Yesterday, we challenged Linear Thinking. Today, let’s talk about the most expensive mistake teams make when integrating AI: Expecting magic from messy data. 🪄🗑️ We’ve all heard "Garbage In, Garbage Out." But in the AI era, too many people have fallen for the "Garbage In, Magic Out" myth. They think a "better prompt" can fix a broken process. Spoiler: It can’t. ❌ When we built our outbound and content workflows, the "secret sauce" wasn't a magic prompt. It was the Data Layer. Before the AI wrote a single word, we focused on three things: 🧹 Cleaning: Removing the noise from raw lead data. 📚 Contextualizing: Adding "tribal knowledge" about the brand that AI doesn't know. 🗺️ Mapping: Creating a clear path from a data point (like a LinkedIn post) to a specific output. The AI is simply the translator between your structured data and a human-readable format. If your AI outputs feel "generic" or "robotic," stop editing the prompt. Start looking at the spreadsheet you’re feeding it. 📈 The Linear Approach (Weak): "Write a personalized email to this person." The Lateral Approach (Elite): "Here is a table of 10 verified facts about this person's achievements + 5 core values of our company. Combine them into a synthesis of mutual interest." The results? Not even in the same league. 🏆 Look at your current AI workflows. On a scale of 1-10, how "clean" is the data you are feeding your tools? 1 = "I just copy-paste and hope for the best." 🤞 10 = "The AI gets a perfectly structured briefing every time." 💎 Drop your score below! If you're between 1-5, tell us what’s making your data "messy" and let’s fix it together! 🛠️👇 Let me hear your thoughts!

We recorded a raw walkthrough of what we’re building. Yesterday we shared a first walkthrough of Lateral Teams. Not a polished demo, not a launch video, just a real overview of the system as it is today. We built this because we were tired of doing marketing “one post at a time” and wanted a workflow that actually scales for teams and operators, not just solo creators. The app is still in whitelist mode. This phase is about testing, breaking things, and getting honest feedback from people who actually build and ship. If you watch the video, I’d genuinely love to know What’s clear? What feels unnecessary? What would make this more useful in real life? We’re not pushing anything yet. Just sharing the process and learning from it. Happy to answer questions or hear thoughts 💪🔋

When we started building Lateral Teams, we didn’t begin with features or hype. We began by solving real problems for real teams. Here are two early use cases that shaped everything we’re building. The first one comes from Buss Down Chef. https://www.skool.com/buss-down-chef-9497/about They had a strong product and an engaged community, but their content didn’t reflect the energy of their brand. No street vibe, no culture, just clean product photos. Weekly shoots were expensive and unsustainable. Using AI as a system (not as a toy), they turned simple product assets into cinematic, on-brand visuals. Same product. Completely different perception. Engagement went up because the content finally matched the identity. The second case comes from outbound and content workflows. Most people think personalization is a prompt problem. It isn’t. It’s a data problem. By structuring data first and then layering AI on top, we helped teams generate messages and content that actually sound researched, relevant and human. Less noise, more real conversations. Different scenarios. Same lesson: AI works when there’s a system behind it. This community exists to build that layer: systems, workflows and thinking that make AI useful in the real world. Curious to hear from you: What are you trying to build right now and where do you feel AI still “doesn’t quite work” for you? 👇

We’ve been deep in build mode lately. Testing, refining, breaking things, fixing them again. And it got me thinking about something simple but important: What part of your workflow feels the most manual or annoying right now? Not the “big vision” stuff. The small, repetitive things you know should be easier… but aren’t (yet). Curious to hear where you’re feeling the friction, sometimes the best ideas start exactly there.