Every time I bring this up with a man one-on-one, he goes quiet. Not defensive. Not dismissive. Just quiet. Almost like he's trying to figure out if it's safe to say "Yeah, I feel left out."

And honestly, that silence is the part that gets me.

The Silence

Men have learned there often isn't a safe way to say that. So they say nothing.

And nothing is how you get lonely.

Austin is full of women-only mixers, dinners, meetups, founder groups, wellness circles, business circles, women-everything. Other cities too.

I know of exactly two men-only groups. Both are support groups. And it's good those exist.

But look at what that means.

The Double Standard

The only men-only rooms nobody objects to are the ones for men who are already in crisis. We're fine with men gathering when they're hurting. Less fine when they just want to connect.

Per the CDC, men are roughly 4 of every 5 suicide deaths in this country. About 80%. That is not an abstract number to me.

Scott Galloway said it plainly: "No group in America has fallen further, faster than young men."

My Perspective

I was raised by my dad. Most of my friends in high school were guys. The men in my life taught me to see things I'd have missed otherwise.

And I'm definitely not anti-women. I run an in-person club with roughly a 50/50 split each week, men and women.

Walk into almost any other tech or AI event and it's 80 to 90% men. That makes me happy.

A Bigger Table

I think the fix for left-out is not another locked door. It's a bigger table.

I sat on this for a few months. Partly because it's controversial. Partly because my friends, guys and girls, have heard me go on-and-on about it enough. So here it is.

Here's the thing: exclusion doesn't solve exclusion. When we create more spaces that lock people out, we're not building connection. We're just moving the loneliness around.

The men in your life might be feeling this and staying quiet about it. That silence matters.

If you're a man who has felt this and stayed quiet, please reach out. I actually want to know.

So I asked him one question: if you disappeared for 30 days, what breaks?

His answer was everything. Every client relationship. Every decision. Every fire. All him.

The Risk Factor

That's the problem. When a buyer sees a business that runs on ONE person, they see risk. And they price it in. The discount for owner dependence runs anywhere from 20% to 50%.

So we didn't list.

Building the Machine

We need to now spend time implementing AI into how the business actually runs. Same revenue. Same clients. Different machine. So it can easily work without him being the bottleneck.

Here's what that will do to the number. I built a quick animated chart so you can see the two lines split.

The Math

A digital agency at $1.5M in EBITDA sells around 3x when it depends on the founder. That's $4.5M.

The same agency, systematized and running clean, sells closer to 7x. That's $10.5M.

Same business. Same revenue. We can MORE THAN DOUBLE the exit. A $6M swing, and the only difference is whether it still needs you.

A New Approach

And here's why this matters to me right now.

Too many businesses are coming to me wanting to sell, and they're just not ready. They won't get the price they want.

For years I ONLY listed businesses for sale. That was the focus, on purpose. I rarely got in on the building and fixing side with founders.

That changes now, and I'm excited about it. I get to roll up my sleeves and help them maximize the exit before we ever list. In there with them, hands dirty, building the business a buyer pays more for.

Your Move

The bottom line? If your business can't run without you for 30 days, you're not selling a company. You're selling a job. And buyers know the difference.

Whether it's AI, systems, or the right team, removing yourself as the bottleneck isn't just good for your sanity. It's worth millions at the exit table.

What's the one thing in your business that still ONLY you can do?

For a while there, my entire relationship with AI was bookmarking. I would find some incredible tool, think "oh, this is going to change everything," save it, and then never touch it again. My tabs were a graveyard of good intentions. Sound familiar?

At some point I got honest with myself. I did not have an information problem. I had a DOING problem. And once I saw it in myself, I started seeing it everywhere: smart, capable people drowning in AI newsletters and YouTube explainers, knowing more about AI every single week and building less.

So in March 2026 I started the AI Implementation Club. The whole idea fits on a bumper sticker: talk less, build more.

No slides. No panels. No theory.

Most "AI events" are someone on a stage telling you what is possible while you sit in the dark taking notes you will never read again. We do the exact opposite. No slides. No panels. No theory. Just DOING.

Every Sunday a room full of founders, operators, and curious humans shows up in downtown Austin, picks ONE AI thing they actually want to build, and builds it. That is the entire format. You leave with something real instead of seventeen new tabs.

How a Sunday actually works

It is simpler than you would think:

• 1:00 PM: Show up, grab coffee, pick the one thing you are going to build today. Just one.
• 1:15 to 3:15 PM: Heads-down build sprint. Library quiet. Two hours of you and the thing you are making. (Yes, there is a buzzer if you start chatting. I am only half kidding.)
• 3:15 PM: Show and tell on the big screen. Demo what you made if you want to. No pressure, but the demos are my favorite part of the day.

That is it. Two and a half hours that move you further than two months of "researching."

You do not need to be technical

I need to say this part clearly, because it is the thing that stops people before they ever walk in: there are no prerequisites. None.

I am not a developer. I started this club to fix my OWN bad habit, not because I am some engineer. On any given Sunday we have complete beginners sitting next to ex-Google engineers, and everybody builds. If you can show up and you are willing to actually try, you belong in the room.

When you want to go deeper: the Masterclass

The Sunday build sessions are free, and they always will be. When you want something more hands-on, we run ticketed Masterclasses led by a guest instructor, where the whole room builds the same project step by step, in real time. Seats are capped so you get real attention, and lunch is on us.

Why this actually matters to me

I have spent more than twenty years building and selling companies, and the through line never changes: the people who win are the ones who DO. AI did not rewrite that rule. It just raised the stakes.

The real gap is not going to be between people who know about AI and people who do not. It is going to be between the people who use it and the people who keep meaning to. The club is my answer to that. It is small, it is in person, and it is real. As everything else races online, getting a room of people in one place to actually make things feels almost rebellious. I love it.

Come build something

If your AI bookmarks are collecting dust, consider this your sign. Stop learning. Start building.

We meet every Sunday in Austin, and we just launched a weekly virtual session so you can build along from anywhere. Come find us at AIIC.club and grab a spot.

Christine!! What's it WORTH??

And honestly? I live for these texts. That spark is my favorite thing about this whole world right now.

The Reality Check

But here's the thing:

• You haven't made a dollar.
• You don't know if one single human wants it.
• And there's no plan yet to get it in front of the humans who might.

That's not a business yet. That's a really fun project with maybe some potential. There's a difference.

The Right Order

I price businesses for a living, so here's the order that actually works:

• Get one stranger to pay you.
• Then get a bunch more.
• Hit profitability.

Then come text me about valuations and I will happily tell you what it's worth today and map out the exit strategy for that dream dollar amount living in your head.

The Plot Twist

Because here's the plot twist nobody wants: The building was never the hard part. Especially now. AI will whip up your app while you're still deciding on a coffee order.

The hard, sweaty, unglamorous part? It's 100% the marketing and the selling. It was hard before. Now there's so much noise out there, it's ten times harder.

The Flip Side

And there's a flip side I'm watching too. People spending months and months building software, vibe coding their way into "Tech Startup Founder" status, before they've asked one single person if they even want the thing.

That one's a little scary to watch. All that time. All that heart. And no clue yet if anyone's waiting on the other side.

One Simple Ask

Before you wonder what it's worth, go find out if anyone will actually buy it. Get a stranger to pay you first. Hit profitability. Then we can talk valuations and exit strategies.

The spark of building something new is exciting. But a business isn't born until someone opens their wallet. That's the real validation that matters.

So tell me what you're building. Reach out! I genuinely want to know.

Almost nobody did. And that gap costs founders real money. Because three buyers can look at the exact same business and hand you three completely different offers.

Three Buyer Types

There are only three reasons anyone buys a business:

• Lifestyle. They want to own a job. Replace an income, run it themselves, get out of corporate hell.
• Strategic. They already own something and want what you have. Your customers, your team, your market.
• Financial. They want a return. Clean numbers in, bigger numbers out.

Same business. Three buyers. Three very different prices.

What They Want

The lifestyle buyer cares about one thing: Can they run it without you?

The strategic buyer pays the most, because buying you saves them years of building it themselves. It's a way to scale even faster by grabbing marketshare, your team, and everything else you've built.

The financial buyer will negotiate every half-point of the multiple, and feel nothing while they do it. We have yet to have private equity as a buyer of our listings for this exact reason.

The Mistake

So when you pitch all three the same way, you leave money on the table.

Most founders walk in talking about the wrong thing to the wrong buyer.

Key Takeaways

Know your buyer type before you pitch. Lifestyle buyers want to know they can run it solo. Strategic buyers pay top dollar because you're saving them years of work. Financial buyers are all about the numbers and will squeeze every point they can.

Understanding why someone wants your business changes everything about how you position it and what you can ask for.

This weekend I hosted my first AI masterclass for the implementation club I run. Two builders taught the room of 27 how they actually use AI.

Not "what is AI." Not "the future of work." Just laptops open, building alongside them in real time. People stayed two hours past the end and nobody checked their phone.

A Realization

Standing in the back of the room, it hit me: I've always loved computers. Since I was a kid loved them. But I was too outgoing, too social, too "let's go" to ever sit alone and become a software engineer.

Now? I don't need to be. Claude is technical FOR me. I'm just the non-technical techie geek who FINALLY gets to play in this world.

The Takeaway

You don't have to be a traditional coder to build with technology anymore. AI tools like Claude can handle the technical side while you bring the ideas, the energy, and the vision.

This is a new era for all the outgoing computer lovers who couldn't sit still long enough to actually code. Now you can play too.

Anyone else fall in love with computers as a kid but couldn't sit still long enough to actually code?

I went to my second "Thought Experiments on Patios" event hosted by Nicole Forrester. Over 100 strangers debating philosophical scenarios together in Austin. And not once did anyone ask "What do you do?"

It was so refreshing.

The Format

The event runs 3 rounds of small group conversations. You rotate every 25 minutes. Halfway through, they drop a twist that adds a new constraint to your discussion.

Real philosophical questions. The kind that make you think about how you actually see the world.

People came with curiosity, not business cards.

Different Energy

I've been to networking events around the world. Most of them blur together in a haze of "what do you do" and elevator pitches.

Austin? People show up curious. They try weird formats. They actually want to know each other.

Finding Community

Four months in and I'm hooked.

Here's the thing: the best connections happen when you stop trying to network and start trying to connect. Austin gets that. People here aren't just exchanging information. They're exchanging ideas.

When you find a place where strangers gather to debate philosophy instead of pitch their businesses, you know you've found something special.

Anyone else find their people in an unexpected city?

A screenshot folder with 100+ saves. 12 months of links, YouTube videos, LinkedIn posts, Instagram reels, articles, and courses.

Implemented? Almost none of it.

I was completely paralyzed by information overload. Learning everything, building nothing.

So I started something about it.

The Club

The AI Implementation Club meets every Sunday in Austin.

A small group of founders shows up with ONE AI thing they want to implement. Then we go heads down for 45-minute silent build sprints.

No slides. No speakers. No theory.

The Rules

There is a buzzer though.

If you talk during build time, you get buzzed.

At the end you tell the room: Did it ship or not?

Join Us

Last week was our first session. This Sunday is the next one.

March 29 | 1:00 to 3:30 PM
Private founders club in Downtown Austin. 10 seats. Approval required.

And I'm so excited about my Windows '95 branding. Such nostalgia.

Get Started

Here's the bottom line: if you're tired of learning about AI and ready to actually do something with it, this is your chance. Show up with one thing to build, stay focused, and ship it.

Don't live in Austin? A virtual version is launching soon too.

If you're in Austin and ready to stop collecting bookmarks and start building, join here.