I've been an entrepreneur for the best part of 30 years, almost entirely in the digital world. I've started businesses, built websites, launched products, had some successes and, inevitably, a few failures along the way.
But something has happened over the past 12 months that has completely changed the way I work. And, quite possibly, the way I'll spend the next 30 years.
I think I've discovered superpowers.
Those superpowers, of course, come from AI.
I've always considered myself reasonably good at spotting opportunities, developing business strategies, creating brands, designing products and figuring out how to market them. What I've never been particularly good at is writing software.
For most of my career, turning an idea into a working business meant finding developers, explaining what I wanted, managing the development process, waiting, reviewing, changing things and, inevitably, spending quite a lot of money.
Today, much of that dependency has disappeared.
And the consequences have been extraordinary.
From ideas to working businesses
One of the businesses I'm involved with is Powerworks Garage, an automotive service business in Dubai where I'm a founding investor and responsible for digital strategy.
Like many businesses, Powerworks had accumulated different software systems for managing bookings, estimates, job cards, customer relationships and billing. None of them worked together particularly well.
I'd wanted to build something bespoke for ages, but the cost and complexity made it difficult to justify.
With AI, I built the foundations of an entirely new CRM in a matter of days. Over the following weeks, we developed it into a sophisticated system managing thousands of customer relationships, workshop operations, marketing, automations and customised invoicing.
It's software designed around how the business actually operates, rather than forcing the business to adapt to somebody else's software.
And I built it myself, with a lot of help from my new AI colleagues.
Another example is The Garage Guys, a new venture renovating and transforming residential garages in Dubai.
Using AI, we've developed the brand, website, CRM, an AI-powered design studio that helps customers visualise their garages, a proposal generation system and digital contracts.
We've now signed our first customer contract.
What would previously have taken months and a considerable budget has been achieved in a fraction of the time.
It's about much more than writing code
This is perhaps the biggest misconception about AI that I encounter.
People tend to focus on its ability to write software, generate images or answer questions.
For me, the real magic is how it brings all those capabilities together.
Take Magiport, a venture we're developing to help airlines, rail operators, ferry companies and other travel businesses generate additional revenue from their customers' destinations.
AI has helped me research the market, challenge the commercial model, identify potential partners, develop presentations and even discover a relevant international travel industry conference where we could promote the business.
And yes, it's helped build the technology too.
We're also revitalising On the Spot, a digital business that's been around for approximately 30 years, combining new technology, expertise and investment to create something considerably more ambitious.
And there are plenty of other projects keeping me occupied: BetterFXRates, Visit Network, Centric Homes, Cyclists.com and The Entrepreneur Institute, each using AI in different ways to accelerate development, research, marketing or operations.
Not all of these businesses will succeed. I'm under no illusions about that.
But the cost of testing an idea, and the time it takes to discover whether it has commercial potential, have fallen dramatically.
My most productive hour of the week?
Here's a slightly ridiculous example of how much my working life has changed.
I spend a lot of time cycling. Most Saturday mornings I'll head out for a long ride, followed by an hour or so driving home.
Recently, during that drive, I had an extended voice conversation with AI about some new functionality I wanted to introduce into the On the Spot platform.
By the time I arrived home, we'd discussed the concept, challenged various approaches, worked through the user experience and produced detailed software specifications.
Those specifications had been saved directly into GitHub, ready for implementation when I next opened my laptop.
An hour in the car, without touching a keyboard, had become an incredibly productive development session.
I find that quite remarkable.
The biggest challenge now is knowing when to stop
There's an unexpected downside to all this.
Building things has become so easy that maintaining focus is probably my biggest challenge.
I've always had more ideas than time or resources to pursue them. Previously, the practical difficulties of developing something acted as a natural filter.
That filter has largely disappeared.
Now I can have an idea over breakfast and potentially have a working prototype by lunchtime.
That's incredibly exciting. It's also potentially a recipe for spreading myself far too thin.
And while AI can help build a business, it certainly doesn't guarantee customers, revenue or success. Those still require judgement, persistence and a healthy dose of luck.
So, what's next?
At this stage in my entrepreneurial career, I genuinely didn't expect to feel quite this excited about what comes next.
I'm learning something new almost every day, and the possibilities seem to expand faster than I can explore them.
I've started updating Performous.com to bring together the businesses I'm involved with and share some of what we're building.
I'd also love to hear from anyone with an interesting business idea, an operational challenge that might benefit from AI, or simply a curiosity about what's now possible. Feel free to get in touch.
And one final question.
Did you find this interesting?
I'm considering documenting more of my day-to-day experiences using AI to build businesses, develop products and improve operations — including the things that don't work.
If that's something you'd enjoy reading, leave a comment. I'd be interested to know.
Because after 30 years as an entrepreneur, I have a feeling I'm only just getting started.