Three mental models for rebuilding your business in an AI world

Executive overview

AI is making current business decisions — your CRM, team roles, marketing strategy — obsolete. The window to rebuild is 12–24 months.

Three frameworks help: treat your current business as already dead, use AI agents as an unlimited free workforce, and build moats that AI can't easily replicate.

The businesses that thrive post-AI will be those that rebuild around exclusivity, community, and experience — not technology alone.

Rethinking your business from scratch

• Assume every prior decision is wrong in a post-AI world — start with a blank slate.
• Ask: same audience? Same offer? Same model?
• Speed to value: identify the outcome customers most want, then find the fastest AI-enabled path to it.
• Map all the outcomes your customers seek, list every way to deliver them, then identify where AI can do 80% of the work.
• Example: an AI onboarding portal can deliver 80% of a coaching programme's output within minutes of a client filling in basic details.
• Rethink Press spun out BookMagic.ai — same IP, new AI-native delivery at $50/month vs. hands-on human process.

Delegating Atlanteans

• Atlantis mental model: imagine a billion PhD-level experts willing to work for free — that is agentic AI.
• Ask: what would you do for clients if you had unlimited expert labour?
• Assign AI agents as dedicated assistants per client — website reviewers, pitch rewriters, strategic consultants.
• This transforms a subscription product: clients gain ongoing AI-powered value and have no reason to cancel.
• Businesses limited to old thinking can only offer simple, basic services.

Building new moats

Old moats (e.g. proprietary codebases) are disappearing — AI can replicate software at near-zero cost. Four elements define the new moat:

1. Define a game where you can be top 10%. Narrow the niche until you can genuinely lead it (e.g. "helping men over 45 run their first marathon", not "fitness trainer").
2. Exclusivity. Limit who you work with — high demand plus selective entry criteria signals quality and creates desire.
3. Community. Members don't just get access to you; they get access to each other — a curated, filtered group worth joining.
4. Experience. Real-world, memorable events (dinners, retreats, high-access experiences) that digital competitors cannot replicate.

The three moat ingredients — exclusivity, experience, community — form a triangle. Together they create durable competitive advantage.