by Henrik Werdelin and Nicholas Thorne
For entrepreneurs, the rise of AI makes staying close to your customer more important and a lot easier.
The Premise
AI makes it easier to create things. Not necessarily good things. In fact, definitionally average things. But things nonetheless – stories, pictures, computer programs.
In business when creation gets easier, at least two other things happen too. First, the decibel level goes up: it becomes noisier. Getting a customer’s attention becomes more difficult because there’s more for them to consider.
Second, the state of play changes more quickly. Cycles are shorter. The desire to be new and to stand out (see above) means that the things we create – whether by hand or by prompt – tend to be different from what we can observe as current. Which creates change.
For entrepreneurs getting started then, AI makes it more important to pick a customer you can get close to… and then to stay close to them. Intimacy in your customer relationships can help you beat the noise and keep up with the pace of change.
Beating the noise and staying ahead
Good news: Almost by default, your customer relationships are likely to be intimate in the beginning. You have so few customers that you can’t help but treat them all with care. You make yourself available to them. You give them your phone number. You get on calls to talk them through things. You speak to them the way you speak to your friends. And so relatedly, your style will tend towards authenticity in the early days. This is a noise beating strategy.
When you are accessible and authentic in your communications – using regular language to express your opinions and values – you will certainly scare some people off. Values have a cost. But inasmuch as the character of the language that AI creates will ruthlessly regress to the mean, the issue at hand is not being kind-of-likable to lots of people. That’s the noise. It’s worth the cost of being disliked by some to demonstrate clear value alignment with others.
You will also come to trust this crew of people who like you for you. And if you trust them, chances are they’ll trust you back. Starting with giving you the benefit of the doubt. Your crew will try your new offering(s). They’ll see past your “minimalist” (read: unfinished) website. They'll stomach the marginal inconvenience.
Importantly they may also trust you with their feedback. They may tell you when things suck. They may communicate that they’re disappointed rather than dismiss you altogether and move on. They may become invested in your success.
As a result you will have the chance to learn from them and to begin to anticipate their needs. You will be able to inform the investments you’re making in new offerings with earned insights. This is how you’ll keep up with the pace of change. Not by chasing the latest trend, but by working with different information than whatever’s available to everyone else.
But problem: maintaining intimacy in your customer relationships as you scale is harder than forming it to begin with. What works with a few early customers historically does not work as you expand. If everyone has your phone number, you will soon regret it. So you might rightly ask if this whole intimacy thing works at all beyond the getting started phase of a business?
Good news, part two: AI makes it more possible to operate with intimacy at scale. It can help you stay close to your customers. And specifically, it enables entrepreneurs to do three things (at least) that weren’t previously possible.
- Stay in the Customer Service Seat longer
- Be the First Draft Maker longer
- Neighbor-ize your services always