In partnership with
TL;DR: We are not ending humanity as you know it, I’m launching a new series to teach you the basics of building a consultancy in honor of my new offering for early stage founders I announced last week, and I’d like to see you at dbt Summit in Vegas if you’re attending!
Check out the details on each of those below and reply to this email if you’d like to learn more about any of them!
Sometimes, I wonder if anyone in the AI world ever talks to an average person.
Based on what you hear from leading AI labs on an almost daily basis, you’d think that any of us in this industry are about like hours away from ENDING HUMANITY AS WE KNOW IT.
And yet, for most of us, the vibe when we talk to our clients about AI is more like this:
Really, this is me most of the time 😉
The obvious reason for that is that most of us are living outside of Silicon Valley and so we don’t get stuck in the weirdly self-reinforcing weirdness that happens in that world, but I think it’s also that, unlike many of them, we have to face the realities of implementing AI in the real world, and the real world is messy.
As a consultant, one of the things you learn very early on is that as messy as you think a project will be, it will probably end up being 10x messier, and AI is no different on that front.
People are complicated, and while many of us work in the technology world, the second a person touches our work is the moment things go haywire, which means we have to learn to adapt so that we can deliver the outcomes our clients expect us to.
That’s not to say that there isn’t real potential for AI to cause some real shitty outcomes for humanity overall. It’s pretty clear at this point that anyone not imagining that needs to think a little more creatively.
But I think it’s critical that as we Data & AI consultancy founders continue to build our businesses, we keep our feet on the ground rather than joining the doomers.
We all know, see, and react to the realities of what AI looks like every day, in organizations of all shapes and sizes, so it’s our responsibility to both be good stewards to the people we serve by helping them achieve non-humanity-ending outcomes, but also to be serious and reasonable about what the process of getting there is going to look like.
What do you wish you knew about the early days of building a consultancy?
In case you live under a rock, last week I launched a new offering for founders in the very early stages of building their Data & AI consultancy, and I was floored by the incredible response to it.
So much so that, in addition to that offering, I’ve decided to launch a small series to talk about many of the topics I cover in my work, so all of you can use as a reference in your own companies!
But because this series is not about what keeps me up at night, I need your help!
I generally have an idea of what topics I’d like to cover (positioning, building offerings, pricing, etc.), but I want to know what you want to know about as well.
What do you wish you knew in the first few months of running your Data & AI consultancy? What obstacles ate up your time and money? Is there any foundational part of running your shop that you wish you had a cheat code for? Maybe something you’ve never quite figured out and want an honest opinion on?
I want to hear it, and no topic is too boring!
Similar to my recent series where I talked about the reasons Big 4 consultancies really succeed, this will be published both on LinkedIn and on here every week.
So if you have any suggestions, reply to this email or let me know in the comments of my LinkedIn post announcing this series here.
Brick by Brick LIVE: How do you think about hiring if your consulting succeeds too fast?
Hunter Muse built a Data & AI consultancy that succeeded so fast it sent him into full-on panic mode. Sounds weird, right?!
As a first-time founder, in the early days of Midwest Data, he handled everything: sales, delivery, marketing, content, all with the grace and skill of a founder with decades more experience in consulting.
As his shop took off, it became obvious that the habit would spiral him into constant 80-hour weeks.
The only logical fix was hiring, but that opened a Pandora’s box of problems: who to even hire first, how to change his company’s pricing models, how to keep up quality and how to maintain control over his creation.
When we started working together, there seemed to be no way out.
And this past Thursday, he joined me for a very special LIVE episode of Brick by Brick to tell you all about how I helped him find one, all while we build a super cool LEGO spider together on camera!
Check it out below, and let me know what you think! I’ll be sharing an edited version of our livestream in the upcoming weeks as well!
P.S. if you’re also hitting the same point Hunter hit and you’re stuck navigating the moment when it’s time to finally hire for the first time, let’s chat.
Are you going to dbt Summit this week? Let’s Meet!
Hi friend, are you attending dbt Summit this week in Vegas?
If you are, and you’ve wanted to meet me in person after reading about me and my work for so long, you’re in luck!
I’ll be there all week, so let me know if you’ll be there too (especially if we’ve been connected for a while but never met IRL), I’d love to say hi to you or to grab a drink together!
As you may remember, I have an ongoing goal this year to hit up 12 conferences in 12 months - and this’ll now be my 9th, so I’m super excited to meet many of you there.
Much more to come about my experience attending next week, so stay tuned 👀👀👀
The Meme Team: Turtle Power!
I’m proud to announce that, after thousands of conversations on the matter, I can now confidently determine what type of Data & AI consultant you are based on your favorite ninja turtle:
It’s all based on science.
But in order to protect the very complex methodology behind it, I must keep the results secret.
So I want you to reply to this email with your guess: which one are you specifically, what does it all mean, and why should you care?
Guess you’ll never know 😜
But facts are facts. I don't make the rules.
(I suppose that makes me Master Splinter, which I'm not mad at)
Get in Touch!
If you’ve enjoyed the topics I talked about today and want to learn more about my work - let’s chat!
I specialize in helping founders of boutique Data & AI consultancies of all shapes and sizes overcome existential problems in their growth.
So if you’re finding yourself stuck as your shop scales, I’m here to help!
Want to learn about my new consulting 101 offering? Book a time to chat here!
Want to talk about a problem internal to your company? Sign up for a free therapy session with me!
Want help to expand, ideate, and scope Data & AI projects with your clients? Sign up for a demo workshop!
And if you want more details, check out my:
Website (where you’ll find a lot more details about my work and how it comes together)
LinkedIn Page (where I post every day with many of the same lessons shared here)
YouTube (for deep dives, tutorials, and fun stories from my work with clients)
Otherwise, thank you so much for reading, and see you next week!
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