F*CK A*H

IDK if this is a newsletter but…

I figured we just talk business or word vomit my founder pains. Share what’s working, what’s not, break down some tools, and hopefully throw out insights that y’all find useful. More than anything, I want this to be a circle for sharing good practices—so if you ever catch me struggling through something, put me on.

🚨 OKAY, I’M STARTING WITH A COMPLAINT.

FUCK ACH.

Why does it take 3-5 days for a bank to settle with another bank, to settle with another bank, to settle with my bank just so I can get my own money?

I’m trying to be a responsible CEO and make sure all payments go through my business bank account via ACH instead of Venmo or Zelle—rookie shit. But 3-5 days to get my own funds? That’s wild.

Me and my roommate always talk about how America runs on credit, and at larger scales, sure—but in this creator and local business economy, it’s a necessity.

You already gotta:

• Wait to prospect a client

• Wait to close the deal

• Wait for them to send the money

Now you’re waiting again just to get access to the funds? If you’re running a bootstrapped business, that’s crippling.

I’m literally the last person to want to delay an invoice, but I can’t pay you if my money is still in transit. And even though it’s 2025 and crypto exists, we’re still out here using dinosaur banking methods.

🔥 If you know a better solution, PLEASE tell me. I’ll share it with the circle.

🤖 AI vs. Manual Work – What’s Worth Automating?

We recently stopped using AI for clipping content and went back to doing it manually. Now let me be clear—I love AI. If you’re not using it within the next 5-10 years, your business is gonna suffer (obvious).

The next boom of unicorns is gonna be businesses that take work that usually needs 10 people and make it possible with 2. And honestly, we’re already a small-scale version of that.

For example, I can deliver better services to my clients because I use AI to organize project proposals. What takes other creative agencies a week + a manager + an employee to draft, I do with myself, ChatGPT, 200mg of caffeine, 15 minutes.

THEREFORE, I can charge less (undercut competitors), do better work (quality at par with competitors), and do more volume (saved time means I can process more volume).

Now scale that to larger businesses. That’s the future.

❌ But AI Isn’t There Yet for Everything.

For video clipping, AI just wasn’t hitting.

I was using Vidyo.ai ($300ish per year) and while it did some cool things like:

• Auto-generating clips

• Adding captions

• Ranking clips based on "virality scores"

It had some major pain points:

1. Captions were off → We had to manually fix them, which canceled out the time savings.

2. AI struggles with niche topics → It wasn’t great at picking up the key moments from my podcast.

3. It lacked narrative control → Since we started doing it manually again, our retention per clip has improved by 7 seconds on average. (That’s a BIG deal in short-form content.)

Right now, I’m doing it all myself because I want to be intentional about crafting the narrative for the audience. But I’m keeping an eye on new AI clipping tools—if you know a good one, send it my way.

🛠️ The Build of Chai Collective

This is just the beginning.

Through this newsletter, I’ll be sharing the real-time build of Chai Collective—the umbrella company for all the wild shit I’m doing out here.

What I hope happens:

• We learn some things

• We share some things

• We build better businesses together

What I need from you:
🔥 Talk business with me. Reply, DM, send me stuff.
🔥 Put me on to tools, strategies, hacks that have helped you build.
🔥 Let’s actually create a circle of people sharing knowledge.

🎙️ Next Week on the Pod

After a 2-week hiatus, we’re back with an episode featuring SAAD, who runs Capital Flight Club and works with On The Radar.

Really like how Saad runs his business. Dude is militant when it comes to the money.

📢 One Last Thing...

🚀 I’m gonna try to do this weekly.
🚀 No promises, but we move.
🚀 Sign up, tell ya friends, all that jazz.

Here are some links to share with your friends.

They may work, they may not. I literally did this from inception to the idea to writing this to you getting this in 24 hours (when I wanna move, I move fast, then break things, but then move again).

OKAY BYEEEEE.

(And yes, I used AI to format this after I wrote it. My ADHD will NOT keep me from communicating effectively.)