Now
What is live
Closing out a record season at Adventure Idaho, and building the systems and training to run the next one better.
On-site operations installs for owner-operated service businesses and portfolio companies: the processes, the model of the operation, and the automations and connectors that tie together the platforms a business already uses, built inside the operation with the people who run it. Described on the work with me page.
Writing about what I keep seeing in other companies: everyone bought AI, and almost nobody connected it to the business. The essay, with sources.
What I tested
Whether a business's operating rules can be found by analysis instead of by memory, against an operation where I already knew every answer. The analysis recovered ten percent of the hard constraints, which by my own bar is judgment rather than a method. The useful part was where the rest turned up: most of the rules I had never written down came from the log of every time a person overruled the system. That changes how I would start any install. The write-up, and the runs and scoring.
What I got wrong recently
I spent a long time believing the hard part of this work was building the software. It is not, and it has not been for years. The hard part is writing down how a business actually works, and I could not see that because in my own operation I already knew every answer, so it cost me nothing.
I also assumed the expensive step was the interview. It is not quite that either. Nobody who runs an operation can recall their rules on request, myself included. What works is showing people their own data and letting them react to it, which is a far easier thing to ask.
What I am looking for
A service business, or a company that owns several, where one person answers "can we do it, by when, for how much" all day from memory, and where things exist that can only be in one place at a time. Ninety minutes, and I will tell you what I find.
What I want to work on next
Growing good service businesses: the demand, the operation and the systems underneath, for long enough that the improvements compound. Software, automations and AI are tools, not the point. The judgment about where they belong is.