I've been thinking about how AI fits into my business, and I keep landing in the same place: it's changing every piece of it.
Before I've even won a project, I can sketch a rough demo of the app or website and bring it to the sales call. During the build, agents handle the implementation while I run the design system, security, brand voice, and roadmap. I make sure the system works; I'm not placing every element myself. I'm dragging & dropping things around. I can if I have to, but that's not my job anymore. And once the site's live, my setup tracks issues and keeps clients in the loop. Every step of the process is different now.
My business mentor Barney Cohen defines a business as: "An organization that consistently sells things (products) to others (customers) for a profit".
And the "consistently" part is the systems. Your business is just the systems you've put in place. As you grow, these systems become more important because other people need to follow them. When it's just you, it's easy to under-focus on these systems, but they're still there.
The product hasn't changed. I still deliver an app or a website, and from the outside it looks about the same as it did two years ago. But if a business is its systems, and AI has me rethinking every system, then I'm not adopting a new tool. I'm rebuilding my business from the ground up.
That brings me to a conversation I had with Omari about Circle Day. This year's theme is "The Source of Design." He said something I've been thinking on ever since: most of us started out building websites for friends, coworkers, family. We charged something like free, or close to it. Low stakes, just learning the process. And maybe that's the next step with AI. Build a website for a friend, totally free, and learn the new process the same way we learned the old one.