I've quoted more of these projects this year than I've won, and I'll admit it has been deflating. It would be easier for me to take if they had been bad ideas, but they weren't. They were problems worth solving. Someone inside a company had found a real problem, built something with an AI tool that actually worked, and then came to us for help getting it ready for real use. Then it stopped, and the reason is some version of "that's not in our budget." I should say up front that taking AI pilots live is work my agency now sells, so I have a stake in this and you should read the rest with that in mind. But I don't think I'm the one who feels this the most. I think it's the builders, the people on staff in sales or marketing or operations who used the tools their company gave them to make something useful, watched it work, and then watched it go nowhere. If that's you, the easy conclusion is that your idea wasn't good enough. I've come to think that's usually the wrong conclusion, and I want to explain why, starting with something that happened to me long before any of this was called AI. 𝐈'𝐯𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 In 2002 I was a systems administrator at Philips, working out of the Chicago office while the rest of the IT department sat in Seattle. One of my first assignments was to evaluate new copiers, and the money for those copiers was coming out of the operations budget. While I was working on that, I learned that the order management team was photocopying hundred-page order packets every time a deal closed and shipping them overnight to the reps in the field, which was costing them a lot of time and a lot of money. I've written before about how I came across that problem, so here I'll stick to what happened after I had a fix for it. The new copiers could scan to PDF, and the order data was already being exported every night into an Access database, so the pieces of a fix were sitting right there. I took the idea to IT and asked for help, and they wouldn't put a team behind it. Looking back, I can see how that happened. The money for the copiers belonged to operations, the problem belonged to sales and order fulfillment, and the skills to fix it belonged to IT, and there was nothing connecting the three.

Hey everyone!! Jake and I are rebuilding Clief Notes around Edubaware, Eduba's own platform. We're aiming to launch it between 10 December and 1 January, and if that date moves, you'll hear it here first. Clief Notes stays free to join, and always will. Here's everything else that changes, starting with the part that has a deadline. ⏰ Lock in today's prices by Sunday 15 November ⏰ Right now Premium is $11 a month and VIP is $97. Join by 11:59 pm EST on Sunday 15 November and you keep that rate for as long as you stay subscribed. After that, new members pay $14.95 for Premium and $499 for VIP . If you already pay $11 or $97, your rate doesn't change. 💰 $1,000 of Edubaware credit 💰 Every Premium member on Clief Notes through 9 December gets $1,000 of Edubaware credit at launch. Every VIP gets $5,000. It's paid in full on day one, and members on the $11 rate and lifetime VIPs get it too. Join Premium by Sunday and that's $1,000 of credit for an $11 month. Anyone who joins after 9 December doesn't get it. Premium and VIP also get founders pricing on Edubaware: 50% off your first year and 25% off your second, for as long as you stay subscribed. VIPs get 50% off for both years. 🚀 Early access, over the next few weeks 🚀 Premium and VIP members get into Edubaware before launch. We'll be onboarding people over the next few weeks, not all at once, so David and Kay can set each of you up and check in once you're in. If your invite arrives later than a friend's, that's why. Every Premium and VIP member gets one. Every Tuesday, David or Kay posts an Edubaware update here. ⭐ What Premium gets ⭐ Everything new lands in Premium first: - A build tutorial from Jake every month, one full build from start to finish - Ask Jake: post your question in the monthly thread and Jake answers the most-liked ones on video. The first thread opens Monday 16 November. - Master sessions, run live here by the Masters of ICM - The Masters' drop: a new template, workflow or walkthrough from every Master, every

In Session 4, I learned that the personal brand vs. company brand question isn't either/or. A member asked whether to build his own brand or stay and build inside his company, and Jake said to try to do both, with one catch: where you build it. "Are you building it on their laptops? Are you building it on their internet?" He's seen companies say "you're getting a million views a month, it's ours." This matters because I'm in that exact spot. I lead AI work inside a home builder, and I'm building my own AI brand on the side. I like his answer because the company work feeds the brand (real projects, real proof), and the brand protects me. As Jake put it, "I think it's risky working for one person." Going forward, I'm thinking about keeping a clean line: brand work on my own laptop and accounts, approval up front on what I can share from the day job, and then showing the work... without waiting for it to be perfect.

In my strategy consulting, I often tell people if they really want to grow and scale, find a way to become a platform It can be one of the secrets to massive scale… if that’s what you’re wanting for your business “A lot of little lights can become a sun” Become a platform “Build a virtuous cycle where everyone wins, and you’ll come out the biggest winner of all”. – Reid Hoffman. Here’s where and how I think the next trillion dollar company in SAAS and Services will come from… Find the areas of your business you can open up and let other companies build with you. The App Store Google Play Salesforce Shopify ClickFunnels Chicken soup for the soul Instagram Airbnb Facebook All of these companies scaled using this model. So can you. And so will the trillion dollar company. Check this out and buckle your seatbelts..... Chicken soup for the soul was created by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen in 1993. (The idea was turned down by 144 publishers) They created 250 titles, sold 110 million copies, and grossed OVER $2 Billion dollars. And they did it all without writing a single word. Every story in every book was sent in sent in by readers. $2 Billion in sales from books they did not even write. Read that again and let it sink in a little. The winning SAAS and Services platform will find a way to let everyone win a little bit by being part of the platform, and in doing so everyone will win… The platform will just win a little bit (ok a lot) more than everybody else. At least that’s how I think it’ll happen. Anybody want to build it with me?

This was meant to be a 2-minute AI film for Higgsfield's weekly challenge, "The Whole Scene". I missed the deadline. So I cut the best 45 seconds and made a full breakdown of everything: the workflow, what worked, what broke, and 5 takeaways. Watch: https://youtu.be/nZqIrF_9_m8 The short version of what I learned: 1. Test the riskiest thing first. I made 27 clips before I tested one join. 2. Plan shots on a line. AI can join two shots when the camera moves in one straight line (4 of 4 held). Around the room it cuts (0 of 5). 3. Pictures first, upscale last. 4. Check frames, not feelings. 5. A missed deadline isn't a wasted film. Re-cut it. About 16 hours of work over 2 days. And absolutely all pains, no gain🤣