Don't Listen to Them

A lot of my friends tells me I've got to learn how to do the things I'm not particularly good at. My reaction to this is always the same; "Naah, I'm good!"

Running a company of course, this creates "interesting results" for me, such as for instance ...

1. I'm a terrible sales person
2. I don't understand anything about marketing
3. I'm a terrible manager of people
4. I always tends to undersell myself and my services
5. I'm way too honest

Basically, I'm a classic high functioning autist, chemically cleansed for "people skills", and that's actually my advantage.

Soccer Philosophy

There are two basic philosophies about how to deal with the above weaknesses. You can spend time trying to learn the skills you're not good at, or you can simply ignore them and exclusively focus on what you're good at. I thoroughly belong to the second camp, even though 99% of the world will passionately disagree with me.

However, I also passionately disagree with 99% of the world here, so I guess we're even 😂

30 years ago the Norwegian soccer team had a coach. I don't watch soccer. Sorry, I just don't get it. However, their coach was probably a little bit autistic, and he had a unique philosophy that I insanely agree with. Instead of having his players focus on their weknesses and trying to learn how to become good at what they're not good at, he'd tell them to ignore their weknesses, and exclusively focus on their strengths.

The result was the weirdest soccer team in history. You'd have one guy who's task was literally to get the ball from one position, kick it with his left foot, to a guy whose sole purpose was to get the ball into the goal with his head. Some other guy had the job of blocking the mid field, and do nothing else. All players had single responsibilities, and the coach would become angry with them if they did something else, even when they succeeded.

This coach took arguably the worst soccer team in history, and brought them phenomenal results, and restored faith in Norwegian soccer again. They'd win over teams considered 1,000x better, over and over again - With the entire world in shock over their results.

I've taken the above to heart, as my personal philosophy, resulting in similar results for me personally. The funny thing is that you don't need a team to achieve similar results, you just need faith in that it'll work. Basically ...

Do what you love, ignore everything else!

The Advantages

If you stop looking at your weaknesses as weaknesses, but instead look at them as advantages, some really funny consequences are naturally born out of this change of perception.

1. I don't have to focus on sales, so I get to spend all my time creating amazing software, and delivering amazing customer service. This results in that technically my competition are decades behind me, allowing me to deliver a unique product, that nobody out there can match.
2. My ad budget is almost zero, resulting in that I've got less expenses, resulting in more profitability.
3. I don't waste time on managing others, I don't need an office, and I can work from home. No employees, no problem!
4. My clients are always getting a really good price, resulting in a retention rate that's very high, so once I get a client, they tend to stay for a very, very, very long time.
5. I get to personally bond with most of my clients over time, resulting in a friendship that sometimes transcends the client/vendor relationship, resulting in that clients are referring their friends, even though I don't even have affiliate deals.

The funny thing is, if you only do what you love, people will see that, and love your products the same way you loved creating them - At which point "everything else" becomes irrelevant

Most people don't actually realise this, but there's only one employee in AINIRO, and that employee is me. I tend to use the "we" word sometimes in meetings, but literally, it's just me. But when people see what I've created, one single employee, their ractions are always the same; "OMG!"

1. The most amazing AI chatbot on the planet.
2. The ability to create AI workflows triggering events in other systems, integrated with "everything" else you've got, exclusively using no-code and low-code means, resulting in AI assistants technology that most would agree is decades ahead of Siri and Apple.
3. A No-Code and Low-Code AI platform that's got so many features it's almost absurd to think that one guy created it all.

Basically, I'm a one guy company, delivering products and features at a speed, that's literally 1,000,000 faster and better than every single Fortune 500 company combined!

Don't believe me? I've got science and math to back it up.

1. HubSpot's AI chatbot versus AINIRO
2. Salesforce Einstein versus AINIRO's Frank
3. Zendesk AI chatbot versus AINIRO
4. Intercom's AI Chatbot Fin versus AINIRO
5. Five9 versus AINIRO

Most of the above companies are Fortune 500 companies, having invested probably billions of dollars into AI research and development. Compared to what I did alone, they look like steam locomotives in the 21st Century.

Wrapping up

I'm not saying this to brag in any ways, I'm saying this because I think I've found something of value, something you can benefit from yourself. For instance, I don't need VC money. I've had several offers, and I've consistently told them to "go f themselves". I've got a great thing going, why would I want to share it?

Friends of mine tells me I've got to scale. My reaction is always the same; "Why? I'm OK, and I don't plan on selling the company any time soon. This is my passion, my second girlfriend. Why would I want to sell her?"

If you want to have a single conclusion, wrapping up the entirety of my philosophy, let's go for it ...

YOU are right, and all others are wrong! Don't listen to them, they've got no idea of what they're talking about, and they're mostly just regurgitating garbage they've seen on Facebook and LinkedIn. Do what you love, ignore everything else - And everything else will somehow magically turn out to your benefit 😊

Ohh yeah, and if your competitors sux big time, let the world know! If one of your clients don't like you talking negatively about your competition, where your competition deserves to hear it, they probably wasn't a good client in the first place, and should probably go somewhere else 😁

When you love what you do, it's impossible to not be proud about it. When you're proud about your work, and others delivers 1% of your quality, it's impossible to not talk about it. If you've got a vendor not talking bad about its competition, my advice is to maybe go look for an alternative vendor - Because it implies they've got no pride in what they're doing. And if they're not proud about what they're doing, their stuff is shit! End of debate!!