Lior Eldan, co-founder and COO of Moburst, has reinvented what his agency sells three times, from app store optimization to AI products. He explains why replacing people with AI is backwards, why managers have to do the work, and why automating a broken process just gets the AI blamed.

In this episode, Lior and Michael discuss:

• Why Moburst has moved off its winning product three times since 2013, and what each move broke
• Build vs. buy for services: why an acquisition brings a founder, and what the day after actually looks like
• Managers do the work: the rule that keeps middle management from becoming a layer of measurers
• Why replacing people with AI is backwards, and what Moburst now requires of every junior hire
• Forward-deployed: what an embedded team found inside a mortgage company's operations
• Answer engine optimization and why an LLM reads your whole digital footprint, not your website
• Fix the process before you automate it, and the cadence underneath a company that keeps reinventing itself

About Lior:
Lior Eldan is co-founder and COO of Moburst, the digital marketing agency he started in 2013 with Gilad Bechar after the two met as HR officers in the Israeli army. Moburst began in app store optimization, grew through acquisitions including Uproar and Kitcaster, and now sells AI products alongside its services. Adweek has named it one of the fastest-growing agencies in the world.

Resources mentioned:

• Moburst: https://www.moburst.com
• Kitcaster: https://kitcaster.com
• HubSpot: https://www.hubspot.com
• Supercell: https://supercell.com
• Claude Code: https://claude.com/product/claude-code
• Tucows: https://tucows.com

Connect with Lior:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lioreldan/

Connect with Michael:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-koenig514
• Building Helm: https://helmapp.ai

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