Hi Friends,

The last few weeks, I have been consulting companies on AI.

Founders come in wanting to integrate tools, reorganize data rooms, designing new collateral, building internal workflows. Real work, but very low leverage in my opinion.

They have a false sense of belief by doing more work, more efficiently, will equate to more revenue and more profits.

And I have been pulling the conversation back to something more fundamental: before we automate anything, let’s align on the highest growth levers for the company.

So I went back to first principles. Reread the books that shaped me. Pressure-tested with clients. Studied the companies and operators I respect most to find what's universally true underneath all of them.

5 principles survived.

When the noise gets loud, come back to these. They are the highest-leverage drivers of company value, regardless of industry, stage, or era.

Every growth dollar is wasted until positioning is clear. Most companies start with "how do we get more leads?" Wrong question. The right question: what are we the best at, for whom, and compared to what alternative?

At Mercatus, we spent years selling to energy companies. Good business, slow growth. When we repositioned around private equity firms, our deal size and velocity doubled almost immediately. Same product. Same team. Different positioning.

Try this: Poll your team on your positioning. Five different answers means it's broken.

Every hour spent reaching the WOW moment for customers, multiplies growth everywhere else. This is the single most important thing your team can focus on. It drives retention, referrals, expansion, and pricing power simultaneously. Every team offsite, should dedicate a minimum full day on creating more “holy shit” experiences for clients and reinforcing those habit loops.

Slack's was 2,000 messages sent. For a consulting firm, it might be the first deliverable that stops the client mid-sentence. Sean Ellis benchmarked nearly 100 startups and found a clear dividing line: if fewer than 40% of your users would be "very disappointed" without your product, you don't have product-market fit yet. Stop spending on growth and fix the experience first.

Try this: Ask your team: what is our wow moment? If nobody agrees, start there.

Funnels leak. Loops compound. Master one before stacking another.

You can simplify growth loop in 3 phases: Acquire (get customers), Activate (get them to wow fast), and Ascend (keep, grow, and compound them).

Most companies treat these as separate motions. The best companies connect them into one loop where the output of Ascend feeds back into Acquire. Satisfied client leaves a review, raises your visibility, brings the next client, who refers another, and buys more. That compounds. That is what gives you premium valuations.

An ad that drives a one-time visit does not.

Try this: Trace your last 10 wins. If no pattern emerges, you lack a loop.

Speed without direction is just expensive chaos. But speed applied to the right principles changes the math on everything else.

Position faster, and you find your market before competitors do. Engineer your wow moment faster, and retention kicks in earlier. Build your loop faster, and it compounds sooner. Price faster, and you capture value others leave on the table. Ramp integrated with Visa in 50 days when the industry standard was 12+ months. That speed became their moat.

The first three principles tell you where to aim. Speed determines how many shots you get before the window closes.

Try this: Measure idea-to-execution time across your team. Then cut it in half.

A 1% price increase drives 8% more operating profit (McKinsey, S&P 1500 study). Nearly 50% greater impact than a 1% cost reduction. More than 3x the impact of a 1% volume increase. Yet most companies revisit pricing once every few years, if ever.

Pricing touches every phase. It shapes how prospects perceive your value, how fast deals close, and whether customers expand or churn. It is the most underleveraged growth principle in every company I've worked with.

Try this: If you haven't revisited pricing in 6+ months, you're leaving revenue behind.

AI is leverage on these 5 principles, not a substitute for them. Position clearly, and AI scales your marketing. Engineer the WOW moment, and AI accelerates onboarding. Build the loop, and AI automates the handoffs. Move faster, and AI compresses the cycle time. Fix your pricing, and AI optimizes it dynamically.

But bolt AI onto a broken engine and you just break faster.

Run the 5 "try this" questions above with your leadership team this week. The principle where you get the least alignment is the principle where AI should go first.

'Til next time,

--Ali

P.S. I'm turning this into a full diagnostic with scoring for each principle. Reply "send it" if you want first access when it's ready.

About Me: I'm an AI-powered human obsessed with slingshotting companies into the new AI era. Former investment professional and fintech executive. Now I help founders connect AI to the fundamentals that compound. Slowly losing hope on Houston sports.