Made in Public Ep.2: Jamie Vaughan on Building in Secret in Public, Launch Noise & AI-First Marketing

This week John Blackburn interviews Jamie Vaughan, co-founder of Restless, an AI marketing company for a social world, days after launch. They unpack what “building in public” means, why Jamie chose “building in secret in public” due to co-founder notice periods, and how the teaser-style content created intrigue, inbound conversations, and even paying clients by launch day. Jamie explains Restless’ two-sided model: Antenna, a managed SaaS platform that ingests proprietary, public, and third-party data to create objective micro-personas and let teams test hooks and copy, alongside social agency services that apply those insights to ads and content. They discuss AI’s strengths (data analysis, pattern matching) versus weaknesses (taste, humor), the role of human creativity, how AI could change agency scaling, and why founders should post rather than “launch into silence,” including thoughts on humor and live formats as antidotes to generic AI content.00:00 Teaser and Hook00:27 Meet Jamie Vaughan02:12 What Building in Public Means03:06 Secret in Public Strategy05:36 Launch Results and Noise07:17 Guy Ritchie Launch Video09:22 What Restless Actually Is11:41 Antenna Platform Deep Dive14:22 Managed SaaS Not Self Serve15:55 Advice for Nervous Founders18:50 The Alternative Is Silence19:44 Inbound Demand Engine20:34 Launch Without The Desert21:06 Building Public Launches22:17 Vertical Drop Sponsor22:50 Consumer Launch Playbook24:17 Rebranding The Vlog24:49 AI Adoption For Teams25:43 What AI Is Bad At28:52 Scaling Agencies With AI32:10 Humor Beats AI Slop34:06 Live Content And Trust36:11 What Happens Next