build OptiCommerceAI. A few lines from it that I stand behind:
"The only thing capping me was the hours I had been giving to someone else."
"People don't mind talking to an AI. They mind being tricked."
"You learn more from one real paying client than from six months of getting ready to have one."
That middle quote comes from a real experiment we ran: disclosing upfront that callers are talking to an AI assistant held a 90 percent positive sentiment rate, against 75 percent when it went unsaid. Transparency wins, and it is how we build every voice agent we ship.
If the episode raises questions about what an AI operating system would look like in your business, that is exactly the conversation I like having.