From Painful to Unsustainable: How Frugal AI Helps Developers Fix Cloud Cost Before It's Too Late

What The Tech?

What The Tech?
From Painful to Unsustainable: How Frugal AI Helps Developers Fix Cloud Cost Before It's Too Late
Feb 11, 2026 Season 2 Episode 97
Boast AI

In the latest episode of What the Tech from Boast, we sat down with Mike Weider, Co-Founder and CEO of Frugal AI, the world's first AI-native application cost engineering platform. Frugal empowers developers to reduce application costs by automatically fixing inefficient code patterns that run up cloud spend—bridging the friction between finance and engineering teams while helping deliver more agile products. 

We first connected with Mike at SaaS North in Ottawa (where Boast had just celebrated the launch of Budget 2025 and enhanced SR&ED funding). Mike pitched Frugal at the TechTO Rocket Stage, and his perspective immediately stood out: this wasn't just another dev tool—it was a solution to a problem that's gone from painful to unsustainable. 

Mike brings serious credentials to this mission. He's served as Founder and CEO at three previous venture-backed startups that all went on to major acquisitions. He's an independent board member at numerous businesses and nonprofits (including Invest Ottawa), and an active seed investor. His pattern-recognition across multiple successful exits gives him a unique lens on what problems are worth solving. 

Boast accelerates the success of innovative businesses globally with software that integrates financial, payroll, and engineering data into a single platform of R&D intelligence.

Visit Boast.ai, sign up for our Blog newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn for weekly #InnovatorsLive sessions and the latest news to fuel your growth.

Intro and Outro music provided by Dennis Ma whose mixes you can find on Soundcloud at DJ DennyDex.

Episode Artwork From Painful to Unsustainable: How Frugal AI Helps Developers Fix Cloud Cost Before It's Too Late 24:34 Episode Artwork Beyond the Bright Shiny Objects: How Ollon Helps Teams Build Better 16:19 Episode Artwork Turning Moments Into Memories with Sophie Jiang of MoVA Realities 24:54 Episode Artwork Building Without the Boys Club: How Athena Collective is Democratizing Entrepreneurial Success for Women 28:05 Episode Artwork Turning Conversations Into Action: How Momentum.io Makes Conversational Data Your Competitive Moat 23:40 Episode Artwork Beyond the CRM: How Bloks is Building the Ultimate Relationship Management Tool 23:44 Episode Artwork Quebec's AI Revolution: Inside the CDAE-IA Transformation and Boast's Purpose-Built Solution 22:51 Episode Artwork How EnviroApps is Digitizing Hazmat Transportation Safety 31:34 Episode Artwork From Police Officer to Civic Tech Pioneer: How CocoFlow is Transforming How Communities Connect 16:43 Episode Artwork Bringing Sustainable Manufacturing Home: How CTK Bio is Reshoring Production and Scaling Plant-Based Materials 24:51 Episode Artwork From Finance Leader to Founder: How Profitual is Democratizing Financial Intelligence for Startups 28:45 Episode Artwork Navigating AI Innovations and Investment Strategies with Tony Kim 34:47 Episode Artwork Transforming a Legacy Industry with Modular Solutions 31:20 Episode Artwork "Exploring the Future of Tech" with Steven Vi of VizworX Inc. 23:53 Episode Artwork "Your Technical Partner Is the Most Important Thing" with Tyler Kelloway of CoLab 25:19 Episode Artwork "Let's Build Some Cool Stuff" with Ahmed Hadjeres of ProductShop 27:10 Episode Artwork "The Right Message at the Right Time" with Aly Khan Musani of Symend 27:01 Episode Artwork Making FP&A Easier with John Hunt of General Ledger Partners 17:05 Episode Artwork Driving "Infrastructure Independent" Innovation with Leigh Christie of MistyWest 34:00 Episode Artwork Unlock Real-Time SaaS Insights with David Brennan of Arkeo 20:17 Episode Artwork Creating Personalized Connections with Rustam Sengupta of Tuktu Care 12:13 Episode Artwork Build For Your Market with Sydney Wong 18:16 Episode Artwork Maximizing the Value of Content with Ve Sharma of Adauris 21:16 Episode Artwork Leveling Up with Dennis Chow of Lodestone 21:15 Episode Artwork Navigating Growth in Life Sciences with Kumar Erramilli of Acto 24:21