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When my company, Teamflect, was just a startup, every decision ran through me, and that was a good thing. 

We were small enough that I had context on almost everything: what a customer had asked for last quarter, why a feature was priced the way it was, what we had already tried on the website. A quick message to me was genuinely the fastest way for anyone to get an answer, so people sent them, and I answered fast. 

The company scaled and sadly, so did this habit. 

One morning, I opened my laptop to four questions waiting from four different parts of the business. Sales wanted to know how much pricing flexibility we had on an enterprise deal. Product wanted a call on whether a customer request should move the roadmap. Marketing wanted approval before publishing, and customer success wanted to know if we could make an exception for one account. 

None of them was a big decision. That is what made the problem so hard to see. 

I worked through them one by one and felt useful, because from where I sat, I had just helped four teams move faster before 10 a.m. 

Then I started paying attention to what had happened before I replied: nothing. 

Work that was 95% finished would sit untouched because the last 5% needed a yes from me. The people waiting had more than enough experience to make those calls themselves. They had learned that my approval was the safest final step, so they stopped taking it. 

Founders rarely get told the problem is them. So here is what I got wrong and what fixed it, all in hopes that fellow founders can avoid becoming bottlenecks themselves. 

4 signals that you have become the bottleneck 

The hard part about this problem is that none of the evidence looks like evidence. When you become a bottleneck for the team around you, it doesn’t necessarily show up as dysfunction or unfinished projects but more along the lines of constant deferrals and a lack of empowerment. These are the four signals worth watching for: 

• Work arrives finished except for the last step: People stop shipping because shipping has quietly become your job rather than theirs. 

• Decisions get scheduled instead of made: When a call can wait until Thursday, and it sits inside someone else’s area of responsibility, this clearly points to a bottleneck. 

• Your calendar becomes the project timeline: Work moves at the speed of your availability rather than the team’s.  

• People stop arguing with you: While the initial reaction might be to simply read this as alignment, it is, in fact, a clear sign that you have become the only shot-caller. However, you wouldn’t be alone in this, since Gallup’s 2025 data shows just 28% of employees strongly agree that their opinions count at work. 

All four get more expensive as you move upmarket, because enterprise customers generate unusual situations by nature. If the unusual still has to reach the founder, then an increase in your headcount doesn’t actually mean you’ve scaled. 

Why delegating more work isn’t the answer

The simplest answer to any discussion about founder bottlenecks is to delegate more. Early-stage founders often take up plenty of responsibility and hold on to them down the line.  

That being said, the problem with most founder-centered bottlenecks comes from the fact that they are often delegating the task and keeping the judgment. Here is the darker side of this structure: It teaches the capable people that you hired to do the work that their ownership over is grossly undervalued. This can lead to your team lacking agency and empowerment, and growing disengaged over time. 

A 2025 study in Current Psychology separated decision-making autonomy from control over methods and scheduling, and found that only decision-making autonomy produced a real sense of personal responsibility for the work, which in turn drove engagement. 

So the question is never how much work the founder can hand off. It is whether anyone can predict what they will think. As long as the founder’s criteria stay in their head, asking them is the rational move. In my case, fixing that took three changes, and none of them involved giving away more work. 

3 changes founders implement to take themselves out of the approval queue

The real work is to move the decisions themselves, along with the reasoning behind them, out of the founder’s head and into the open. Here are three changes that helped us as we scaled the company. 

1. Name an owner for every recurring decision

We listed the choices that kept coming back to me, such as feature customizations or publishing calls. Each one got a name attached to it. 

The hardest ones to hand over were the decisions people had always sent to me. Not because they were complicated, but because routing them my way had become the default. Some of those calls now get made differently than I would have made, but they aren’t made worse. 

2. Write down the reasoning alongside the verdict

This change did the most. Instead of replying “yes, go ahead.” I started explaining what I was weighing. 

Atlassian’s 2025 research, covering 12,000 knowledge workers and 200 executives, found that teams lose a quarter of their time searching for answers, and 56% said they often have to ask someone or set up a meeting just to get information they need. Over time, my thought process stopped being one of those answers. 

3. Let good-enough decisions stand

This is the hardest of the three, because the edit always feels free. It is not. 

Every time you correct a call after the fact, you teach the person who made it that it was never really their call. The next one comes back to you. 

If you want to know, as a founder, whether you have the same problem, ask what would stop if you disappeared for two weeks. Then ask whether it would stop because it needs you, or because people learned to wait.

When my company, Teamflect, was just a startup, every decision ran through me, and that was a good thing. 

We were small enough that I had context on almost everything: what a customer had asked for last quarter, why a feature was priced the way it was, what we had already tried on the website. A quick message to me was genuinely the fastest way for anyone to get an answer, so people sent them, and I answered fast. 

The company scaled and sadly, so did this habit. 

At 36, I sold the fintech company I had spent years building and walked away with an eight-figure exit. No client needed an answer. No product roadmap demanded a decision. No inbox confirmed that I was useful. I thought it would feel like freedom. It felt like an identity crisis.

As CEO, I had been time-starved but important. My calendar told me where to go, and my business card told me who I was. Then both disappeared. I had achieved the exit many entrepreneurs dream about, yet I had never stopped to ask how I actually liked to spend my time.

It took therapy, experimentation, motherhood and eventually another company to understand that the goal is not simply more time. The goal is time choice: the ability to decide how your hours are spent before someone or something else decides for you.

Don’t wait for retirement to discover what makes you happy

During my first year of time abundance, I treated my life like a research project. I learned chess. I attempted sewing. I tried yoga and Zumba. I took MasterClass courses for no practical reason at all. I was not trying to earn a credential, impress an investor or turn a hobby into a side hustle. I was simply exploring.

That was surprisingly uncomfortable. Entrepreneurs are trained to value activities with measurable returns, and time invested purely in joy is hard to quantify.

That is exactly why it pays to find out what lights you up now. Put leisure on your calendar with the same seriousness you give a board meeting. You don’t need an exit to get curious about yourself.

Being needed is not the same as being valuable

Eventually, there will be no email requiring your attention. It may happen after an exit, a career change or retirement. If being needed has become your main source of identity, the silence can be destabilizing.

I had to separate my value from my speed at solving other people’s problems. Therapy helped. So did doing things badly. Pole dancing class did not care that I had been a CEO. Singing lessons humbled me; I do not sound like Taylor Swift, even when I use my diaphragm as instructed. No art gallery called about my adult coloring.

Each experience taught me something about myself and added a layer of confidence. None of them advanced a business objective. They simply interested me.

Schedule joy before life schedules over it

My mother died when I was 27. She was 65 and had only recently taken her first flight in first class, something she had put off until the timing felt right. Her death taught me that later is not guaranteed. Even so, I kept planning my time reactively.

Becoming a parent made the lesson concrete. Within a year of selling my company, I welcomed a child, and my calendar filled again, this time with sleep schedules, feedings and more household duties. The time abundance disappeared, but the insight remained: Joy does not protect its own place on your calendar. You have to plan for it.

Spend money to buy back time

At 41, I returned to entrepreneurship with a provocative question: Are wealthy parents happier?

The short answer is yes, when money buys back time. Harvard Business School professor Ashley Whillans found that couples who paid for housekeeping, meal delivery and other time-saving services reported happier relationships. What mattered was how they used the hours they recovered.

I had lived the research before I read it. A night nurse gave me sleep. A nanny gave me more patient time with my children. Grocery delivery, meal preparation and laundry help kept weekends from disappearing. I was investing in the energy to enjoy the life I had built.

Delegate the thinking, not only the doing

That belief led me to found Peacock Parent, a company built around delegating at home without guilt. After talking with thousands of parents, I learned something I had not expected: They were as overwhelmed by anticipating and planning the work of a household as they were by doing it, even when the tasks themselves were handed off well.

I felt it too. I worried about forgetting details. I wanted future needs flagged before they landed on me. And I felt the strain of the sandwich generation: I missed my own mom looking out for me while I cared for my 81-year-old dad.

The lesson for anyone buying back time is to hand off the mental load along with the task. When you outsource something, give away the remembering, the scheduling and the follow-up too, whether to a person, a shared system or a tool. If you are still the one keeping track, you have not bought back much.

Choose how you spend the time you buy

Buying back time only works if you are intentional about where it goes. I will gladly pay an extra $50 for an in-home appointment so that someone else does the driving. I skip the rush out the door, the traffic and the search for parking, and I get my lash extensions at home in my pajamas. I am buying calm as much as convenience.

Then I decide what the recovered time is for. Sometimes it is adult coloring, an audiobook or a hip-hop lesson. Sometimes it is posting on social media, but only when I have something meaningful to share, not to feed an algorithm.

Don’t wait for retirement to decide how you want to spend your life. You can start planning for joy today.

At 36, I sold the fintech company I had spent years building and walked away with an eight-figure exit. No client needed an answer. No product roadmap demanded a decision. No inbox confirmed that I was useful. I thought it would feel like freedom. It felt like an identity crisis.

As CEO, I had been time-starved but important. My calendar told me where to go, and my business card told me who I was. Then both disappeared. I had achieved the exit many entrepreneurs dream about, yet I had never stopped to ask how I actually liked to spend my time.

It took therapy, experimentation, motherhood and eventually another company to understand that the goal is not simply more time. The goal is time choice: the ability to decide how your hours are spent before someone or something else decides for you.

I’ve noticed an interesting trend over the past few years in my work as corporate counsel for startups and founders: foreign entrepreneurs launching U.S. companies specifically to self-sponsor their visas. With traditional employment-based green cards bogged down by low quotas, processing backlogs and strict per-country limits, building a U.S. business has become an increasingly attractive visa strategy. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) updates and policy clarifications that better accommodate international founders have accelerated this trend. 

An immigration lawyer determines which visa pathway is the best fit. But your chances of success at actually winning that self-sponsorship visa also hinge on how your company’s corporate governance is built. If it’s sloppy, no immigration attorney can save your application. That’s why you need corporate counsel at the table from day one. 

The core conflict: Establishing an “employer-employee relationship” 

Most founders get tripped up at the intersection of equity ownership and USCIS governance rules. Why? Well, majority ownership typically gives founders total operational control. But if you intend to use your own entity to sponsor your U.S. visa, unchecked majority ownership can actually work against you.  

USCIS mandates require proof of an explicit and documented “employer-employee relationship,” meaning someone besides yourself must have clear “right of control” and operational authority over you. Most often, this independent authority is a board of directors, which must have the right to hire, evaluate, supervise and fire you. Simply put: For visa purposes, you cannot be your own boss.  

How to structure corporate governance 

International entrepreneurs seeking to self-sponsor walk a fine line; they need to demonstrate a legally compliant employer-employee relationship but don’t want to risk losing control of their equity stake or strategic vision.  

That means baking proper corporate governance into the entity structure in three key areas:  

1. Build an independent board of directors 

Sitting as the sole board member while also serving as CEO isn’t going to fly in a self-sponsored visa application. Appointing your spouse, sibling or in-law to the board also won’t survive USCIS scrutiny. 

Instead, bring on investors, experienced industry executives, venture advisors or respected professional peers. Then, grant your board real, documented authority to review your performance, set executive compensation and terminate employment. 

Understandably, founders might fear that giving an independent board firing authority could put their role, and even their entire business, at risk. However, a corporate attorney can help you structure corporate architecture to separate your executive role from your shareholder rights. This can be accomplished through mechanisms such as dual-class stock, voting agreements and protective provisions that allow you to maintain long-term equity control and major shareholder voting power while still granting the independent board contractual oversight of your day-to-day employment as CEO.  

2. Draft compliant bylaws and employment contracts 

A common mistake made by early-stage founders looking to self-sponsor is setting up an independent board on paper but leaving corporate bylaws unchanged. If your bylaws allow you as a majority shareholder to fire board members at will, the board’s authority isn’t real. 

Your bylaws, board charters and executive employment agreement must explicitly delegate executive oversight and firing authority to the board. A corporate attorney can help you carve out protections that will protect your voting rights and equity, while still granting the board the necessary operational authority to satisfy immigration rules. 

Additionally, many early-stage entrepreneurs rely on online templates to incorporate. While these tools are convenient and inexpensive, their default bylaws typically grant a majority shareholder absolute authority to appoint or remove board members. In USCIS’s view, this renders the board’s oversight authority meaningless. It’s worth it to spend just a few hours working with a corporate attorney to customize your bylaws to require specific notice periods, cause-based removal conditions or independent committee approvals for executive termination, all of which are essential to proving a genuine employer-employee relationship.  

3. Establish governance at entity formation 

Restructuring your board or altering your bylaws shortly before filing a visa application can raise red flags. It’s important to establish your governance framework at initial formation and maintain a clear, documented history of oversight, including evidence that an independent board was formed, held meetings and maintained meeting minutes long before applying for a visa. 

The strategic upside: Investor readiness  

Strong corporate governance not only satisfies visa requirements; it also supports investor readiness. When venture capital firms or angel investors conduct due diligence, they’re looking for well-documented board minutes, clear executive employment contracts, and clean cap tables. If you have these in place from the start, you’ve already built a corporate framework that makes your company more attractive to U.S. investors.  

Aligning corporate and immigration counsel 

One of the biggest missteps founders make when establishing a U.S. entity for visa self-sponsorship is relying on DIY templates or working solely with an immigration attorney. When both immigration and corporate lawyers collaborate from day one, you’ll have the best shot of creating an investor-ready, legally sound business that can help you secure a visa.  

I’ve noticed an interesting trend over the past few years in my work as corporate counsel for startups and founders: foreign entrepreneurs launching U.S. companies specifically to self-sponsor their visas. With traditional employment-based green cards bogged down by low quotas, processing backlogs and strict per-country limits, building a U.S. business has become an increasingly attractive visa strategy. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) updates and policy clarifications that better accommodate international founders have accelerated this trend. 

An immigration lawyer determines which visa pathway is the best fit. But your chances of success at actually winning that self-sponsorship visa also hinge on how your company’s corporate governance is built. If it’s sloppy, no immigration attorney can save your application. That’s why you need corporate counsel at the table from day one. 

The core conflict: Establishing an “employer-employee relationship” 

Most founders get tripped up at the intersection of equity ownership and USCIS governance rules. Why? Well, majority ownership typically gives founders total operational control. But if you intend to use your own entity to sponsor your U.S. visa, unchecked majority ownership can actually work against you.  

In my own businesses and in the work I do with clients, I’ve always tried to find ways to market effectively without spending a fortune. I actually enjoy the constraint. Having a limited budget forces you to think more creatively, experiment with ideas you might otherwise overlook and find ways to use the resources you already have.

Over the years, some of those experiments have worked surprisingly well. They’ve taught me that good marketing doesn’t always require a big advertising budget — sometimes it just requires looking at your business from a different angle. Here are some of the low-cost strategies I’ve used myself and with my clients.

1. Use auctions to create competition and brand exposure

I discovered the potential of auctions almost by accident. When I sold a few cars from my rental car business through an auction, I ended up getting a surprisingly good price. It made me realize that auctions can do more than help you sell something — they can create competition and attract attention at the same time.

When several people want the same product, they’re no longer negotiating only with you; they’re competing with one another. According to Bidbus, auction prices were 4.51% higher with two bidders than with one and nearly 10% higher when five or more bidders participated.

You don’t have to auction off your entire inventory to test the idea. Try one product, a service package or even a limited number of available spots. There are platforms where you can run an auction for a relatively small fee, making it an inexpensive experiment for the right type of business. And even though only the winning bidder makes the purchase, everyone who watches, shares or participates in the auction is interacting with your brand. That turns the auction itself into a marketing event, not just a way to make a sale.

2. Go where your ideal customers already are

When I was a young entrepreneur, a friend and I ran a small bike shop. We would buy used bikes, fix them up and resell them. We didn’t have much of a marketing budget, so instead of trying to bring customers to us, we went to where they already were. We would load around 10 bikes into a van, drive to local sporting events and offer free test rides to anyone interested.

That turned out to be even more valuable than simply putting the bikes in front of the right audience. People could actually ride them, see how they felt and experience the product before deciding whether to buy. According to TLG, 61% of consumers say they are more inclined to make a purchase after attending a live event.

You can apply the same principle to almost any small business. Find out where your ideal customers already spend their time, then look for an inexpensive way to let them experience what you sell through samples, demonstrations, trials or small events. Instead of spending your limited marketing budget trying to bring a broad audience to you, go to the right audience and give them a reason to try your product.

3. Use cost-effective AI models to scale your marketing

According to ZenMux, 48% of small businesses are already using AI in their marketing, including for writing email and social media copy, creating visual content and analyzing data. But using AI doesn’t necessarily mean using it efficiently. It’s easy to default to the most powerful — and often most expensive — model for every task, even when much of your everyday marketing work doesn’t require it.

In my businesses, I try to match the model to the job. I use cheaper, faster models for high-volume tasks such as brainstorming headlines, creating variations of social posts or rewriting product descriptions, and reserve premium models for work that requires deeper reasoning, research or more nuanced writing. There’s little reason to pay for the most capable model when a less expensive one can produce the result you need.

The difference might amount to very little on a single prompt, but it becomes meaningful when AI is embedded into your everyday marketing workflow. Across hundreds or thousands of tasks, those small costs add up. Instead of automatically using the best model available, use the most cost-effective model that can reliably do the job.

4. Turn referrals into a marketing strategy

I always pay people who refer clients to my businesses — even when they tell me not to. If someone sends me a client, I’ll get their PayPal or bank details and send them a referral fee. If that client continues working with us, I keep paying the referral every month. Sometimes people tell me, “You really don’t need to send me anything.” My answer is simple: It’s my rule. You can donate the money to charity or spend it however you like, but I’m still going to pay you. And if someone refuses the money altogether or sends it back, I’ll offer them one of my services for free instead. I want people who help my business grow to get something in return.

There’s a business reason behind that rule. Referrals can be one of the lowest-cost ways to acquire customers because you’re not starting from zero — the person recommending you has already transferred some of their trust to your business. According to Tailor Brands, 92% of people trust referrals from people they know. That’s why I don’t treat referrals as a lucky bonus or simply hope that satisfied customers will spread the word. I reward them deliberately and make referrals part of how I market my businesses.

5. Turn your customer experience into visual content

When I take on a small business as a client, one of the processes I use is a questionnaire that helps identify opportunities to turn the work they’re already doing into visual content. The idea is simple: Don’t create something just for marketing — document the customer experience that already exists. A restaurant can capture dishes being prepared and served, a gardening company can show a yard before, during and after a job, and a home improvement business can document an entire renovation from the first day to the finished result.

There’s a good reason to make this content visual. According to research, 60% of consumers always look for photos or videos before purchasing a product. Social media also gives small businesses an inexpensive way to put that content in front of potential customers. Seventy-six percent of small and midsize businesses say social media has had a positive impact on their business performance.

I’ve found this works particularly well for small businesses because it can be incredibly cheap to execute. Ask employees to take photos and short videos while they work, do it yourself, hire a photographer for just a few hours to build a library of professional material, or give satisfied customers a small incentive to share photos and videos of their experience.

Once you have the content, distribution can cost virtually nothing. Build visual libraries on Instagram and Pinterest, add galleries to your website, and upload videos to YouTube or Vimeo. 

6. Get mentioned by other local businesses and organizations

During the slower winter months, my rental car business sometimes has cars sitting unused for days. Rather than leave them parked, we’ve offered them free for a few days to travel vloggers and other creators visiting our city. It helps them explore the area and create better content about the destination, while we ask for something relatively small in return: a mention of our business, sometimes just a 20- or 30-second segment in a video they were already planning to publish.

I particularly like this approach when there’s a natural connection between what you give away and the audience you want to reach. A travel creator visiting your city already has an audience interested in travel, so a local car rental recommendation makes sense within their content.

According to Adam Collins, three in four consumers say they’re more likely to spend money at a local business if it supports community issues or charitable causes. Look for similar opportunities to support local creators, events and organizations with something your business can provide inexpensively.

The key is to think beyond cash when deciding what you can spend on marketing. A restaurant might provide food for a local event, a gym could offer its space to a community group, and a service business could donate its expertise. Something that costs your business very little to provide can be genuinely useful to someone else while introducing your brand to a relevant new audience.

7. Turn customer questions into low-cost marketing content

Some of your best marketing ideas may already be sitting in your inbox. We recently took on a client and went through the questions their customers were already asking in emails, phone calls, sales conversations and support requests. We then turned those recurring questions into useful content that answered them directly. It didn’t require expensive topic research or a complicated content strategy, yet after implementing the approach, the client’s visibility in AI-generated answers increased by almost 400%.

There’s a broader reason this works. According to Discovered Labs, its analysis of 2 million AI citations found that pages that more closely matched what users were asking received significantly more citations — about 30% more for a meaningful increase in alignment. In other words, the questions your customers ask you every day can also be clues to what potential customers are asking search engines and AI tools.

Start keeping track of those questions and turn the recurring ones into blog posts, guides and FAQ pages. You’re essentially turning conversations your business is already having into inexpensive marketing assets that can keep attracting potential customers long after you publish them.

8. Use an AI sales agent to run outreach on a small budget

Cold outreach can be one of the most affordable ways for a small business to start conversations with potential customers, especially when AI sales agents can automate much of the repetitive work, from prospecting and research to sending emails and following up.

The key is to use automation where it saves time without automating the entire relationship. According to Instantly, 58% of replies come from the first email, while the remaining 42% come from follow-ups. That’s why I always build two or three automated follow-ups into my outreach campaigns rather than relying on a single message.

But the moment someone replies, I go old-school. I take over the conversation personally and leave AI agents and automated responses out of it. When inboxes are increasingly filled with AI-generated outreach, a genuine human conversation can be one of the simplest ways to stand out. The goal isn’t to automate sales from beginning to end; it’s to use AI to do the repetitive work cheaply and consistently, then spend your time where the human element matters most.

What I’ve learned from running my own businesses and working with clients is that a small marketing budget doesn’t have to limit your ideas. In many cases, it does the opposite — it forces you to be more creative about the assets, relationships and opportunities already around you.

You don’t need to try everything at once. Pick one or two ideas that fit your business, test them, and build on what works. Some of the best marketing strategies start not with asking, “How much should I spend?” but “What do I already have that I’m not using?”

In my own businesses and in the work I do with clients, I’ve always tried to find ways to market effectively without spending a fortune. I actually enjoy the constraint. Having a limited budget forces you to think more creatively, experiment with ideas you might otherwise overlook and find ways to use the resources you already have.

Over the years, some of those experiments have worked surprisingly well. They’ve taught me that good marketing doesn’t always require a big advertising budget — sometimes it just requires looking at your business from a different angle. Here are some of the low-cost strategies I’ve used myself and with my clients.

1. Use auctions to create competition and brand exposure

I discovered the potential of auctions almost by accident. When I sold a few cars from my rental car business through an auction, I ended up getting a surprisingly good price. It made me realize that auctions can do more than help you sell something — they can create competition and attract attention at the same time.

Beachgoers in Europe have been slathering on bemotrizinol (or BEMT) for more than 25 years. Now it’s finally on American store shelves, the Associated Press reports.

The sunscreen ingredient absorbs both UVA and UVB rays and causes little skin irritation. AP notes that BEMT has studies backing its safety and that it has minimal absorption into the skin.

What took so long? The FDA’s slow process for approving over-the-counter ingredients. BEMT was first filed for review in 2005 and finally got the green light in June, the first new sunscreen ingredient permitted in the U.S. since the late ’90s.

Australian brand Ultra Violette got there first, selling Unblock Screen SPF 50 online in late August before it hit Sephora stores nationwide on October 2. Neutrogena, the No. 1 SPF brand in the U.S., followed in September with two BEMT face sunscreens it says were inspired by lightweight K-beauty formulas.

Being early costs extra. During an 18-month exclusivity period, brands can source BEMT from only a couple of suppliers, and they’ll pay what BeautyMatter calls the “BEMT tax.”

Beachgoers in Europe have been slathering on bemotrizinol (or BEMT) for more than 25 years. Now it’s finally on American store shelves, the Associated Press reports.

The sunscreen ingredient absorbs both UVA and UVB rays and causes little skin irritation. AP notes that BEMT has studies backing its safety and that it has minimal absorption into the skin.

What took so long? The FDA’s slow process for approving over-the-counter ingredients. BEMT was first filed for review in 2005 and finally got the green light in June, the first new sunscreen ingredient permitted in the U.S. since the late ’90s.

Australian brand Ultra Violette got there first, selling Unblock Screen SPF 50 online in late August before it hit Sephora stores nationwide on October 2. Neutrogena, the No. 1 SPF brand in the U.S., followed in September with two BEMT face sunscreens it says were inspired by lightweight K-beauty formulas.

Being early costs extra. During an 18-month exclusivity period, brands can source BEMT from only a couple of suppliers, and they’ll pay what BeautyMatter calls the “BEMT tax.”

For the past few years, much of the conversation around artificial intelligence in business has centered on productivity: writing emails, creating marketing content, summarizing meetings and analyzing spreadsheets.

Those applications are useful, but they may represent only the first phase of AI adoption.

The more significant opportunity for entrepreneurs is emerging deeper inside business operations, where ideas have to be turned into products, decisions have to become processes and concepts have to be translated into instructions that other people can execute.

That shift matters because speed of execution has always been one of the biggest advantages available to a small business.

A large company may have more employees, larger budgets and established systems. A smaller company can often move from an idea to a decision much faster. AI has the potential to make that advantage even more pronounced.

AI is moving from the office to the workflow

The first wave of business AI largely focused on knowledge work.

An entrepreneur could ask an AI system to draft a proposal, summarize customer feedback or generate ideas for a marketing campaign. These applications reduced the amount of time people spent producing information.

The next opportunity is more specialized. Instead of simply generating information, AI is increasingly being incorporated into specific business workflows.

Consider what happens when a company decides to launch a new physical product. The process doesn’t end when someone has a good idea. There may be market research, product development, design, costing, sourcing, manufacturing, quality control, packaging and distribution. Each stage creates information that must be communicated accurately to the next person or organization.

A bottleneck anywhere in that chain can delay the entire launch. This is where specialized AI applications can become considerably more valuable than general-purpose tools.

The business value is in removing bottlenecks

Entrepreneurs don’t necessarily need AI to automate an entire department. Sometimes, improving one bottleneck can have a disproportionate effect on the business.

Imagine a small apparel company preparing a new collection. The founder may have a clear vision for the product, but turning that vision into manufacturing-ready specifications requires detailed documentation. Traditionally, this might involve several rounds of work between designers, technical specialists and manufacturers.

A tech pack, for example, can bring together information such as measurements, materials, colors, construction details and other specifications required to produce a garment.

AI-assisted workflows are now being applied to this type of specialized documentation. For businesses exploring AI tech packs, the broader opportunity is not simply generating a document faster. It is reducing the friction between a product concept and the information required to execute that concept.

That distinction is important. The value of AI isn’t necessarily the document itself. The value is what happens to the business when a previously slow step becomes faster and more repeatable.

Small businesses may have more to gain from this shift

Large organizations often have the resources to absorb inefficiencies.

A multinational company can maintain specialized teams for product development, research, documentation and operations. A small business may have one person performing several of those roles.

That creates an interesting opportunity for entrepreneurs. AI can give a small team access to capabilities that previously required additional people, outside specialists or significant amounts of manual work.

This doesn’t mean a five-person company suddenly has the equivalent of a 500-person organization. It means the five-person company may be able to spend more of its limited human capacity on decisions that actually require human judgment.

That difference can be significant.

If an entrepreneur spends less time formatting documents, organizing information and performing repetitive research, more time becomes available for talking to customers, negotiating with suppliers, improving products and developing new opportunities.

Faster doesn’t automatically mean better

There is, however, an important distinction entrepreneurs should keep in mind. AI can make a process faster without necessarily making the outcome correct. That is particularly important when AI is used in specialized business workflows.

A production specification still needs to be reviewed. A financial analysis still needs to be checked. A marketing strategy still needs to be tested against actual customer behavior.

AI can accelerate the creation of an initial output, but businesses still need people who understand the underlying process.

In many cases, this may actually increase the value of experienced employees. Instead of spending their time producing every first draft manually, specialists can spend more time reviewing outputs, identifying problems and making higher-level decisions.

The role changes from producing everything from scratch to directing and validating the process.

AI could also change the economics of product development

There is another implication that deserves attention: experimentation.

Entrepreneurship has always involved uncertainty. A company rarely knows with complete confidence whether a new product, service or market will succeed.

The traditional response has often been to conduct extensive research before committing resources. AI can potentially make early-stage experimentation cheaper and faster.

An entrepreneur can use AI to explore product concepts, analyze publicly available information, organize customer feedback, develop preliminary documentation and identify potential issues before investing heavily in production.

This doesn’t eliminate the need for traditional research or validation. It can, however, allow businesses to reach the validation stage with less time and fewer resources.

That changes the question from: “Can we afford to develop this idea?” to “Can we test this idea before making a large investment?”

For a startup or small business, that can be an important distinction.

The competitive advantage may shift from access to execution

AI tools are becoming increasingly accessible. That means simply having access to AI may not remain a meaningful competitive advantage for very long.

If competitors can use similar models, similar software and similar automation tools, the differentiation has to come from somewhere else.

One possibility is execution.

A company that has integrated AI into its workflows may be able to respond to customer requests faster, test more ideas, prepare products more efficiently or process information with fewer manual steps.

The technology itself may be similar. The workflow built around it is not.

This is similar to what happened with cloud software and digital commerce. Once the technology became widely available, competitive advantage shifted toward how effectively businesses implemented it.

AI may follow a similar path.

Entrepreneurs should look for processes, not trends

One mistake businesses can make is starting with the technology rather than the problem.

An entrepreneur hears about a new AI tool and immediately asks, “How can we use this?” A better question may be: “Where are we losing the most time?”

The answer could be surprisingly ordinary. Perhaps employees spend hours preparing repetitive reports. Perhaps salespeople manually organize information before every client call. Perhaps product teams spend too much time converting concepts into technical documentation. Perhaps customer service teams repeatedly answer the same questions.

Those are the areas worth investigating. A simple framework is to look for processes that are:

• Repetitive
• Time-consuming
• Highly structured
• Dependent on large amounts of information
• Expensive to perform manually
• Easy for a human to review after an initial output is created

These characteristics can indicate that an AI-assisted workflow may be worth testing.

Start small and measure the result

Businesses also don’t need to transform everything at once. A more practical approach is to select one workflow and establish a baseline.

• How long does the process currently take?
• How many people are involved?
• How often does it require revisions?
• What does it cost?
• What happens when something goes wrong?

Then introduce an AI-assisted process and measure the same variables.

If the workflow takes eight hours and can reliably be completed in four hours with appropriate human review, the business has something tangible to evaluate.

If quality decreases or the review process takes longer than expected, the experiment has produced useful information as well.

This is a more disciplined approach than adopting AI simply because competitors are talking about it.

The next phase of AI adoption will be less visible

Some of the most valuable AI applications may not be the ones customers see.

A customer may never know that AI helped prepare a technical specification, organize research or streamline an internal workflow. That’s perfectly fine.

Businesses don’t need AI to be visible to customers for it to create value. In fact, some of the strongest applications may operate quietly in the background, helping employees complete complex processes more efficiently.

For entrepreneurs, this represents a broader opportunity. The goal isn’t to add AI to every part of the company. It is to identify the points where better information, faster execution or reduced manual effort can improve the economics of the business.

The companies that approach AI this way may discover that the biggest opportunity isn’t generating more content or adding another chatbot. It is shortening the distance between an idea and execution. And for an entrepreneur, that distance has always mattered.

“Networking.”

Perhaps no other word inspires such panic in the introvert’s heart. The idea of standing around in a soulless hotel ballroom, trying to deftly balance a small plate of food while shaking hands with someone else trying to do the same? A nightmare. 

I get it. For years, I avoided it, too. I told myself I was too busy building Jotform to spend an evening trading business cards with strangers. In reality, I just didn’t like it. 

What I did like, however, was building connections. I cherished the feeling of talking shop with like-minded people, hearing about their latest projects and telling them about mine; forwarding an article to a long-time acquaintance that reminded me of a conversation we’d had; congratulating a former colleague on a new venture; or complimenting a fellow founder on a successful product release. 

That’s when I realized that networking doesn’t have to be making stilted small talk while you quietly weigh the feasibility of escape via air vent. Nor does it have to be a numbers game where you shake as many hands as possible. 

It can, in fact, be as simple as talking to people you find interesting, and being willing to reach out when you have something to say. Done right, it doesn’t have to feel like work at all. 

Why “networking” is the wrong term

Some words just naturally inspire a deep sense of ick. Through no fault of its own, “networking” has become one of them, placing it on par with other disquieting terms like “moist” and “synergy.” It implies a cheap, transactional nature; something to discard once it stops producing value. 

But there’s no rule that says these relationships have to be cheap or temporary. In fact, some of my most fruitful connections started out in very network-y ways, and quickly blossomed into something much more durable. 

I actually think my introverted nature has something to do with that. I don’t ask questions if I don’t want to hear the answer. Nor do I waste time on conversations that don’t genuinely interest me. I’m not built for small talk, so I just…skip it. 

Networking advice often centers on a series of tricks, like repeating someone’s name twice in the conversation, or dropping in a well-timed personal anecdote. But the truth is, people can tell the difference between someone working the room and someone who’s actually listening. There’s not a lot of value in a shallow, unmemorable interaction. 

Instead, ask the question you actually want to ask. Have the conversation you want to have. If the person you’re chatting with isn’t on the same page or doesn’t seem engaged, there’s no reason to force yourself to keep going. Give yourself permission to end the interaction tactfully and move on. 

The power of weak ties

In 1973, a Stanford sociologist named Mark Granovetter conducted a study that may make you rethink your beliefs about casual acquaintances — I know they forced me to rethink mine. 

Granovetter found that, contrary to popular belief, it’s actually our most peripheral acquaintances — what he calls “weak ties” — who end up serving as our most important sources of new information and ideas. 

You might assume that your closest connections (otherwise known as “strong ties”) would be the most valuable when it comes to finding a new job or sourcing a new hire, but that’s actually not the case. Those closest to us are just that — too close. There’s too much overlap between the information they possess and the people they know to be truly helpful. Weak ties, on the other hand, offer fresh perspectives and a pool of information we don’t already have. 

Here’s my advice on growing and maintaining these valuable connections: 

Cast a wider net than feels natural

Strong ties tend to form on their own. You don’t have to try with the people you already see every week. Weak ties take a deliberate push.

That means saying “yes” to the coffee with someone outside your usual circle. Talking to the person at the conference who works in a completely different industry than yours. The goal isn’t necessarily to befriend everyone; it’s more ensuring that your circle includes a few people who see the world differently than you. 

Give before you need anything

The fastest way to kill a weak tie is to only appear when you want something. Rather than always popping up with an ask, reach out before you need a favor. Send the article you think they’d like, or congratulate them on a launch with no agenda attached.

I do this constantly with people I’m not particularly close to. Most of the time, nothing comes of it directly. Every so often, that small gesture is the reason someone thinks of me first when an opportunity comes along.

Let the relationship stay light

A weak tie doesn’t require monthly check-ins to survive. It just needs to not go completely cold. This can be an easy, introvert-friendly lift — a comment on something they posted, a quick reply when they reach out. None of it has to be heavy to keep the connection alive.

The pressure to “maintain” a relationship is part of what makes networking feel so taxing. Weak ties don’t ask that much of you. The only requirement is that you show up occasionally, and mean it when you do. These ties may stay loose, and that’s completely okay. They may also blossom into some of your most valuable relationships. 

“Networking.”

Perhaps no other word inspires such panic in the introvert’s heart. The idea of standing around in a soulless hotel ballroom, trying to deftly balance a small plate of food while shaking hands with someone else trying to do the same? A nightmare. 

I get it. For years, I avoided it, too. I told myself I was too busy building Jotform to spend an evening trading business cards with strangers. In reality, I just didn’t like it. 

I still remember standing in the kitchen area at work, being pressured to sign that thank you card. It was National Boss’s Day and my boss’s executive assistant had a card she wanted us to all sign. It was to thank our boss for being a great boss. The front of the card said, “The world needs more bosses like you!” I felt sick to my stomach, barely scrawling my name inside. The irony was that this boss was one of the worst bosses I had ever worked for.

My former boss was the bully boss. He reminded me of the playground bully who teased and taunted and mocked others. This bully boss also publicly and privately humiliated me. He called me a rat. He told me no one wanted me on their team but only he took a chance on me. When he found out another leader at the company wanted me to rotate onto their team, he screamed at me and said I could leave his team only when he said I could. 

As some of us celebrate and honor National Boss’s Day, it’s an important moment to remember that not everyone has a good relationship with their boss. Some of us are struggling with a boss who undermines us, makes fun of us, and even threatens to fire us. For anyone struggling with a bully boss, here are three important steps I wish I had taken back then.

1. Don’t normalize the behavior just because it’s your boss

When you are working for someone who is a bully, we may use power dynamics as an excuse. We tolerate things from a boss that we wouldn’t tolerate from a colleague. And of course, we may be scared of losing our jobs, so we normalize this behavior. If a bully boss shuts you down, calls you names and makes inappropriate jokes, and consistently crosses boundaries, this isn’t them just having a bad day. This is a pattern of bad, bullying behavior.

I remember rationalizing his behavior. “Well, that’s just how he is,” and “Maybe I’m being too sensitive,” and “This is the price I pay to have this big title and paycheck,” or “He is just under a lot of stress.” Just because they are the boss doesn’t mean they can behave this way. Ask yourself if you would allow a colleague to treat you this way? Chances are you wouldn’t.

2. Document what’s happening

I wish I had documented what was happening at work during this time. Some days I thought it would get better. Some days I thought I was imagining things. Some days I thought I could push through. Some days, I felt myself disappearing. My confidence was completely shaken.

Document what’s happening. As I discuss in my book, The Devil Emails at Midnight: What Good Leaders Can Learn from Bad Bosses, where there’s smoke, there’s fire. A boss who bullies you once will do it again and again, testing your boundaries. And if they are bullying you, chances are, they have bullied others too. Make sure to keep your documentation off your work laptop and save screenshots of texts, emails and Slack messages. Keep a record of the facts: when it happened, what happened, if anyone else was present and how it impacted your work. You will want to use this documentation in the future if you decide to contact an employment lawyer. And, for now, you can review what’s happening and remind yourself that you are not the problem. You are, in fact, the target of bullying.

3. Know your rights

When your boss is the bully, speaking up can feel really risky. I wish I had known my rights and I wish I knew back then silence wasn’t my only option. That’s where Lift Our Voices, founded by Gretchen Carlson and Julie Roginsky, is an invaluable resource.

Lift Our Voices is working to challenge workplace silencing mechanisms and help employees better understand their rights. It’s LOV Where You Work AI Tool is a game-changing free resource designed to help employees make sense of employment agreements. The tool can help you identify provisions that would affect your ability to speak up. You can upload your employment contract and onboarding documents to this tool. It will help give you a better sense of what you signed and what rights and options are available to you if you are the target of workplace bullying. You may also decide to talk to trusted friends and mentors, and consult an employment attorney.

For some, National Boss’s Day is a day to thank the boss who makes work better. But if your boss is the reason you dread going to work, you don’t owe them a card or a mug or a thank you. You owe yourself a plan. Understand and validate what you are experiencing. Document what’s happening. Finally, map out your options. Remember that having a boss doesn’t mean giving up your voice. It means learning when and how to use it.

I still remember standing in the kitchen area at work, being pressured to sign that thank you card. It was National Boss’s Day and my boss’s executive assistant had a card she wanted us to all sign. It was to thank our boss for being a great boss. The front of the card said, “The world needs more bosses like you!” I felt sick to my stomach, barely scrawling my name inside. The irony was that this boss was one of the worst bosses I had ever worked for.

My former boss was the bully boss. He reminded me of the playground bully who teased and taunted and mocked others. This bully boss also publicly and privately humiliated me. He called me a rat. He told me no one wanted me on their team but only he took a chance on me. When he found out another leader at the company wanted me to rotate onto their team, he screamed at me and said I could leave his team only when he said I could. 

As some of us celebrate and honor National Boss’s Day, it’s an important moment to remember that not everyone has a good relationship with their boss. Some of us are struggling with a boss who undermines us, makes fun of us, and even threatens to fire us. For anyone struggling with a bully boss, here are three important steps I wish I had taken back then.