Aaron Klein 🇺🇸

Just put the finishing touches on September's monthly email...all those subscribers got to read the essay below about a month ago! The world moves fast, so subscribe today. Link in bio. 😉 I think you'll love last month's post...subscribers sure did!

“It only takes 90 seconds” is a terrible reason to keep doing something yourself. I had about 70 of those little email chores waiting for me every weekend. Now Donna handles them, and I’m down to five emails that need my attention. This is the part of building an AI assistant that gave me my Saturdays back.

Your smaller clients should benefit from AI, too. When AI cuts down on prep and paperwork, you have more time to spend with them. And when it helps you remember the little details from past conversations, you can make that time count. Say a small employer told you they were losing good employees. A few months later, they ask about adding a benefit. AI can connect that question to the concern they shared earlier, helping you ask: “Is this part of your plan to keep people?” Now you’re talking about what they’re trying to solve, without making them explain everything again. That’s the kind of AI investment I’d want an agency to make: more time for clients, with a better memory of what matters to them. Even the smallest account should feel the difference.

Congrats to the Brewers and all their fans. This was your year, and you did it with class and dignity. Way to make us all proud of baseball. ⚾️ 🇺🇸

I helped rename Riskalyze to Nitrogen. Looking back, we did it too early. We knew we wanted the company to offer more, but customers couldn’t yet see enough of that change in the product. The new name gave them a question we hadn’t fully answered. @danzitting and I talked about that gap on Beyond the Meeting. His advice: build and release the expanded product offering before changing the name. Customers should already be using what makes the company different when you announce the rebrand. A rebrand can describe where you’re going. Customers still judge what they can use today. Considering a rebrand? Watch my conversation with Dan Zitting before you change the name. go.contio.ai/rebrand-x

Obviously still using Copilot.

In 1986, nobody could foresee that this man would one day be banned from the NBA for an entire season.

Red carpet service shouldn’t be reserved for your biggest clients. Think about what makes a client feel known: you remember what they told you, ask about that change in their business, and call before they have to chase you. That kind of conversation takes human attention. Preparing for it used to mean digging through months of emails and notes. Of course, I'm now using @ContioAI to put that kind of intelligence right at my fingertips. Every client is 10x easier to truly know, and remember details about. Imagine calling a small-business owner: “Last time we talked, you were planning to hire. How’s that going?” You can spend the call going deeper, instead of starting from scratch. This is AI that amplifies the impact of human relationships. Everyone deserves the red carpet.

I appreciate how openly @DerrickTKinney talks about learning to let his team take more ownership. Their ask was simple: let us do it 70% your way. Give us room to handle the rest. When you’ve built a business around your own standards, that takes trust. It’s a useful question for any founder: where could your team take more responsibility if you gave them room to do things differently? Watch or listen to the full episode of Beyond the Meeting below. go.contio.ai/bottleneck-x

I've worked with some GREAT executive assistants in the past, but Contio isn't big enough yet to afford one. I shared last week about how I built Donna (named after the famous EA in the TV show Suits). Let's talk about how Donna helps me schedule meetings. She can't do everything a great EA can do, but it's way better than having it all on my plate. Part two of my behind-the-scenes look at Donna...

There’s a simple step Scott can take. He should tell the @united board to cut his $34 million salary to $30,000 and voluntarily mail the rest of it to the federal government. Whenever someone recommends socialism, they should agree to go first.

One of the most useful hiring lessons I took from The Hard Thing About Hard Things: hire for strength, not for lack of weakness. A startup rarely has the budget for the candidate who checks every box. Get clear on the few strengths the role really needs, and look for someone exceptional in those areas. Someone other companies overlook for their weaknesses could be exactly who you need. I joined @matthewcosgriff on The Advisor Library to talk about the books that shaped how I built Riskalyze, hired teams, and made room for family along the way. Our episode is out today. Thanks for having me, Matt. Full conversation: go.contio.ai/aaron-advisors-…

AI gives us a new kind of computer. We should build like it. Anthropic’s daily code changes grew from about 2,500 to over 30,000. Its old system couldn’t keep up, so a seven-person team used Claude to help build Scion around what AI tools need. That’s the question I’d start with: what would we build if we were starting with this computer today? If you skip that, it's like trying to run the web on vacuum tubes and punch cards.

This is only three orders of magnitude better than the actual HomeView launch film was.

Amazon wants to block my agent from recommending what I should buy because it wants to provide the agent instead. That's the difference between talking to a financial advisor who is in my corner, vs. a salesperson trying to sell me a product. Get with the program, Amazon — we aren't going back to the old way.