You might have noticed something different. soapbox.news is now The Optimizing Chaos newsletter, living over at optimizingchaos.com.

Same voice. Same person writing it. A name that finally matches the job.

Because when I sit down with a small business owner, that's what the work actually is. Chaos everywhere you look. Too many tools. Too many platforms. Too much advice. Too many people selling the next shiny thing. My job is to help you make sense of it and turn it into something that actually works for your business.

Optimizing chaos. That's it. That's the whole thing.

Head over to optimizingchaos.com and you'll see what this is about. Behind-the-scenes builds. Pattern recognition. Tools and systems. Problems solved. That's the work. That's what's going in this newsletter going forward.

Speaking of chaos, let's talk about AI.

There are five types of people right now when it comes to AI and LLMs. Figure out which one you are, because where you sit on this list is going to matter a lot in the next twelve months.

One. You tried ChatGPT once. You asked it for the best Shepherd's Pie recipe, had a laugh, and that was that.

Two. You started paying the $20 a month. You're using it more seriously, asking better questions, and you know there's something here worth learning.

Three. You're spending $200+ a month and you're building things with it. This is where I sit.

Four. You've decided AI is all hype. It's a fad. It isn't intelligent. And it certainly isn't going to bother you or your business. You're happy to wait it out.

Five. You haven't touched it at all. Not for, not against. You just haven't gotten to it yet.

If you're in category four, I think you're in for a rude awakening, and sooner than you'd like. I've watched this story play out before. It's the same one businesses told themselves about the internet in 1998. A few of them are still around. Most aren't.

If you're in category five, you're in a great spot. You haven't formed an opinion yet. There's a whole world of possibilities sitting there waiting for you, and you get to walk into it without any of the baggage the rest of us picked up along the way.

I can already hear the pushback. "Jono, AI is overhyped. It can't really do that much."

So here's my answer.

This is what I've built in the last month, using AI as a working partner. Not as a gimmick. As an actual tool I use every day.

Five client websites.

Four more websites for my other businesses.

A full CRM with whiteboards, memory maps, and project management built in.

A CMS that schedules blog posts, social media posts, and runs the ad network for 315NY.

An online newsletter spam checker.

An online map generator that works for any point on the globe.

And a game called Haulage Tycoon, with realtime vehicle tracking, a full transport economy, and even an AI assistant built in to help you run your business inside the game.

That's one month of work. On top of running three businesses and starting a fourth.

Read that list again. One person. One month. All of it built and working.

Imagine what I'll have built by the end of the year. Then think about what's possible inside your business if you got into it instead of waiting it out.

This is why category four worries me. It isn't that AI is magic. It's that the gap between the people using it properly and the people pretending it doesn't exist is widening every week. And there comes a point where the gap is too big to close.

If you're in category five, go and open Claude today. Not ChatGPT. Claude is the one you want, and you can take that from someone who's tried all of them. Don't ask it for a recipe. Ask it something that's been bothering you about your business. A real question. The kind of thing you'd normally chew on for weeks. See what comes back. It won't cost you anything.

If you're in category one or two, push it harder. Stop treating it like a search engine. It isn't one. Give it real context about your business, tell it what you're trying to figure out, and ask it to push back on you instead of agreeing with everything you say.

If you're in category four, I'd genuinely like to hear what's stopping you. I'm not going to try to talk you into anything. I just want to understand it.

And if you're already in category three, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

Now I want to turn this around.

I have a question for you. And before you fire off the first thing that comes to mind, sit with it for a minute.

What is one business result you've always wanted but have never been able to achieve?

Whatever it is, I want to hear it.

Remember, I build things. I solve things.

Reply to this email and tell me the one thing. Let's see what we can do about it.

Best

Jono