1. Using AI to Solve Business Bottlenecks [0]

thumbnail To build a successful business with AI, it is crucial to identify and use AI to solve the biggest problem, or bottleneck, in the business process.

1.1. Shifting from AI as a Toy to AI as a Tool [0]

  1. Using AI like a toy involves creating new websites, apps, or dashboards for fun, which does not contribute to real work or problem-solving [4].
  2. Rich people use AI for real work, such as selling, delivering, and running their business 24/7, focusing on tasks that generate money [10].
  3. To effectively use AI, one must identify a real target or problem to solve, which is often the biggest bottleneck in the business [18].
    1. The goal is to point AI towards areas that offer the most leverage, such as reducing waste through better reporting or multiplying output by unblocking a process that increases revenue [23].
    2. Before upgrading AI accounts, it is essential to first identify the bottleneck and then find the appropriate AI solution [29].
  4. For example, the founder of YourAtlas, Omar, experienced a bottleneck with an overwhelming number of calls and bookings after being featured in a video [30].
    1. Instead of buying many AI tools, he used his own tool to solve the specific bottleneck of managing incoming leads [32].

1.2. Identifying Bottlenecks in the Business Chain [34]

  1. Every business operates on a chain with five stages: attention, leads, sales, delivery, and retention [34].
  2. To find a bottleneck, one should examine each stage and ask if a tenfold increase in that stage would boost revenue or create another bottleneck [42].
    1. Most businesses commonly face bottlenecks in attention or leads, meaning they do not have enough people knowing about them or providing contact information [45].
    2. A lack of leads leads to insufficient sales, cash, and investment in the business, often due to opportunities and leads falling through the cracks [48].
  3. If leads are the biggest bottleneck, AI can generate revenue by focusing on leads and sales, which is where money enters every business [53].
    1. AI is effective in sales because it does not experience rejection or burnout, unlike humans, allowing it to execute sales systems with ten times the output [58].
    2. AI can generate leads, automate follow-ups, and perform other tasks, leaving humans to focus on closing deals [63].
    3. Tools like Get Revieo and Your Atlas automate lead scoring, qualification, and call booking, and when combined with Claude Manness, they create a complete sales engine [65].
  4. AI can assist in various levels of the sales process:
    1. Prospecting: AI builds lead lists by scraping social media to find new people based on specific criteria, using tools like Manness, Claude Code, or Apex [68].
    2. Qualifying: AI filters out unsuitable prospects by analyzing lead lists, enriching data, and identifying signals that indicate a perfect fit for a product [72].
      1. Tools like Your Atlas can call and qualify leads, while Revieo handles this in social DMs, asking three essential questions to ensure prospects meet specific criteria [76].
    3. Pitching: AI writes highly personalized messages to buyers by analyzing past communications, current situations, and social media activity to tailor messages to their industry and buying stage [79].
    4. Follow-up: AI can manage entire follow-up sequences, automatically sending personalized messages and email triggers if someone does not respond [83].
    5. Upsells: AI analyzes customer bases to identify those nearing usage limits or renewals, then crafts and sends messages to encourage further purchases, as it is seven times easier to sell to existing customers [86].

2. Automating Business Delivery and Self-Replacement with AI [91]

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AI can automate business delivery, allowing businesses to scale beyond human capacity, and individuals can use AI to replace their own tasks, ensuring future relevance.

2.1. Leveraging AI for Business Delivery [91]

  1. After AI helps sell, it can also handle the delivery of services or products, which is often where businesses struggle due to human capacity limits [91].
    1. AI does not have capacity problems; it can work continuously without sleeping, getting upset, or talking back [95].
    2. AI can perform at least 80% of typical work tasks, even those considered creative or requiring deep domain experience [100].
  2. An example is the Young Guns internship program, which faced a bottleneck in onboarding new interns [106].
    1. AI created a first draft of a "zero to hero in 14 days" training program, which was then refined and implemented [110].
    2. This allowed interns to quickly become productive, acting like seasoned professionals despite their lack of experience, because they were trained to use AI by default [113].
  3. The 10-80-10 rule describes how humans and AI can collaborate on tasks:
    1. The first 10% is ideation, where a person discusses ideas and concepts with AI to define the project's goals [117].
    2. The middle 80% is execution, where AI carries out the plan, such as onboarding customers, providing support, or creating dashboards and automations [123].
      1. A professional move is to have AI check its own work to ensure it is moving in the right direction based on the initial 10% definition [126].
    3. The final 10% is integration, where a person adds their human touch by reviewing the work, making personal calls, providing strategic advice, and ensuring the final product meets their standards [128].
  4. Using AI for the 80% execution phase is like having a person help with the work, but without the cost or waiting time, allowing individuals to wake up to completed tasks [134].

2.2. Replacing Yourself with AI [139]

  1. The final and most expensive bottleneck in a business is the individual owner, and it is crucial to replace oneself with AI before AI replaces the individual's job [141].
    1. People get rich by doing less, delegating tasks to AI, and using the freed-up time to focus on unique tasks only they can do [148].
    2. An AI hackathon where employees built tools to replace their own work resulted in a tenfold increase in productivity, following the 10-80-10 rule [151].
    3. Scaling a business means becoming less necessary over time, and while this may initially cause guilt, it allows for more breathing room as AI supports the work [154].
  2. The Camcorder method is a simple process to hand over tasks to AI:
    1. Record the task: Record yourself performing the task, ideally on a Zoom session, sharing your screen and talking through the process [159].
    2. Transcribe the recording: Ensure the recording is transcribed, which most tools do automatically, or AI can do it [165].
    3. Feed to AI: Provide the transcription and recording to AI, giving it the full context to understand and execute the task [167].
    4. Iterate and refine: Continuously refine the AI's performance until it can complete 80% of the task, even complicated steps, by feeding it video, images, and text [169].
      1. It is recommended to repeat this process at least three times for each task to help AI learn the patterns [171].
  3. This method should be applied to every business task, including finance, follow-ups, and hiring, to solve bottlenecks and increase revenue [172].
  4. The opportunity to implement AI is limited, with an estimated 18-month window, meaning those who act first will gain a significant advantage [175].
    1. The most important skill is to unlearn old beliefs and relearn how to activate AI, even if it means trying and fixing potential issues rather than not trying at all [180].
    2. For example, a founder automated his entire sales process for $700 subscriptions using AI, which eventually performed better than his human team, allowing him to redeploy those employees [187].
    3. Individuals must either embrace AI to automate their work or risk having competitors use AI to take their customers [190].