The Quiet Urgency of AI: What to Build, When to Act, How to Win

📣 Just Launched: AI Accelerator for Agencies

Finally, a hands-on AI event designed to move your agency from ideas to execution.

🗓️ Date: July 16
🕐 Time: 1–5 PM ET
📍 Format: Virtual, private
👥 Spots: 12 senior agency leaders
💵 Cost: $750 (use code STU10 for 10% off)

Register here.

Tired of AI events packed with lofty predictions but no practical playbook?

So are we.

That’s why we’re launching the AI Accelerator for Agencies: a half-day, high-impact event built for leaders who want to actually do something with AI.

You’ll get:
✔️ 5 live, expert-led sessions
✔️ Practical workflows for strategy, ops, marketing & creative
✔️ Clear frameworks you can implement immediately
✔️ Exclusive access to the Just Curious expert network

 ✔️ We’re capping it at 12 to ensure every participant gets tailored support and live Q&A with our experts.

If you're navigating client pressure, shrinking margins, or competitive lag, this event is designed to help you lead with clarity, and ship real results.

🔗 Full agenda & speakers: AI Accelerator for Agencies →
✉️ Want in? Reply “Agency Spot” to hold your seat.

Spots are limited by design. First come, first confirmed.

🎙From Idea to MVP in 5 Weeks: How Nicole Hedley Uses AI to Build Real Products at Warp Speed

Nicole Hedley is the co-founder and CEO of Headstart, an AI-native software development company where 90–97% of the code is written by AI agents. With a background in engineering at Pinterest and experience leading 50+ person teams, Nicole didn’t just adopt AI, she rebuilt the software development process around it.

Her team helps growing companies—from oil & gas to fashion—go from vague idea to production-ready product in weeks, not quarters.

🔥 Why Nicole’s Perspective Matters

If your team still relies on bloated dev cycles or overpriced SaaS tools, Nicole’s model offers a new path: custom AI-powered software, delivered fast, with a lean team.

This is especially relevant for:

• Startup founders and product leaders who need to build faster without compromising qualit

• Agency owners or ops teams aiming to reduce vendor reliance by bringing solutions in-house

• Executives exploring AI agents for real task completion, not just workflow automation

Nicole’s model proves that you don’t need a 10-person dev team to build real software anymore, just a clear problem and the right AI orchestration. Headstart’s approach isn’t just faster, it makes custom software as accessible as SaaS, but fully yours.

“We always ask: What’s your dream output? What inputs do you have? Then we build everything in between using AI.” — Nicole Hedley

📺 Watch & Learn

• Full Interview → Launch Real Products in Weeks: How AI Changes the Game

• Case Study  → Automating Luxury Fashion Sourcing with AI: How Gab Waller Scaled Her Business

• 1-minute Clip → When Regular Software Beats AI—and Why Combining Both Matters

🧠 Nicole's 4-Point Playbook for AI-Driven Product Development

Big Idea: You don’t need a dev team. You need a well-scoped outcome and an AI agent that delivers it.

1. Start With the Outcome, Not the Tech

Too many teams lead with tools (“Can AI do this?”). Nicole flips that:
→ Ask: What problem are you solving? What’s the ideal output?
Once that’s clear, her team handles the “how” using LLMs, APIs, and minimal code scaffolding.

2. Agentic Workflows > Basic Automation

Headstart builds agentic systems, not just static workflows.
→ These AI agents keep working until the task is truly complete, using tools like file editing, Figma parsing, search, and API calls.
Her favorite use case? A custom coding agent that builds production software and applies final branding in hours instead of weeks.

3. Use AI to Scale, Not Just Save

Nicole’s clients aren’t just reducing time, they’re growing faster.
→ One fashion sourcing client cut a multi-hour manual task into minutes using vision AI and now serves far more clients with the same team.

“We don’t just save hours, we enable new revenue by scaling what teams can do.”

4. Prioritize Talent That Can Think, Not Just Code

The best devs in an AI-native company aren’t traditional engineers, they’re communicators.
→ Nicole hires people who can articulate complex business logic clearly so AI can write effective code.

“The skill now is describing what you need, not writing perfect code by hand.”

🎥From the Vault: Unlocking AI Value & Redefining Leadership

This week, we’re spotlighting three high-impact conversations featuring Alex Goryachev (Innovation Strategist), Glenn Hopper (G3 Consulting), and Juan Alfageme (Deloitte), each offering clear frameworks to help SMB leaders prioritize, govern, and scale AI initiatives with confidence and speed.

Whether you're building your first AI use case or rebooting a stalled initiative, these perspectives will help you:

• Align AI efforts with real employee behavior (not top-down mandates)

• Move from dashboards to data-driven decisions

• Ditch scattered pilots and build a value-first AI roadmap

Each expert delivers a practical, repeatable methodology that SMB teams can apply immediately.

🔄 Alex Goryachev’s Shadow AI Framework: Rethink AI from the Bottom Up

Forget your top-down AI playbook. Your team’s already using AI, with or without you. Alex offers a bottom-up approach that prioritizes safety, transparency, and employee-led innovation.

1. Audit Your Shadow AI Ecosystem
70% of employees already use AI tools, often without permission.
→ Run a safe, non-punitive discovery process: What tools are people using? Why? Where are they filling operational gaps?

2. Create Guardrails, Not Bans
Instead of blocking AI, create minimal policies that protect data while encouraging experimentation.
→ Focus on psychological safety and risk transparency, not strict control.

3. Use Bottom-Up Data to Guide Strategy
Your AI roadmap shouldn’t come from vendors, it should come from your team.
→ Ask them: “How can we save 20% on time or cost with AI?” Then reward the best answers.
→ Use these insights to decide when to buy vs. build.

“Most AI use today is noncompliant, and that’s exactly where the innovation is.” — Alex Goryachev

👉 Watch the full interview →

📊 Glenn Hopper’s Finance AI Ladder: From Dashboards to Decisions

Many finance teams still spend most of their time wrangling data. Glenn’s AI ladder helps you shift from reports to revenue-driving insight. This turns finance from a reporting function into a strategic growth engine.

1. Clean Your Data Before You Touch AI
Start with a full audit: source of truth, KPIs, governance.
→ If your financial or customer data is fragmented or inconsistent, no AI tool will fix it.

2. Use GenAI to Elevate—not Replace—BI
Dashboards show you what happened.
→ Use chat-based AI to ask why it happened, without writing SQL or R.
→ Early wins: forecasting, variance analysis, 13-week cash flow projection.

3. Build Modular, Multi-Source Copilots
Instead of dashboards that go stale, create copilots that query QuickBooks, HubSpot, Snowflake, whatever you use.
→ Use natural language as your new interface.

“Think of GenAI as an exoskeleton for your finance team. You still move, but 10x faster.” — Glenn Hopper

👉 Watch the full interview →

🧭 Juan Alfageme’s Prioritization Matrix: Stop Random AI Pilots

Random pilots waste time. Juan shares a structured matrix to help SMBs prioritize AI projects with real business ROI.

1. Start With a Use Case Workshop
Interview teams to surface real bottlenecks.
→ Translate pain points into candidate use cases. Don’t start with shiny tools.

2. Use the Two-Axis Matrix:

• Impact: Revenue, efficiency, cost reduction, or strategic edge.

• Feasibility: Data readiness, technical lift, regulatory barriers.

→ Score each opportunity, then stack-rank based on business alignment.

3. Target 3–6 Month Wins
Don’t chase the biggest ROI first.
→ Start with quick, provable MVPs to build momentum.
→ Scale only what proves value and lowers cost per use.

“Great AI projects don’t start with GPT, they start with scoping workflows.” — Juan Alfageme

👉 Watch the full interview →

🔍 My Favorite Things Last Week

“The Gentle Singularity” by Sam Altman
Read the full essay →

Whenever I read something like The Gentle Singularity, I ask two questions:

✅ What does this mean for me?
✅ What does this mean for anyone leading a business today?

Altman’s essay isn’t just a meditation on AGI but a clear signal: the gap between sci-fi and small business is shrinking, fast. One line, in particular, has stuck with me:

“Intelligence too cheap to meter is well within grasp… it probably sounded more crazy in 2020 to say where we’d be today than it does now to predict where we’ll be by 2030.”

This quote captures the quiet urgency of now, and why SMBs can’t afford to wait.

🔟 Inspirations for SMB Leaders from The Gentle Singularity

1. AI will be your cheapest hire.
   Start automating tasks that were previously too costly or complex.

2. Adoption will feel gradual. Until it doesn’t.
   The inflection point will hit hard. Start now or play catch-up later.

3. Tools > Theories.
   You don’t need to understand AGI to get value from AI. Just use it.

4. There’s still room for human-centric growth.
   Lean into empathy, creativity, and service. AI will amplify, not replace.

5. Size is no longer a limiting factor.
   A five-person team can now punch at the level of fifty.

6. Decision-making will be the differentiator.
   The winners won’t just use AI. They’ll deploy it well.

7. Customer experience will be the battleground.
   Everyone has AI. What matters is how helpfully and uniquely you apply it.

8. Your learning curve is the new moat.
   The faster you experiment, the stronger your edge.

9. Talent will flow to AI-native teams.
   Show you’re serious about AI, and better people will want to join you.

10. Future-proofing starts with mindset.
    You don’t need to predict 2030. Just adapt faster than your peers in 2025.

If intelligence really is about to become “too cheap to meter,” the smartest move isn’t to wait but to build.