5 AI Tools Doing Overtime So You Can Run a Profitable Solo Business (Without Losing Your Mind)

Most solo entrepreneurs are stuck doing everything themselves — chasing leads, managing content and drowning in admin. But the ones scaling to six and seven figures? They’re using AI to build a business that works without them.

In this video, you’ll discover five AI tools that helped me turn my one-person operation into a self-sustaining business engine:

• The Automation Engine: Connect your systems and cut your task list in half — without writing a single line of code.
• The Research Companion: Replace browser tab chaos with an AI assistant that remembers, summarizes and handles your day-to-day decisions.
• The Strategic Advisor: Get instant clarity on what’s working, what’s not and where to focus — with your own AI-powered business consultant.
• The Memory Machine: Capture every meeting, extract insights and auto-follow-up — so you never drop the ball again.
• The Product Builder: Turn your ideas into real software or digital tools — without hiring a developer or writing a spec.

These aren’t shortcuts — they’re leverage. And when used together, they’ll help you reclaim your time, scale faster and stay focused on what actually grows your business.

If you’re ready to stop reacting and start scaling, this is the video to watch.

The AI Success Kit is available to download for free, along with a chapter from my new book, The Wolf is at The Door.

Meet the Person Who Invented Plastic that Dissolves in Water

Everyone’s heard the warnings: The world produces 450 billion tons of plastic waste every year. It’s polluting our oceans and landfills, and it’s even invading our bodies. But what if we didn’t just recycle or “reduce” plastic use? What if we could make plastic disappear entirely?

That’s the idea behind Timeplast. And investors have just a few days left—until July 31—to back the company.

Developed by chemical engineer and former PepsiCo executive, Manuel Rendon, Timeplast’s patented tech looks like plastic, acts like plastic, and works in everything from packaging to agriculture to 3D printing. But unlike traditional plastics—or even “bioplastics”—it doesn’t take 1,000 years to break down. It fully dissolves in water, leaving behind no microplastics, toxins, or residue, the company says.

Think of it like what Tesla did to combustion engines, or what Impossible Foods did to meat. A complete reinvention of plastic itself.

Here’s why you shouldn’t miss out on the chance to invest.

Timeplast says it is truly the first of its kind

Most so-called biodegradable plastics aren’t what they claim to be. They may “break down” under industrial composting conditions. Think: high heat, special facilities, and long timelines. But even then, they leave behind microplastics and chemical residues.

Rendon witnessed this firsthand while working in global sustainability at PepsiCo. Billions of dollars were being spent on packaging changes that still created pollution. He knew it would take a radical shift to solve the plastic problem.

So he spent the next 10 years developing a patented water-soluble polymer designed to behave like plastic, without the toxic afterlife.

There’s no material like it, and the world is taking notice.

They’re unlocking a $1.3T plastics market

Timeplast’s materials are already being tested and sold in multiple industries. More than 1,000 paying customers have used the product. And demand continues to build as manufacturers look for ways to hit ESG goals, reduce waste costs, or avoid new microplastic regulations taking effect in the U.S. and Europe.

The company is also expanding their product line, with the recently unveiled Pabyss™ reactor. It’s a modular system that is designed to eliminate plastic waste entirely by accelerating the dissolution process. Think of it like a recycling system, but instead of grinding and melting plastic, it makes it vanish, the company says.

Pabyss™ is an early glimpse at Timeplast’s long-term vision of a closed-loop ecosystem that prevents plastic pollution from the start. And that vision is starting to gain traction, just as the regulatory and public pressure to act reaches a breaking point.

With real traction, strategic IP, and a massive market tailwind behind it, Timeplast is now opening the door to investors.

The Timeplast investment window is closing soon

Right now, Timeplast is accepting public investments to help scale operations and meet demand. They’re already receiving attention from Fortune 500 companies and selling out of products.

But what’s next could be even bigger, because their applications aren’t limited to plastic alone. Their potential ranges across packaging, agriculture, consumer goods, and industrial manufacturing.

With so much opportunity ahead, it helps to have a CEO who was instrumental in shaping the sustainability policy at one of the largest food and beverage companies in the world.

Investors right now have an opportunity to back a systemic shift.

But the current investment opportunity ends July 31 at 11:59 p.m. PT.

With demand surging, new global partnerships forming, and a growing spotlight on microplastic pollution, many believe Timeplast is positioned to become a defining company in the next wave of sustainable tech.

The clock is ticking.

Learn more and invest in Timeplast while the opportunity lasts.

This is a paid advertisement for Timeplast’s Regulation CF Offering. Please read the offering circular at invest.timeplast.com.

President Donald Trump Signs the GENIUS Act to Make the U.S. the ‘Crypto Capital of the World’

President Donald Trump signed the GENIUS Act (Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins Act) into law on Friday in a live ceremony. The legislation sets regulations for stablecoins and was passed in a bipartisan vote of 308 to 122.

At the signing ceremony, Trump said he wants to make the U.S. the “crypto capital of the world.” White House AI and Crypto Czar David Sacks said the law helps pave the way for American dominance in the crypto industry by “creating clear rules of the road” and updating “archaic” payment systems.

A stablecoin’s value is pegged to a fiat currency, in this case, the U.S. dollar. Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are not. The GENIUS Act makes it law that “permitted payment stablecoin issuers” must hold reserves for every dollar of stablecoins offered. A reserve can be “any government-issued asset approved by regulators,” such as bank deposits and short-term treasury bills.

“Congratulations to our GREAT REPUBLICANS for being able to accomplish so much, a record, in so short a period of time,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Friday.

Watch the ceremony, here:

Related: From Tom Brady to Kevin O’Leary – See Who Lost Big in the Wake of the FTX Crypto Collapse

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AI Is Changing Public Relations — Here’s How to Stay in Control

Last week, I had to dig deep into a new client’s background — fast. They were in the middle of a substantial PR crisis, and time was not on our side.

In the past, I would’ve turned to Google and manually sifted through page after page of results. I’d look at their website, news mentions, social media activity, reviews and even obscure forum posts. The goal was always the same: get a full picture of who they are, how they operate and what’s already public that could help — or hurt — their reputation.

Doing that kind of research the old way can take hours.

Now, it’s far more efficient thanks to AI. Tools like ChatGPT, Claude and Grok can quickly summarize public information, giving me a snapshot in seconds instead of hours. But this shortcut comes with a big caveat: we also have to consider what these systems are saying about people and companies, and how they’ve come to those conclusions.

Large language models (LLMs), the tech powering these AI tools, are trained on massive datasets pulled from across the open web. That means your brand’s online presence isn’t just being seen by people anymore — it’s being interpreted and summarized by machines, too.

This changes the game for public relations.

Because while LLMs can be incredibly powerful, they’re still prone to hallucinations — a polite term for making things up. And if you’ve spent even five minutes with Google’s new AI Overviews (AIOs), you’ve seen it firsthand.

Some examples I’ve personally encountered in AIOs:

• That Gouda is the best-selling cheese in the U.S.
• That you should add non-toxic glue to pizza to keep cheese from sliding off
• That drinking urine is an effective treatment for kidney stones

Related: Why AI-Forward Communication is the Future of Public Relations

Ridiculous? Absolutely. But it underscores a bigger issue: these systems can spread false or misleading information quickly and at scale.

Even with less extreme topics, hallucinations happen. I once asked Grok to summarize my background. It confidently told me I’d served in the Army Airborne. In reality? I was a Marine.

As more people rely on AI to answer questions they once typed into search engines, the accuracy and relevance of your brand’s presence in these models is becoming critical. Not only do you want to make sure the information is correct, but you also want your brand to show up at all. Ideally, you want to appear in answers about your industry, not just yourself.

So, how do you influence what these systems say? Unfortunately, it’s not as easy as feeding them your preferred narrative. If it were, AI tools would already be flooded by spam from low-quality marketers.

Instead, LLMs prioritize information from trusted sources across the web, and not all sources are weighted equally. Your company’s official website helps, but third-party credibility matters far more.

That’s why editorial media coverage remains the most powerful tool in modern PR — and it matters now more than ever. There are two core elements here: high-quality editorial features and press releases.

Editorial features — stories published by reputable media outlets that quote you or spotlight your work — carry the most weight. Why? Because they’re difficult to manipulate. Getting published requires a compelling topic, a unique perspective and often, relationships with journalists. You have to earn it. That’s exactly why LLMs treat this kind of coverage as a strong trust signal.

The more insight you share in those features, the better. If you’re quoted briefly, it suggests your voice is just one of many. But if your expertise shapes the bulk of the story, that sends a much stronger signal — both to readers and to the algorithms parsing it.

That’s also why it’s smart to pursue interviews and contributor content in addition to being quoted. These allow you to go deeper, share your thinking more fully and increase the likelihood that your perspective makes it into an AI summary.

Press releases still matter, too — but in a more limited way. They’re a paid channel, so anyone can publish them, but there’s still some editorial oversight. Editors at distribution services do basic fact-checking and screen for hyperbole before syndicating them to media outlets. The key is to make sure your press release is actually newsworthy. A strong release can also prompt journalists to cover your story further.

While LLMs pull data from various formats — text, audio, video — text-based articles still produce the fastest and most reliable impact when it comes to influencing AI responses.

Related: Yes, AI Might Take Your PR Job. Here’s What You Can Do About It.

In many ways, AI has transformed PR. But the fundamentals haven’t changed. You still need to earn high-quality media coverage. The difference is that now, those features are no longer just about reaching human audiences — they’re about training the machines that shape perception at scale.

The companies and individuals who recognize this shift and act on it now will gain a long-term advantage. Those who don’t? They’ll get left out of the conversation — by people and by AI alike.

The CEO of the World’s Most Valuable Company Says This Would Be His College Major in 2025

What would Jensen Huang study if he were 20 years old again?

Nvidia’s 61-year-old CEO answered this question during a trip to Beijing on Wednesday, as reported by CNBC. Huang, who graduated from college two years early at the age of 20 and is now the CEO of the most valuable company in the world, said that the “20-year-old Jensen” would have “probably chosen more of the physical sciences” over “the software sciences.”

The physical sciences include disciplines that study non-living systems, such as physics, earth science, and chemistry. Software sciences, on the other hand, include fields like computer science and AI engineering.

Huang didn’t major in either of those areas. His LinkedIn profile shows that he graduated from Oregon State University in 1984 with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering. He received a Master’s in the same field from Stanford University in 1992. Electrical engineers make the physical computer hardware used by software engineers and developers.

Related: Nvidia CEO Says ‘100% of Everybody’s Jobs Will Be Changed’ Due to AI

Huang did not elaborate on why he would have picked the physical sciences over software engineering, but he has stated in the past that AI equalizes software development, allowing even non-programmers to generate code. At London Tech Week last month, Huang said that everyone can write code simply by prompting AI using natural language.

“There’s a new programming language,” Huang said at the event. “This programming language is called ‘human.'”

Huang has repeated the same message before. Last year, he said that AI would take over coding, making learning programming languages optional.

Huang previously said that if he were in school today, the first thing he would do is “learn AI.” In a January interview on the podcast “Huge Conversations,” Huang said that students should be asking the question, “How can I use AI to do my job better?”

“Learning how to interact with AI is not unlike being someone who is really good at asking questions,” Huang said on the podcast.

He also said in the interview that he uses AI as a personal tutor to learn new things, program, write, and analyze concepts. Huang uses the $20 a month version of ChatGPT as a tutor and Perplexity’s AI search engine to learn more about subjects like biology.

Related: Nvidia’s CEO Says It No Longer Matters If You Never Learned to Code: ‘There’s a New Programming Language’

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was also asked what students should study. In an interview last year with Bloomberg, Zuckerberg said that the most important skill young people should embrace is thinking “critically” and “learning values.”

Zuckerberg said in the interview that he hires new people based on their demonstrated ability to dive deep into a field and master it. Zuckerberg has been on a hiring spree lately, poaching AI experts from companies like OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic to build a new AI team.

Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and has served as its CEO ever since. Nvidia is the biggest company in the world, with a market capitalization of $4.21 trillion at the time of writing.

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Amazon Ring Staff Reportedly Must Prove That They Use AI To Get Promoted

Ring founder Jamie Siminoff is back at Amazon after a two-year break, now leading the tech giant’s home security camera division as a VP. The division is called RBKS for its entities: Ring, Blink, Key (in-home delivery service), and Sidewalk (wireless network).

And according to an email viewed by Business Insider, if employees at RBKS want a promotion, their applications will now have to describe how they use AI at work. This is meant to reward “innovative thinking” and promote speed and efficiency, Siminoff wrote.

Related: ‘No Longer Optional’: Microsoft Staff Mandated to Use AI at Work

“When we combine innovative technology with our missions, we create something truly special,” Siminoff wrote in the email viewed by Business Insider.

Siminoff famously pitched his video doorbell company, then called “Doormat,” on “Shark Tank” in 2013 and left without a deal. Then, after the company was acquired in 2018 for a reported $1 billion by Amazon, he went back on the show, this time as a Shark investor, sitting alongside Kevin O’Leary and Mark Cuban, the same people who rejected him years prior.

Amazon isn’t the only tech giant that’s requiring the use of AI for promotions and performance reviews.

In June, Microsoft also began considering formal metrics for evaluating how much employees use AI during the workday.

Julia Liuson, president of the developer division at Microsoft, reportedly sent an email to managers that said “using AI is no longer optional,” and the time spent using internal AI tools, both in-house and from the competition, should be measured in employee performance reviews.

Related: Duolingo’s CEO Clarifies AI Stance After Backlash — Read the Memo

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Guy Fieri Teaches His Team This Customer Service Secret — And It Can Unlock Unexpected Success For Your Business Too

On every episode of How Success Happens, I get to talk to awesome people and find out how they do what they do. This week, I sat down with the living embodiment of the word “awesome”: Guy Fieri.

I flew to Las Vegas to meet up with the Mayor of Flavortown himself at Customer Contact Week, a massive gathering of business and tech leaders showcasing the latest solutions, tools, and strategies for seamless customer operations across a variety of industries.

Related: Martha Stewart Shares the Tree She Most Identifies With and How It Shapes Her Business Mindset

We sat down with a bottle of his Santo Tequila and a container of tenders from his Las Vegas Chicken Guy! outpost and chatted about how the restaurateur, entrepreneur, TV star, and philanthropist got to where he is today. And importantly, how he is using his unique position to support restaurant industry workers, as well as first responders, law enforcement, and the military through his Guy Fieri Foundation.

Listen to our entire conversation here or watch the video above. Below are some highlights of our chat, which have been edited for length and clarity.

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What does the word “success” mean to you? How has that definition changed over time?
I think the word success for me means impact — having the energy and the connections and the empowerment to make really big things happen. My wife asked me what I’m going to do when I retire, what’s gonna be the end game? And I said, it’ll all be philanthropy. I was down at my house in Mexico for a week’s vacation, and a little restaurant on the beach had burned down. No insurance, the place was just destroyed. There was another restaurant in town that was closed on Tuesdays, so I went to the restaurant owner and said, “Hey, can I borrow your restaurant on Tuesday?” I grabbed my friend, and we did a pop-up in that spot. And in this little fishing village in Mexico, they raised $15,000 in one night for the owner and his displaced workers. That’s what success is.

Since we’re here during Customer Contact Week, can you share your best to entrepreneurs about leveling up the customer experience?
One of my favorite books is Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. I think people miss one of the points of the book, which is that you need to understand that everybody sees the world from their own perspective. The first thing I teach any of my team members is that when they are dealing with a guest who is having a negative experience, remember it’s not personal. You didn’t screw up the steak. You didn’t make the table reservation late. But that does not relieve you of the responsibility to engage that guest. What is the first thing anybody wants to hear when something goes wrong? I am so sorry. That’s very frustrating, and I am here to try to remedy this the best I can. Offer them a seat at the bar, get them something to drink. Engage. People tend to shut down and get defensive in those situations. We feel attacked. But you need to give your customers consideration and treat them as you would want to be treated. That is transformative.

Related: Bar Rescue’s Jon Taffer Shares the Small Business Practice That Drives Him Nuts

We’re talking here on Friday the 13th Eve. Are you superstitious?
I’m not superstitious. But I’m very spiritual, though. I never believed in the afterlife or any of that kinda stuff, but when my little sister passed away, I started to get these feelings. I needed to talk to her. I went to a medium, and it was crazy, so many people from my past were showing up. There’s no way anybody could make this up. Someone could study you for 10 years, and there’s no way they can say the things to you that are being said. I asked if my sister was going to show up, and the medium said, “She’s been here the whole time.” And I said, “Why isn’t she talking to me?” She said, “Oh, your sister says she talks to you every day.” We were raising my nephew; he was 10 when she passed away, and she said she was with us the whole time. And that just connected everything for me. Here’s my theory: a baby in a bassinet can’t talk or understand us, but there’s some connection that happens when we lean in. It’s there. So I wonder if we are the baby in the bassinet, and there is some higher power that we connect with, even if we can’t speak or understand.

Listen to the rest of the conversation here.

About How Success Happens

Each episode of How Success Happens shares the inspiring, entertaining, and unexpected journeys that influential leaders in business, the arts, and sports traveled on their way to becoming household names. It’s a reminder that behind every big-time career, there is a person who persisted in the face of self-doubt, failure, and anything else that got thrown in their way. Subscribe now on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

Astronomer’s CEO and HR Chief Were Caught in a Coldplay Kiss-Cam Scandal. Here’s How the Unicorn Tech Company Has Responded So Far.

It was the Coldplay kiss cam moment that caused cringes around the world.

The CEO of a unicorn tech company and his head of human resources appear to have been caught on camera in a not-so-work-appropriate moment that has since gone viral. Now the two executives, Astronomer CEO Andy Byron and Chief People Officer Kristin Cabot, are facing public (and workplace) backlash.

What happened at the Coldplay concert?

On Wednesday evening at Gillette Stadium near Boston, a popular segment of Coldplay’s show took an unexpected turn. The band’s camera crew singles out people in the crowd and puts them up on the jumbotron, and lead singer Chris Martin improvises a song. This time around, the camera landed on a snuggling couple who quickly tried to hide their faces. Martin quipped, “Either they’re having an affair or they’re just very shy.”

A video of the moment quickly went viral, and as the video spread, it revealed that Martin might have been on to something. The man in the video was Byron, and the woman was the company’s human resources chief, Cabot. The problem? Byron is married to someone else.

What is Astronomer?

Astronomer is a private data infrastructure startup that reached “unicorn” status in 2022 with a $1 billion or more evaluation. According to the company’s LinkedIn page, “Astronomer empowers data teams to bring mission-critical analytics, AI, and software to life.”

How does a CEO scandal like this affect the workplace?

The incident creates potential legal troubles and a crisis of leadership for the company, David Rice, HR expert at People Managing People, told Entrepreneur via email.

“The big issue is the example that it sets. Obviously, a CEO should know better. But the fact that it’s with the chief people officer is even worse,” Rice wrote. “She should definitely know better, and that is going to lead to a complete mistrust in HR, no matter what happens next.”

“Both are on the hook here, and no online apology is going to make this go away,” says Rice, pointing out why companies need to have very clear HR policies about inter-office relationships and the consequences of not adhering to them.

Has Astronomer responded?

An Astronomer spokesperson told Newsweek and the New York Post that the supposed apology from Byron that has been circulating online is fake. So far, that has been the company’s only comment, as of press time.

Variety reports that the fake apology from Byron was posted on X, with the imposter writing that they wanted to apologize to his wife, family, and colleagues, and noted, “I am a Coldplay fan. And not just of the first two albums. I also like the recent stuff.”

Another fake post, attributed to Coldplay, read: “Starting with our next show, we’re introducing camera-free audience sections for people and their sidepieces.”

Related: IBM Replaced Hundreds of HR Workers With AI, According to Its CEO

My Uncle Lost $14M by Treating His Business Like His ‘Baby’ — Here’s the Lesson Every Founder Needs to Learn

When I was growing up, my parents were in the hotel business. In fact, at one point, they owned three hotels. My dad died when I was quite young, and my mother continued operating the hotels. She did well, but she soon realized that the three hotels were too much for her, so she sold two of them.

She proceeded to invest heavily in the remaining hotel. She expanded the dining room and introduced “sizzling steaks,” which were a huge hit at the time. She completely renovated the “tap” room and introduced daily entertainment for the patrons. People were raving about what a great businesswoman my mother was! However, my mother never talked business with me. She kept everything close to the vest, and I never appreciated what she had done. But then again, I didn’t really care. I was too busy playing sports and chasing girls!

Related: 7 Things I Wish I’d Known Before Starting a Business

The second generation

It didn’t really seem as if the second generation was going to play a role in this business. My sisters got married and moved away. My brother became a lawyer and moved to Boston, and I decided to become an electrical engineer because they were receiving the highest salary upon graduation (not a good reason to become an engineer, as you will see). Somewhere between my sophomore and junior years, I got the urge to be an entrepreneur.

After some research, I contacted a tailor in Hong Kong and pursued importing some of their famous suits. I never implemented it because, in the final analysis, I couldn’t imagine myself measuring some guy’s inseam! By my senior year, I started thinking seriously about my mother’s hotel. One day, I returned from classes and learned that the hotel had burned down. So much for the hotel business!

My uncle as my mentor

My mother’s brother, Uncle Ken, had a very successful paper distribution business. In fact, my mother told me that in 1959, he was offered $14 million for his business. It was always a major event when Uncle Ken came to visit. He would pull up in his Cadillac, and I would carry his bags into the house. He would always give me $5, and that was a lot of money at the time.

When I graduated college and moved to Boston, I decided that I needed a business mentor if I was ever going to pursue my own business. My dad died when I was young, and my mother never talked business with me — so Uncle Ken was the answer. I called him and we started having dinner meetings every other month or so, and I would pepper him with questions about business.

One evening, I met him at his office and he asked me to wait while he finished a meeting. The office walls didn’t go all the way to the ceiling, and I could hear their conversation. They seemed to be talking about buying my uncle’s company. I heard one of the men say, “Your company is only worth your equipment, and we value that at $250,000.” I thought, “Wait a minute, it’s 1969, and 10 years ago, the company was worth $14 million — and now it’s worth only $250,000!”

Related: What to Know About Selling Your Business

The takeaway

This is a true story. As they say, “I can’t make this stuff up!” My uncle fell in love with his company. It became his “baby,” and he couldn’t give his “baby” up — with disastrous results. That five-minute “snippet” had a major impact on my business philosophy. But most business founders treat their companies as their “babies” and hold them far too long. Businesses, like everything else, have a life cycle.

The business lifecycle

Let’s talk about the classic lifecycle of a business. The number of years is highly dependent on the particular industry. In a fast-changing industry like high technology, the time from start-up to decay could be a few years, while a slow-changing industry like insurance might take several years.

Every company gets to a level (plateau) where, in order to get to the next level, they require a capital infusion. This usually happens between $5 and $10 million in revenue. The company may need new management as the business owner may not have the appropriate management expertise, and the company may require a CFO to strategically handle the financial requirements of growth. The company will need to increase marketing efforts and hire more competent salespeople. The company may need to open regional offices to tap new markets. The company will need more space to house the increased support and administrative staff.

Just before the peak of the bell-shaped curve, where the business growth has slowed (but is still growing), a decision has to be made on how to implement a new growth surge to get to the next level. If the owner has the ability, the energy and the motivation, she/he can find the capital, either through debt or equity, to fund a new growth surge. If the owner does not have the ability, energy and motivation, hopefully they have put the company in a position to find the “right buyer.”

Related: Study Shows Entrepreneurs Really Do Love Their Businesses Like Their Children

If the owner waits until the company’s growth begins to decline, not only will it be more difficult to find the “right buyer,” but also more difficult to procure the funds for organic growth. I can only imagine what my Uncle Ken would have realized from the sale of his company if he had followed this strategy and not treated his company as his “baby.”

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How to Build a Team That Can Execute Your Vision

In a recent team meeting, something became undeniably clear to me: Although I’ve got a bold, clear vision for my PR firm, not everyone on my team felt confident about stepping into it, either when I first hired them or even later, once they were an established staffer.

Some felt they lacked the education to connect their daily work to our broader purpose; others simply didn’t believe they were equipped to carry out that purpose. When they shared their thoughts with me, that’s when I realized where leadership meets reality. A vision without empowered people behind it is just a poster on a wall — it’s nothing but a framed motto in the office that no one pays attention to with their heads down at their desks.

As leaders, therefore, it’s our job to go beyond just articulating a mission. We must create the systems, the culture and the psychological safety our teams require to own it. Execution doesn’t happen because the boss demands it; it happens because people believe they have the capacity and capabilities to execute.

If you want your team to execute your vision, start by making sure they understand it, see themselves in it and feel supported enough to take resolute steps forward. Vision becomes reality through confident action, and confident action begins with intentional leadership. Here are the guidelines I relay to my team to enable that.

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Step #1: Trust your judgment

Remind every member on your team that they were hired for their strengths and instincts. If you didn’t see in them characteristics that would serve both your own company objectives and their professional growth, you wouldn’t have brought them on. So counsel them to trust their own judgment — built on their distinct proficiencies and experiences — when they’re making decisions on behalf of your organization. The more they see that you have trust in them, the more they’ll trust themselves.

Related: 7 Ways to Build Consumer Trust Naturally

Step #2: Self-assurance counts

Even when your people feel a little trepidatious or unsure on the inside, you want your customers to feel assured in your company’s services or products. So I tell my staff to speak with confidence in their responses and communications, which sets our clients at ease and makes them feel well taken care of.

It’s fine to still be learning (to always be learning, actually); it’s okay to not always have the answers. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t present yourself as knowledgeable and resourceful in the interests of the company’s overall goals. Saying, “You know, I’m not 100% sure of that, but I’ll ask our marketing director and get back to you with an answer by the end of the day” is just as reassuring to the client as having the answer readily available on the spot.

Step #3: Mistakes are fixable

Mistakes are going to happen. People are going to mess up. Details are going to slip through the cracks. It’s inevitable. But you can make your staff feel vitally supported even when missteps occur by explaining that there’s nothing someone can say or do that can’t be corrected. Maybe it can’t be erased or totally remedied, but I can’t think of any company faux pas we’ve experienced that hasn’t been made better by a concerted effort to improve the situation.

We all grow by trying, not by being paralyzed by fear or giving in to anxiety. So make it part of your company ethos — make sure your people know that it’s okay to slip up and that you’ll be there for them to get them back on solid footing. By doing so, you’ll all continue to advance toward a vision that’s perfectly imperfect for your company profile.

Step #4: Be forward-thinking

A great way to effectively execute a company vision is to keep looking at it through your forward-facing windshield, not your rearview mirror. So I consistently encourage my team members to anticipate needs, plan next steps, devise solutions, sometimes even before there’s a need for them.

Part of this mindset is prompting your people to lead from where they are, to not wait to be led. When you allow this kind of autonomy and self-determination at work, it boosts your team’s morale, it builds their cumulative strength, and it shepherds them toward enacting their own informed choices. All of this feeds into your company vision positively, proactively and powerfully.

Step #5: Don’t wait for permission

On a related but separate note, you can nurture your team by permitting them to not seek permission. True, you don’t want people going rogue and implementing plans that could negatively affect your client base or that involve pricing. But if something falls squarely within their role and it aligns with the spirit and intent of your company’s values, let your team members roam free. Just be sure they’re well-versed on those values first!

Examples of this: I let my writers write the way they think is best for our clients. I let my publicists devise their own pitching hooks and press release themes. I let my operations manager manage operations without too much input from me, and I let my client representatives establish their own one-on-one personal relationships with their accounts. If things aren’t clear, they know they can ask questions. If they need authorization for something, they know who to go to. But mostly, I like to write out a lot of permission slips and see how far my staff can go on their own merits.

Related: The Most Successful Founders Take Retreats — Here’s Why You Should, Too

Step #6: Management has your back

If you’re grooming a team that can help you progress toward your overarching vision for your company day by day, it’s imperative that they feel wholly supported in their efforts. This means showing them — not just telling them — that leadership is there to guide, to bolster, to champion, not to micromanage.

Nothing will kill a company’s elan like looking over everyone’s shoulder every day and questioning their actions. Instead, management should embrace the role of being the team’s coach and cheerleader all in one, the buttress to lean upon when reinforcement is needed and the voice that amplifies their own rather than stymying it.

When you empower your team with all these ideas and ideologies, empowerment isn’t just part of your culture; it becomes your culture. And when you’re the wind beneath your team’s wings, not only will they fly, you’ll all fly strong and steady together toward the company of your dreams.

The Surprising Strategy Smart Leaders Use to Outpace Disruption

Nothing tests a leader like turbulence. Just ask the thousands of executives watching AI disrupt their industries. ChatGPT was released just two years ago; OpenAI reports it now sees over 400 million weekly users, with more than 90% of Fortune 500 companies integrating its tools. By comparison, the internet didn’t reach this level of adoption until nearly a decade after its debut. That kind of acceleration isn’t just impressive — it’s disorienting. Nearly three-quarters of professionals globally say they feel overwhelmed by the current pace of change at work. So, how do leaders prepare for this level of disruption while managing the change required to unlock real value from new technologies?

There’s a saying: You don’t lose your job or your business to AI (or any “new technology” for that matter); you lose it to the person or competitor who learns how to use it better than you do. As AI drives unprecedented speed and efficiency, the real competitive threat isn’t the technology itself, but the leaders who harness it first.

One thing is clear: Companies that can’t adapt fast enough fall behind, no matter how brilliant their product or loyal their customer base. The key difference between the brands thriving through AI disruption and those scrambling to stay afloat? Leadership agility.

Agile leaders don’t simply absorb change — they anticipate it, build for it and move through it with intentional speed. The good news? You don’t need a C-suite full of technologists to lead this way. Here are three ways you can foster business agility right now:

Related: Here’s Why Business Leaders Today Need to Have An Agile Mindset

1. Anticipate what’s next, not just what’s now

Reactive leaders chase problems. Proactive leaders predict them and pivot early enough to turn friction into advantage. This kind of leadership doesn’t just respond to change; it creates the conditions to meet it strategically, before urgency takes over — especially as new AI-driven tools, old competitors and new market entrants can change the market landscape in weeks, not years.

One example: Zoom, once known mostly as a conferencing tool, anticipated that hybrid work wasn’t going away. Instead of coasting on its pandemic-fueled popularity, it expanded into virtual collaboration, AI note-taking and whiteboarding. That foresight helped the brand stay essential even as competitors caught up.

Similarly, leaders who recognize that AI can offload repetitive tasks, such as scheduling, data entry or note-taking, free their people to operate at the top of their license. In other words, by pushing repetitive, more tactical work to machines, humans can spend more time on strategic, creative or relationship-driven activities.

In executive coaching, for instance, senior coaches can now dedicate more time to meaningful conversations with clients because AI-powered summaries handle the note-taking. Or take nursing in hospitals and add in AI-video-based fall-risk detection. Now, nurses can spend less time watching patients and more time “top of their licenses” caring for them. These kinds of shifts allow teams to deliver more value, faster and at lower cost. And if your competitors embrace this before you do, they’ll pull ahead.

The takeaway? Market signals rarely whisper for long. Pay attention closely, anticipate and move while you still have the advantage. Think about your industry, company and people. How might AI improve or replace some (or all) of what you do in the future? Then find ways to leverage new technology to level up what you do.

Related: How to Spot Trends and Anticipate Market Shifts Before Your Competition

2. Strengthen your tech foundation before it’s tested

Agility doesn’t come from reacting faster. It comes from building infrastructure that can flex under pressure, not crack. Too many businesses delay adopting new technologies until something breaks, opening themselves up to downtime, security threats and operational standstills. And in an AI-enabled environment where new platforms evolve rapidly, that lag can make the difference between staying relevant or falling behind.

Technical debt — the accumulation of outdated systems and patchwork fixes — can quietly slow a company to a crawl. But it’s not just technology that creates drag. Procedural debt, or the tendency to keep doing things the “old” way simply because that’s how it’s always been done, can be just as dangerous. Legacy processes layered with workarounds become a hidden barrier to speed and innovation, trapping organizations in patterns that no longer serve their goals.

By confronting both technical and procedural debt early, leaders clear the path for true agility. This proactive approach ensures their teams and systems are ready to pivot, scale and seize opportunities without being held back by outdated tools or entrenched habits.

As Thomas Koll, CEO of Laplink Software, puts it: “Forward-thinking companies are moving away from reactive tech upgrades and instead building resilient, adaptable infrastructures that support continuous AI adoption — including AI PCs — as part of an ongoing evolution. This empowers professionals to experience fewer technical disruptions, be ready for new AI tools right on their desktops and focus on innovating and streamlining business workflows.”

Building a resilient, AI-ready organization isn’t just a technical necessity. It’s a strategic move to empower your team to do higher-value work. When leaders implement systems that incorporate AI thoughtfully, they enable employees to focus on tasks that require human judgment, emotional intelligence and creative problem-solving. This sets a new standard for productivity and innovation that competitors will quickly match (or exceed) if you don’t move first.

Strong tech foundations aren’t about shiny tools; they’re about keeping your people and systems ready for the next pivot, before it’s forced on you.

3. Build an agile organization that frees your team to innovate

Agility isn’t just about having the right technology and processes. It’s about creating an organizational structure that keeps teams flexible, focused and forward-looking.

Rigid hierarchies, overcomplicated approval chains and outdated workflows weigh down progress. Leaders who prioritize process agility create space for innovation by reducing daily friction. This might mean empowering teams to make faster decisions, rethinking how information flows or eliminating bottlenecks that slow execution.

Spotify offers a compelling model. As the company scaled, it pioneered the use of squads: small, cross-functional teams with end-to-end responsibility for a feature or product area. Each squad operates like a mini-startup, empowered to make decisions independently, experiment with ideas and release updates without getting bogged down in centralized approvals. By combining autonomy with a shared mission, Spotify’s squads keep collaboration tight and innovation fast, helping the company respond quickly to user needs and industry trends.

Leaders who clear these kinds of roadblocks give their teams room to solve problems before they become crises and room to experiment before competitors do.

Related: Your Business Will Fail Without Innovation — Here’s How to Weave It Into Your Culture

Agility is a mindset, not just a model

In a market where AI is accelerating change faster than ever, agility isn’t optional. The most successful companies aren’t the ones that dodge disruption altogether. They’re the ones whose leaders build the muscle to adapt and empower their teams to stay ahead.

Remember: AI adoption isn’t about replacing people, but about amplifying them. By delegating lower-value tasks to AI, you unlock your team’s potential to operate strategically and empathetically — capabilities no algorithm can truly replicate. Companies that seize this opportunity will position themselves to innovate continuously, while those who hesitate risk being left behind by faster, more adaptive competitors.

Whether you’re refining your tech stack, streamlining how your team works or scanning the horizon for what’s next, every decision you make sets the tone for how your business handles change. Lead with agility, and your company won’t just survive the next shift — it’ll shape what comes after.

Join top CEOs, founders and operators at the Level Up conference to unlock strategies for scaling your business, boosting revenue and building sustainable success.

I Took My Side Hustle Full-Time and Made $222,000 Last Year. Here’s How — and Why Sometimes I Work Just 10 Hours a Week.

This as-told-to story is based on an interview with Seattle, Washington-based tutor Carter Osborne, who owns college essay consulting business Carter Osborne Tutoring. Osborne started tutoring as a side hustle in 2017 to help with tuition payments while in graduate school. In 2024, Osborne quit his job as a PR director to take the business full-time. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

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I turned my tutoring side hustle into a full-time business in January 2024.

There was a push and pull for me in this direction:  The push was that it became challenging to balance both my full-time PR job and my college essays, which I considered a side hustle at the time, although it had grown to the point that it took up as much time as my PR job. During the busy college application season, I was essentially working two full-time jobs, and it just didn’t work anymore.

Then the pull was that I love the artistic and creative aspect of working on college application essays. I find it so personal and enriching in a way that PR just didn’t quite match. So I was like, Okay, I have a connection to something here that is generating a lot of revenue, as much revenue as my PR job, but it’s more enjoyable day-to-day. I like working with the kids. I like working on storytelling. By the time I made the choice, it had become fairly obvious which one was right.

Related: This Graduate Student Started a Side Hustle to Help Pay Tuition. It Earned Over $115,000 Last Year — More Than His Full-Time Job.

 I had a vague idea that I wanted to increase my revenue by about double, thinking, Okay, I’ll have twice as much time and should be able to dedicate that to my business. I’d love to double my revenue. So I raised my rates, knowing that that was a stretch goal going in. Just because I’d freed up an hour didn’t mean I’d have that much more business. I had to go out and earn more clients and spend more time with them.

Between 2020, a few years into the side hustle, and 2023, I grew revenue from $58,000 a year to $114,250 a year. I had 37 clients in 2020 and 54 clients in 2023. When I took the side business full-time in 2024, I hit $222,000 in revenue with 66 clients. My business is highly seasonal. College application deadlines typically fall between November and January, so the second half of the year is the busiest. I made roughly 80% of my revenue last year between July and December.

During the busy season, I work 50 to 70 hours per week, depending on the month. October is typically the busiest as we approach the first major deadlines of the year, which fall on October 15 and November 1. During the off-season, I work roughly 10 to 15 hours per week, and I often step away entirely for vacations that aren’t possible during the busy season.

This industry runs on referrals; they’re the golden ticket. When parents want to hire someone to work with their kid on something as high-stakes as the college admissions process, frontline advertisements, social media marketing or other click-and-learn campaigns aren’t the way in for people because it feels a little too high-stakes and is often a multi-thousand-dollar commitment. Parents want to hear from their friend that they had a really good experience, and then rely on that barometer of trust to select a consultant.

Related: This Former Teacher Started a Side Hustle That Made More Than $22,000 in One Month: ‘I Have Never Been More Fulfilled’

So, the more clients I work with, the more referrals I get for the following year. It’s an exponential increase, so often in this industry, starting out is quite slow, which is why I ran the business as a side hustle for a long time. As word got out, my name got around at different schools and communities, and because I went full-time last year, I had a lot more time to put into actively working my network to generate more referrals. And I generated enough referrals to meet my revenue goals.  I was actually more excited about the number of clients I worked with than the revenue that I saw last year, because I knew it would set me up for even bigger years this year and then the following year.

Additionally, referrals from other consultants play an important role in the business’s growth. Currently, there is far more demand for services within the college admissions industry than there are professionals to provide them, so that means folks like me typically are fully booked every year. Nearly everyone in my network has filled up for this year; I’ve almost filled up. So that means we don’t have to be cutthroat and competitive with each other.  I’ll receive referrals from other consultants whom I know and who trust me to do high-quality work.

I’ve also found that sharing my story with media outlets has helped my business get some attention, but interestingly, those pieces more often lead to messages from people who want to start a tutoring side hustle themselves, versus paying clients. I’ve been able to have a lot of great conversations with aspiring tutors.

Since I’ve taken the side hustle full-time, one of the biggest challenges has been staying on top of the administrative workflow.  Now that I work with a lot more clients, I’m answering a lot more emails and addressing small questions that a student or a parent might have after our meeting is over. I do a lot more scheduling and onboarding calls with people. Even the time I spend billing and invoicing has gone up. So there’s a lot around the margins that I’m trying to make as efficient as possible.

Related: This Arizona Teacher Started a Side Hustle That Immediately Earned More Than Her Full-Time Job: ‘Much Better Than $40,000’

Down the line, I’d consider hiring someone to help with the administrative side, and by next year, I’d definitely like to hire tutors to work with me. I’d like to bring someone on to help with editing and a little bit of the at-home essay work that I spend a lot of my time doing. But I like to be hands-on with that and am hesitant to hand that off to anybody else whom I haven’t thoroughly trained, so it’ll be a long process to get the person I hire up to speed.

I’m looking forward to building a team around this business. Obviously, I worked for a large company during my PR days, but I’ve never built my own team before. You hear entrepreneurs talk all the time about how motivating and inspirational it is to build something yourself, and while I don’t necessarily know if I would call myself an entrepreneur so much as just a tutor who’s managed to find some success, the idea of building a team and expanding my services is really exciting for me.

 I now work with students all around the U.S. and from around the world. Over half of my clients come from outside of Washington state. That is fundamentally motivating for me, to think I’m able to meet these people from all over, learn all these stories and help students who are in other countries work through the international application system. That is exciting in a way that I haven’t felt in another job before.

 I genuinely love working with these students on their personal statements. Most people are very stressed out by college essays. I am not at all. To be fair, it’s easier when you’re not the one writing it. But I love working with the kids on these essays. I never cease to be amazed by the thoughtfulness and insight that high school students can bring to these essays. We often think of them as people in development, but that’s not true at all. When you read these personal statements, you realize that they see the world in a different way than we do, and often it’s in a very rich and constructive way. The more students I get to work with, the more creative and inspiring stories I get to come across in the future, which I find to be enriching in my own life as well.

Related: I Turned My Side Hustle Into a Passive Income Stream That’s Earned More Than $1 Million — But Making Money Isn’t Even the Best Part

For anyone considering taking a tutoring side hustle full-time, my first piece of advice is pragmatic: Map out the finances. Use constructive negative thinking and assume that it won’t work, then ask yourself, What would happen if this totally crashed and burned? Do I have a backup option? Can I handle it financially for 10 to 12 months? Try to give yourself a cushion just in case.

I was part-time for six years before I transitioned to full-time, so when I made the leap, I was fairly confident I had enough support to make it happen. You have to suss out the environment to know if going full-time is really right for you.

Also, think critically about what working independently means.  Often, we glorify independent work as a sense of freedom. You don’t have a boss. You don’t have performance reviews. You don’t have any externally imposed deadlines. The flip side of that is that everything is on you. If I’m going to generate a dollar of revenue, I have to go out and find it myself. If I make a mistake, there’s no one to shift blame onto, and I need to take responsibility. The safety rails are taken away, and for a lot of people, that doesn’t work. That’s not a commentary on their work ethic; it’s just not the style of work that they enjoy. For me, it is — I like that independence.

Join top CEOs, founders and operators at the Level Up conference to unlock strategies for scaling your business, boosting revenue and building sustainable success.

Netflix Co-CEO Says the Company Used AI on a TV Show for the First Time: ‘Completed 10 Times Faster’

Netflix used AI to shape one of its TV shows for the first time, marking a significant milestone in the technology’s involvement in film.

Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said on Thursday that the company used footage generated by AI in the 2025 Argentine science fiction series “El Eternauta” (“The Eternaut”), a show that follows survivors of a toxic snowfall. For the six-episode show, which arrived on Netflix on April 30, Netflix’s visual effects artists tapped into AI to create a scene showing a building collapsing in Buenos Aires.

That visual effects sequence “was completed 10 times faster” than it would have with standard tools and workflows, Sarandos said in a conference call on Thursday after Netflix delivered its second quarter financial results. Netflix reported a strong quarter, with revenue of $11.08 billion, a 16% year-over-year increase, and $3.13 billion in profit.

Related: ‘We’re Going to Be Fighting for the Survival of Humanity’: Netflix Co-Founder Donates $50 Million to Alma Mater for AI Initiative

According to Sarandos, “AI represents an incredible opportunity” for creators and presents a chance to make movies and TV shows “better, not just cheaper.” The AI-generated scene in “El Eternauta” resonated with the show’s audience, he said.

“This is real people doing real work with better tools,” Sarandos said on the call. “The creators were thrilled with the result. We were thrilled with the result, and more importantly, the audience was thrilled with the result.”

Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters also mentioned on the call that Netflix is incorporating AI into other aspects of its business, including personalization, search, and ads. Netflix introduced a new AI-powered search tool in May that allows users to find shows using prompts like, “I want something funny and upbeat.”

Netflix also reported on Thursday that its subscribers watched over 95 billion hours worth of TV shows and movies through the platform in the first half of the year, a 1% increase from a year earlier. Non-English content made up one-third of overall viewing time.

Related: NASA Will Start Live Streaming on Netflix Soon. Here’s What to Expect.

What is the difference between CGI and Generative AI?

So, how is AI use in shows different from CGI? Movies have been using CGI, or computer-generated imagery, for decades, starting with Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 film Vertigo. CGI is a tool that allows professionals to create content using computer software, giving them manual control over elements like textures and lighting.

CGI means that users create objects themselves. Generative AI, meanwhile, automatically generates objects based on a prompt. AI figures out on its own how to accomplish what is asked for in the prompt, making it less hands-on than CGI. This also means that the user has less control over an AI-generated output compared to CGI.

Join top CEOs, founders and operators at the Level Up conference to unlock strategies for scaling your business, boosting revenue and building sustainable success.

How These 2 Stanford Students Turned a College Project Into a WNBA Partnership

The tampon hasn’t changed much since it was invented over 80 years ago by a male doctor named Earle Haas. That might suggest the design was flawless — but ask the people who use them, and you’ll hear a different story.

“Period products are unreliable in critical moments,” says athlete and entrepreneur Amanda Calabrese. “For athletes, that could be sporting moments, but for a mom, it could be dropping your kids off at school, or running through the airport.”

Instead of accepting the status quo, Calabrese and her Stanford classmate and fellow athlete, Greta Meyer, set out to rethink the product entirely. In 2019, they created Sequel, the world’s first spiral tampon, engineered by and for people who actually use it.

Related: How This Tampon Company Overcame Investor Knowledge Gaps and Raised $11.2 Million

Engineering meets experience

The idea for Sequel wasn’t born out of a desire to make money — it was about solving a real problem. Calabrese and Meyer met at Stanford, where they both majored in mechanical engineering. But their connection ran deeper than academics. Both were high-level athletes: Meyer played Division I lacrosse for Stanford, while Calabrese is a six-time national champion in lifesaving, which is a whole other story.

“I’ve competed around the world wearing nothing but a star-spangled Team USA bikini, sometimes for 10-hour events on the beach,” Calabrese says. “You’re running, sweating, constantly going from wet to dry, and then add your period on top of that.”

Meyer had similar frustrations during her time on the lacrosse team. She and her teammates, often wearing white home skirts, frequently struggled with unreliable period products.

“In the locker room, they were always talking about how they could improve the experience,” Calabrese recalls.

One day in a shared entrepreneurship class, Meyer approached Calabrese with an idea: why not build a better period product?

“She pointed out that we were both engineering students and athletes, and that this would be perfect for our Entrepreneurship project,” Calabrese says. “I was immediately on board.”

Calabrese and Meyer were so committed to the idea that they expanded it into their senior capstone. At Stanford, capstones require a working proof of concept. So the duo went above and beyond, raising $50,000 in grant funding to continue the project after graduation and prove its potential beyond the classroom.

While most college grads spent that first post-grad summer relaxing or traveling, Calabrese and Meyer traded in pool parties for manufacturing plant tours.

“We spent that summer refining our idea and learning through Stanford’s accelerator, StartX,” Calabrese says. “We knew we’d need funding to kick off R&D, so we focused on crafting our pitch, and not long after COVID, we closed a $1 million pre-seed round to get things off the ground.”

Related: WNBA Legend Lisa Leslie on Building Legacy Beyond the Game

From the lockeroom to the lab

Starting with a clear problem gave the co-founders direction, but there were more questions to be answered before they could start developing solutions.

“Now we had to ask: Why aren’t these products doing their job?” Calabrese asks. “And what exactly is the job they’re supposed to do?”

After conferring with countless female athletes, they determined that the primary issue was what the industry calls “bypass leakage.”

Upon deeper reflection, the duo realized this issue was the byproduct of a design flaw.

“Tampons have vertical channels that go top to bottom on the outside of the product,” Calabrese explains. “This effectively funnels the fluid away from the absorbent core and down the side of the product.”

Recognizing the mechanical inefficiency of this outdated design, the pair came up with the concept for Sequel’s masthead product: the spiral tampon. By introducing a spiral into the tampon’s construction, they created a horizontal flow path alongside the existing vertical channels. This design increases surface area, promotes even absorption and helps prevent premature leaks by disrupting the downward flow.

“We spent years testing the fluid mechanics behind the design,” Calabrese says. “I even have a video from our dorm room where we were illustrating those concepts.”

Eventually, they started hand-pressing prototypes.

“Greta was in a full cleanroom suit, manually applying heat and pressure to create and test each one,” Calabrese recalls.

The capstone goes courtside

Since then, Sequel has flourished, becoming the first tampon partnership in the history of the NCAA by sponsoring Stanford athletics. They’ve worked with Athletes Unlimited, USL and Unrivaled.

Now, the company is taking its next big step, partnering with one of the WNBA’s premier teams, the Indiana Fever. The founders reached out to Fever star Lexie Hull, who attended Stanford herself, and left with an NCAA national championship and a bachelor’s AND master’s in management science and engineering to show for it.

“Lexie remembered hearing about us as an example in one of her entrepreneurship classes,” Calabrese shares. “We reached out to her to be our first WNBA ambassador, and she was so excited.”

The partnership offers clear financial upside for Sequel, but for Calabrese, the intangibles matter even more. “These athletes are role models,” she says. “Thousands of little girls across the country look up to players on the Fever and see themselves in these athletes.”

She notes that the first period product someone uses is often the one they stick with for life.

“Getting to work with real-life superheroes like Lexie Hull means everything to the young audience we want to reach,” Calabrese says. “But beyond that, we’re normalizing conversations around tampons and period care, ultimately aiming for them to be seen as essential game day gear, just like soccer cleats.”

After six years of research, testing, development, and navigating FDA commercial standards, Sequel is beginning to make waves in an industry that hasn’t evolved in decades.

“We believe Sequel can dramatically improve the experience of athletes and fans everywhere,” Calabrese says. “From little girls playing softball to the moms cheering them on, everyone deserves better.”

With its spiral design and athlete-driven mission, Sequel isn’t just redesigning a product. It’s redefining the conversation around period care.

Why Emotional Branding is Out and Functional Loyalty Is In

32% of customers say they would walk away from a brand they love after just one bad experience, no matter how long they’ve been loyal

Brand loyalty isn’t dead, but it is evolving. At Digital Silk, we’ve worked with hundreds of growing brands across industries, and the pattern is clear: emotionally driven loyalty is losing ground to functionality-first experiences. Consumers don’t just want to feel something — they want things to work.

And that’s a shift both in sentiment and in economics.

A decade ago, brands poured resources into storytelling and emotional resonance. But today’s consumers, especially Gen Z and Millennials, are loyal to experiences, not just feelings.

As McKinsey notes, more than 75% of consumers have changed buying behavior since the pandemic began, with many switching brands due to availability, value or digital service quality.

To stay competitive, brands need to rethink loyalty not as a marketing campaign but as a product feature.

Functionality now defines loyalty

Amazon is continuously ranked as the most trusted brand in the retail and eCommerce category in the U.S., and that’s not because of its logo or brand promise. It’s because Amazon delivers, literally and metaphorically. Free returns, one-click ordering and fast shipping are tangible functions that keep customers coming back.

And it’s not just Amazon. In a Deloitte study, 84% of consumers ranked “program simplicity and ease of use” as one of the most important loyalty attributes. This shifts the narrative. While emotional connection once held sway, today the true battleground for loyalty is built on functional design—loyalty programs and platforms must work seamlessly, not just look or feel good.

Convenience is the new brand personality.

Related: How to Build a Brand That Stands the Test of Time

Loyalty programs are being re-engineered for utility

Traditional points-for-purchase loyalty programs are fading. Today’s leaders are embedding rewards directly into product functionality. Starbucks is a prime example, not because of stars and freebies alone, but because of how the program powers frictionless ordering, payment and personalization through its mobile app.

As of September 2024, the company reported $1.7 billion in deferred revenue tied to stored value cards and loyalty activity, with over $1.6 billion expected to be redeemed within a year, according to its annual report. That is proof that users are consistently engaging with the platform, placing mobile orders, customizing drinks and redeeming offers as part of their daily routine.

This level of functionality doesn’t just improve convenience. It reinforces habit loops that make the app, not just the coffee, the sticky part of the brand experience.

Uber takes a similar approach. Through its free Uber Rewards program and paid Uber One membership, the brand rewards active users with friction-reducing perks like priority pickups, price-protected routes, free deliveries and cashback on rides.

These benefits are functional. Uber One members now account for 40% of Uber Eats U.S. bookings, spend four times more per month, and show 15% higher retention than non-members. Loyalty, in this case, is a consequence of daily usefulness.

This shift away from symbolic rewards toward integrated utility reinforces the point: the most effective loyalty programs today earn attention; they don’t ask for it.

Related: Why Gamification is the Secret Weapon for Brand Engagement

What this means for your brand

Stop thinking about loyalty as a brand halo. Think of it as friction reduction. Ask:

• How easy is it to reorder or renew?
• Do your top customers get better service, faster responses or deeper insight?
• Is your loyalty program integrated into the daily flow of your product?

If not, you’re leaving equity on the table. Loyalty shouldn’t live in a separate system, but in your UX.

Almost 90% of customers say the experience a company provides is as important as its products or services. That experience starts with functionality: seamless logins, fast checkout, accurate personalization and responsive support.

AI personalization is reinforcing functional loyalty

AI is accelerating this shift. Brands are now using real-time behavioral data to offer smarter, faster and more relevant experiences.

Netflix’s content suggestions, Spotify’s Discover Weekly and Amazon’s product recommendations all operate on this principle. These platforms don’t ask for loyalty. Instead, they earn it through predictive personalization and time-saving interfaces.

AI serves customers, but it also trains them to return.

Related: How I Used AI to Transform My Business and Create Multiple Revenue Streams

The emotional layer still matters — but it’s built on function

To be clear, emotional affinity still matters, but only after functional trust is built.

Apple users may love the brand, but they wouldn’t stick around if the devices stopped syncing. Netflix wouldn’t survive on content alone without its intuitive interface and hyper-personalized recommendations.

Functional loyalty is the gateway to emotional connection, and not the other way around.

Related: Fix This First To Make Every Ad Dollar Count

Make loyalty invisible

The most successful loyalty strategies are the ones customers don’t notice. They just work. They’re embedded in your product, reinforced by your service and rewarded by your infrastructure.

Brands that still chase emotional loyalty without delivering on functional expectations risk becoming irrelevant. The future belongs to businesses that treat loyalty not as a feeling to inspire, but as a function to engineer.