ISSUE #40

Welcome to the Forward Obsessed Founder, my newsletter with insights, awesome tools, and real-world advice to grow your business and career.

GO FORWARD THOUGHT OF THE WEEK ➡️

AI Isn’t a Magic Bullet 🤖 So Stop Trying to Use It to Kill the One Thing That Is

This week, I’m thinking about people and I’m thinking about AI — in that order.

First, here’s a heartwarming (and instructive) anecdote about my son.

Like many other toddlers, he’s obsessed with truck videos.

And like many other parents, my wife and I wanted to limit his screen time.

So I took one of the trucks I saw him watching and made a coloring book with AI.

I printed it.

Then we colored together.

This is the point of today’s Go Forward Thought: To help you see what you need to deliver in life and work. AI can help you, but it can't replace you.

The Human Touch

People think they need AI.

What they really want is more human in their customer experiences.

Here's the rub:

• With AI, personalization seems limitless. Any business can craft experiences like never before.
• With AI, interactions lack the warmth of human connection.
• With AI, we advance efficiently but risk creating colder, less empathetic experiences.

When you take the human touch out of the picture, something important gets lost in translation.

Take, for example, a recent ​MIT study​ on generative AI that measured how humans regard AI-generated marketing content vs. content created by humans. The test groups ranged from those who knew nothing about how the content was created to those who knew exactly who wrote what (AI or human).

The researchers found two key insights:

• When people had no information about the marketing or campaign copy source, they preferred the results generated by AI.
• When they knew the source of the work, they favored the human-created content.

In other words, AI is getting great at writing concise, easy-to-digest content. But the human element is just as essential.

MIT researcher and co-author of the study, Yunhao Zhang, agrees:

So, besides the impressive feat of integrating GenAI, which rings news bells (undeniably cool, isn't it?), don't believe that technology alone makes your business invincible.

AI is influential. It optimizes operations and can drastically enhance your UX, but it isn't a magic bullet.

Conversion happens when customers genuinely feel valued and understood...

… and then you deliver on that promise.

That's where lasting success lies in the post-AI era.

Sounds challenging? It is.

But beware of the AI hype train. 🚂

Human-centered experiences beat AI every time.

Always here to help 🙌
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​Pete Sena​

Podcast 🎙️: Cheers to the Largest Exit by a Female-Founded Spirit Company

For a long time, I’ve been a big fan of Kat Hantas, founder of the infused tequila brand 21Seeds. She discovered an untapped market niche — women who love tequila — and created a product that spoke specifically to women’s tastes.

Much like Thomas Edison, who I wrote about in a recent article about “MVE” (Minimum Valuable Experience), Kat didn’t invent the product she’s known for — she perfected it. And her hard work paid off to the tune of a $160M exit after just three years in the business.

With Cinco de Mayo this weekend, I highly recommend you pour yourself a Spicy Mama-rita and enjoy my interview with Kat.

Listen: ​Founding 21Seeds Tequila With Kat Hantas​

CREATIVE CAFFEINE ☕️🍵

This week’s Creative Caffeine is dedicated to those of us who are grappling with Zoom burnout (🙋‍♂️). These two practices are helping me feel more energetic and inspired. Walking is scientifically proven to improve health in general, and specifically, it can help boost your problem-solving abilities and creativity.

Don’t just take my word for it: Tchaikovsky, Einstein, Steve Jobs, and countless other brilliant people have made walking a daily practice.

​Walking Meetings​

Think about your online meetings and ask yourself, Do I really have to be sitting at my desk, staring at a screen? Or can I do this on the go? It’s easier than you think to plan to walk and talk.

​Walking Meditation​

Give yourself a break and indulge in a walking meditation. It’s a great way to relax your mind without having to sit still. All you do is focus on the action of walking — it’s as simple as putting one foot in front of the other.

MY OBSESSION OF THE WEEK 🖤:

Finding and Perfecting Growth Loops

Remember mixtapes? I loved making them when I was a kid. You’d stare at the tape until it was full on one side, then flip it over. For my analytical mind, the problem was it didn’t automatically loop.

Guess what? You can easily fall into a trap at work that makes you think your work is done. It’s never done. To build your business, you have to continuously focus on the three main things that create growth loops:

• Differentiation
• Distribution
• Disintermediation (removing the middle person)

Bottom line: Creating infinite loops that reduce/remove/add friction (depending on what you’re doing) is the linchpin in continuously improving your brand experience.
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If you’re like me and obsessed with growth loops, hit reply. I’d love to loop you in on some things I’m developing to support this process.

Thanks so much for reading this edition of The Forward Obsessed Founder — you can also check out this issue on the web [Link].
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