660: (Solo) The New Role Defining Which E-Commerce Brands Win in 2026

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0:39Just head to OmniSend.com forward slash founder without the E to get started. All right, now let's jump back into the show. Hey Founder fam, Nathan here. Welcome back to another episode of the Founder to Founder Solo Show. So today I want to talk about a shift that I honestly believe is going to redefine how we build businesses over the next few years. I've been talking about a lot, these solo episodes, and it's like something that's on my mind every day, and the founder team and so many of my friends that are building. And it's the idea that your next key hire might not be a marketer, might not be an operations manager, might not be a media buyer.

1:19Instead, it might just be someone who just flat out knows how to work with AI. And I call it an AI operator.

1:26Nathan Chan:Hear the stories, learn the proven methods, and accelerate your growth and future through entrepreneurship. Welcome to the Founder Podcast with Nathan Chan.

1:39So we've been tossing up this concept internally at Founder. Also with our lead operator in residence, Nick Schack. He's a partner at Brez and, you know, inside our founder operators membership, there's a lot of talks, right? This is really cool. We work with fast growing DTC brands. We help them scale their Facebook ads. We help them with their AOV offers, CVR, all that good stuff, creative. We really got a lot of cool stuff happening there. And what we're seeing is super clear. The people winning right now aren't just the ones using AI. They're the ones who know how to direct it. And to be clear, this is a completely new idea.

2:11I remember chatting about this on a podcast with Sabri Subhi back in 2024. when the AI wave was just starting to peak. And I also remember I was talking to Phoebe Gates about this about six months ago. And the one thing that she does is she gets AI interns now. So like most people are using AI wrong. That's the first thing. Like literally everyone is using it, but most people are just scratching the surface. Like they're using it for basic ad copy or like product descriptions. And they wonder why it doesn't convert or why it sounds exactly like everything else on the internet. There's this concept called AI slop, which I've heard thrown around a lot.

2:46And truthfully, there's kind of like levels to AI where it's not about just kind of like writing to it anymore. It's about building automation that is happening autonomously without your intervention whatsoever. And there's this new skill set that is emerging where I see massive potential for a brand new role in e-commerce and beyond. And it's a new type of player and even a new type of founder who goes well beyond just like prompting. but someone who can really like set up agents at scale and they're directing the AI, refining the outputs and really kind of just running an extremely lean machine and turning AI into a multiplier across the business, across multiple functions, across multiple problem solving areas that need to happen.

3:35So if you're running an e-commerce brand right now, think about how many areas AI can touch, ad creative, design, email marketing, web development, product pages, customer support, content creation, data analysis. And if you have someone who can properly build agents and machines across all of these areas where these machines are operating autonomously and thinking and doing and doing a lot of heavy lifting for you, it's game-changing having one person. And that is where it's moving, right? That is where it's moving. Like I've seen this firsthand. This is something that we've been digging into, like I shared in founder operators in our membership.

4:15When you look at high performing e-commerce brands, they're not just using the tools, they're building systems. Like I sat down with one of our members and their reporting and dashboards and forecasting was out of control what they were building. And I was just so blown away around how they're building these system. So if you're thinking about your next hire, it's really worth considering instead of asking, do I need another marketer or do I even need an assistant or someone to help me move faster? Do I need someone who can operate AI at a high level across the business? And it's usually going to be someone young too.

4:51I don't know if I've told you this guys, and I probably should bring him on like write to me over DMs, write to me, just Nathan Chan. I love hearing from you guys. Write to me on DMs on Instagram. Would you like me to bring on my 21 year old AI coach? He's on the cutting edge is in the top 0.1 % of AI power users and creators. And he's teaching me everything. Like, would you like me to bring him on? And we can just jam. But one thing I will tell you is this stuff is moving so fast. I find that even through the founder team now, we've got Claude Enterprise. Every single person has a Claude account now, and we are moving at a rapid rate to skill up the founder team to get all of our teams building agents building automations just saving so much time it is crazy so a thing that i want you to take away at this point in time is your next hire maybe shouldn't be somebody that's actually going to do it should be maybe somebody that's going to master and orchestrate your ai agents across your business and one good really solid place to go is if you post a job on Upwork, I promise you just look at one task or one kind of meaty thing that you hate doing in your business.

6:07Post about, you know, how you want it automated with an AI agent using Claude on Upwork. You'll be inundated with people that can build for you. And I promise you, you're going to be like, oh my God, I totally get it now, Nathan. So the big takeaway today is AI is not the advantage. How you use it is. And as we move into 2026 and beyond, the businesses that are going to win won't just be the ones that are using AI. They're the ones that know how to really have your AI agents and have autonomous agents owning outcomes as much as possible. So if this episode, you've enjoyed it, you want to hear more, you want me to bring on my AI coach, who's like a 21-year-old whiz kid, let me know.

6:48And if you like this podcast, please share it with a friend. If you do run a D2C brand and you want help with growth, you want help with Facebook ads, our community is absolutely rocking what we've got going on there. We can really help you scale. We're helping so many founders scale right now. It's an incredible program, Founder Operators. Go to found.com forward slash operators. That's it from me. I'll speak with you soon.