The most valuable thing a professional can sell in the AI era might be their own liability. "Liability as a Service" is a phrase that's been rattling around in my head for a few months.
I think these models are going to stay jagged (H/t @emollick) in that they are going to be superhuman at some things and struggle with others. Capabilities will continue to look like a jagged coastline with deep inlets where a model whiffs on something a smart intern would catch and peninsulas where they are way more capable than any human. That's what makes them bad at replacing most roles in full, but great at augmenting someone who already knows what good looks like.
So the business model I keep thinking about is a professional services (law, accounting, etc) where you can pitch it as "50% cheaper, twice as good, and a human reviews everything the AI does." Those numbers are made up but it seems like you should be able to push service quality/margins and end up with something win/win for a lot of services.
The human is still holding the liability of doing it right. A lot of what you pay a lawyer or an accountant for is exactly that, but it's not explicit. For something high stakes, you want a name on the work, a license on the line, or someone you can actually sue when it goes wrong.
Everyone wants to go 100% AI. I think the real juice is more like 70-80%, where you get most of the gains but still have someone in the mix.
If I was a real estate beginner, here’s what I’d do:
1) Find one little apartment for rent
2) Get the landlord’s permission to sublease
3) Furnish it
4) List it on Airbnb & CO
5) Hire a cleaner
6) Get my first booking
I’d start small.
Gain experience.
Then repeat 🥂
The best way to turnaround an underperforming business is to delete stuff:
- people
- projects
- products
- customers
Think of it like an inverse Pareto principle.
80% of the shit and noise will be caused by 20% of the customers, people, projects, products and customers.
It’s way easier to get rid of the crap than add new stuff.
Watch your metrics fly:
Gross Margin ⬆️
Operating Cost % ⬇️
Free Cashflow ⬆️
Employee Engagement ⬆️
Customer Service ⬆️
And whilst you’ll take a one off revenue hit in the short term, revenue growth will accelerate too.