I’m currently in the middle of hosting a two-day Return to Real Mastermind in Boston….
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As I write this in my hotel room this evening, we’re currently at the halfway mark of the event.
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Before wrapping today’s session in the room….
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Everyone here at the Mastermind was dying to know “What was I going to write about tonight for this week’s newsletter??”
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I decided to pick three observations from today’s session that I think are hyper-relevant for all of us to be thinking about…
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Along with three questions for you to reflect on how these observations might be showing up in your business…
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So without further ado, let’s ado this…
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(Sorry, I couldn’t resist…)
Observation #1: The Need for Radical Transformation
One of the businesses in the room is facing a situation where a previously very successful $500 course is no longer selling.
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The business is in a healthcare-adjacent space and has used an assessment-driven model to bring customers into this program…
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This ‘sell a course via a funnel’ is an “old economy” digital business model that worked incredibly well for 15 years from c. 2008-2022-ish.
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AI has completely disrupted that.
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When you have something that’s worked so well for so long, it can be hard to let go of that model when it no longer works the way it once did…
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And coming into the mastermind, the entrepreneur’s instinct was to shift from selling a $500 course to a $47/month membership.
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I had to shift into what I call brutal bastard in the pursuit of truth and profit mode.
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Because the move from a $500 thing to a $47 a month thing selling basically the same thing?
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Is an attempt to cling onto an outdated “old economy” digital business paradigm that no longer works.
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The equivalent of saying:
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“What if I make my horse and buggy a little bit lighter, so it goes a little bit faster so the horse doesn’t have to work as hard.”
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And meanwhile, the cars on the road are just passing you by.
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What this business actually needs is a radical shift.
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And in this particular case, I believe that radical shift could be refocusing attention toward a completely different type of payer.
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Let me explain:
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This business is built upon a proprietary assessment, and with over 70,000 respondents, is now sitting on years of clinical data. The kind of raw, niche data that frontier AI companies just happen to be spending millions of dollars to acquire right now.
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Trying to sell a $47/membership in this space is akin to jumping over $100 bills in the middle of the street to chase after nickels in the sewer drain.
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What if, instead of selling directly to the consumers struggling to make ends meet, we sold to the hospital network that wants to put this assessment into every pediatrician’s office?
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What if we sold to one of the many well-funded AI companies in the health space that would spend millions to have access to this data to better serve that community?
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As I write in Return to Real, sometimes you need to break what you’ve built in order to build something better.
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And I get it. I know that’s not easy. And I know that can be very, very scary. But it may be what’s required.
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The question for you is this:
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Where might you need to consider radical transformation in your business?
Observation #2: The Gold Mine You're Sitting On
Assessment data from that quiz funnel that you built years ago isn’t the only goldmine you might be sitting on right now…
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In a completely different situation…
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Another entrepreneur in the room has personally reviewed and vetted 700+ AI apps (so far this year) as gatekeeper for one of the most preeminent app marketplaces that exists in the world.
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(A brand you are very likely familiar with…)
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Because of that, he’s had an incredibly unique vantage point to see what separates successful AI apps from unsuccessful ones.
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He sees what gets approved and what gets rejected from the platform.
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(And he also sees the sales data among the approved products, so he knows what’s actually working…)
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He came in struggling to figure out what differentiates him and what his category of one might be in a very crowded market: Vibe-coded AI app development.
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And then something happened.
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He quietly offered to reveal what he considers to be the Top 3 AI apps (out of the 700+ that he’s reviewed so far this year) to the group.
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These are little-known niche tools that most people don’t even know exist but which he believes to be complete game-changers…
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As soon as these words exited his mouth, every single person in the room sat upright, scrambled to get their pen and paper in hand – and waited with bated breath to hear what he considers these Top 3 apps to be…
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(Sorry, I’m sworn to secrecy.)
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But here’s the thing:
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He had no idea how valuable his perspective is and how this perspective uniquely positions him in his market as a true category of one.
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He needed a group of people in a room to point out what he was blind to, but which was blindingly obvious to all of us.
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And his story is not unique.
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We are all sitting on some sort of goldmine right now that we tend to discount, discredit, or completely overlook.
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The question for you: What gold mine might you be sitting on right now that you have been completely undervaluing?
Observation #3: The Ultimate AI Hedge?
This is the one I want to leave you with.
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One of the dads in this group has a 25 year-old daughter who is at the frontier of AI work today.
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She is in some of the most cutting-edge rooms of AI practitioners, with early beta access to AI technology that few have seen.
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(Let’s just say she is doing very well financially…)
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But here’s the thing:
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Every dollar that she makes from AI, she’s investing 180 degrees away from AI.
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Boring businesses that will be least disrupted. Local service industry companies. Affordable rental properties. In fact, she’s about to close on the sale of a plumbing business later this month.
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She’s also investing personally in resources to grow food, be grid independent, and is immersing herself in community.
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She’s not a prepper. She’s not a conspiracy theorist. She’s a 25-year-old woman with an MBA focused in AI.
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Her reframe (which I personally love) is as follows:
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When 40% of knowledge worker jobs are eliminated (and they will be eliminated), don’t focus on the question: “Where does that leave us?” Instead, focus on the question: “What does this make possible?”
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And I believe this reframe makes all the difference in the world.
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In fact, in many ways, this is 100% consistent with the Return to Real thesis, but seen through the eyes of a 25-year-old woman who works at the frontier of AI.
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The fact that this perspective is showing up with someone who is at the cutting-edge of AI professionally, and yet is hedging by pouring all her AI-generated income 180 degrees away from AI, is further evidence that the Return to Real movement is gathering momentum in far-reaching corners of the world right now.
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In other words…
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Yes, leverage AI for everything that it offers and everything that it can deliver for your work and for your business.
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But at the same time, recognize that every minute of time and every dollar of money that you invest into AI is simply accelerating the ultimate replacement of much of the knowledge work that you are doing today in your business.
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And when you approach this from a place not of fear, pessimism, or doomsday scenario planning, but rather from the frame of “what does this make possible,” a whole world of opportunity opens up….
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For those of us who are entrepreneurs…
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For those of us who are creators, builders, and problem solvers….
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Like every form of technology that has ever been introduced…
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AI is bringing with it a whole new set of problems and challenges waiting to be solved…
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And you are sitting on a goldmine of perspective, experience, and expertise…
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But succeeding in this new era will likely require radical transformation of your work and business if you are to be on the winning side of what’s coming…
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How fast it’s coming is anyone’s guess…
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But I can tell you this:
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I’ve never been more excited for the future.
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And I’ve never been more optimistic, being in the room that I’ve been in today, for those of us who are ready to meet the challenges and the opportunities on the horizon.
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Okay, that’s all I’ve got for tonight.
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I need to get to bed in preparation for a BIG day tomorrow…
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Have a great rest of your weekend…
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Remember to hug the ones you love.
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And until next week,
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Ryan :-)
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P.S. Based on demand for the limited spots in this mastermind event being oversubscribed, I’m going to host another event like this in a few months…
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If you’d like to get onto the priority notification waitlist as soon as details are released, you can add your name to that list here :-)
