Treat everyone like an old friend

I'm back on my own this week, after having Vivek on last week. I had loads of lovely feedback from people about that episode.

This week I'm going to cover:

• Building with tech
• The need for hungry people (it doesn't sound quite as it is!)
• How to make better decisions in a business

But first, what have I been up to? This week has been absolutely nuts.

This week

• Cornwall. Returning from a day off in Cornwall, and a relatively quiet weekend with the family.
• A funeral. On Monday I went to a funeral, supporting my business partner Ed Gossage and saying farewell to someone very close to him.
• Pippa Labs. An all-morning workshop with Pippa Labs, where I'm chair of the board, on the priorities for moving the business forward.
• The pitch. Thursday's pitch went really well. You never know the outcome of these things, but the best bit is when you feel you've done the best you possibly could, which we definitely did.
• A reply from Richard Branson. I posted on LinkedIn about wanting to thank Richard Branson for a letter he sent me, and in the end his account replied to say it was a nice story. I know it's probably someone managing his accounts, but I'll take it!

Anyone can build anything

Nowadays I think anyone can build anything with AI, if they can see what they're trying to build and explain it. That's quite a skill.

This week I built a calorie tracker. Most apps have a monthly subscription, so I thought, what the heck, why pay for another one? It's an artifact in Claude. I describe what I've eaten or take a photo, and it breaks it down into calories, protein, fibre and alcohol, which I've had far too many units of recently! The tokens are well within my plan limits, so it's not costing me anything extra. I'm probably going to publish it on GitHub for free.

I also shared HMRC's £2.4 billion contract award to Salesforce, for a CRM to power the tax system over the next 10 to 15 years. My original post is here.

DealCraft.ai has taken many man hours and hundreds of millions of tokens to get something really market ready. But it certainly hasn't cost £2.4 billion. Admittedly, this is a much bigger system. But give me a billion, probably give me half a billion, and I'm confident I could hire the workforce, deploy the tokens and build a system that does exactly what it needs to do, and is future-proofed.

And when there are only two bidders, both huge US-headquartered businesses, I'm not sure that's creating the right kind of innovation this country needs.

Off the back of my post, someone shared OccupySaaS: developers kicked out of SaaS companies because of AI, now open sourcing their own CRMs. It's a great idea, check it out.

You do need the expertise to get production-level quality, don't get me wrong. But people need to sit back and look at what they build slightly differently now.

Go where the hungry people are

It's a bit of an odd title. But if you're going to open a burger store, you should only do it if there are going to be hungry people.

Before you build anything, work out whether the hungry people are out there for what you're offering. People with a problem that creates pain, or in particular loss. That's what motivates people to take action and, really importantly, to pay for it.

It all too often gets overlooked. I've certainly been guilty of it myself in the past.

We did a large piece of customer research for a client, and what people cared about most was the ongoing service through digital. The client wanted new customers, so they improved the new purchase journey first. But they weren't retaining the customers they attracted, and that creates a much bigger problem. Now we're looking much more at service, because what people asked for is what creates the most success.

Make a decision and get on with it

A lot of people say to me, we've got so many ideas, we just don't know where to start.

I think that's the most important challenge businesses have now. AI is churning out a lot of ideas and a lot of confident advice, but it's based on trends, and a lot of the time it's not going to be right for your company.

My advice is always to make a decision and get on with it. People moving faster, even if they get some of it wrong, are doing better than people who aren't.

To decide, align what your customers want with the direction of your business, and always go with the customer's view above what you think. I try not to make these episodes about 7DOTS, but we call it Waymaking. Get all the ideas on the table, group them, then prioritise by value to the customer and how complex they are to implement. You end up with a really clear roadmap.

I love doing this in a room with people, filling whiteboards. That step back from AI can make a massive difference.

The Friday Takeaway: Treat everyone like an old friend

Treat everyone you meet like they're an old friend. It's actually a quote from George Clooney that I've stolen!

Before Thursday's pitch, the team and I said we'd greet everyone like an old friend, and it's incredible the difference it makes. You have an amazing conversation and get to see the real person.

At an event last night, a new friend I had just met, called James, said getting to know people helps you be a better person, because you can take the good bits. If you treat new people like old friends, you're probably going to get there much quicker.

Before you go

A quick update on Mark Kennedy, who's been looking for work for 15 months. Amazing people have been sharing job opportunities and introductions. He hasn't got a job yet, so please do keep them coming.

My closing question... what decision have you been trying to make recently?

Until next week...