The Exit Gal | Founder of Chief Rebel | The Ops Co-Pilot for Main Street SMBs | 3x CEO 1x Exit | SMU Lecturer & Speaker | Follow for Business, Exits, Leadership

Chief Rebel began because small business owners were left to figure everything out alone.

7 out of 10 SMBs fail to sell. Buyers walk away. Owners burn out. 

And the systems that should help them were built for another world.

Most founders do not have a valuation problem.
They have an operations problem.
They have a clarity problem.
They have a business that only works when they do.

I lived this across acquisitions, turnarounds, and exits.

I know what it feels like to run a company that performs well on paper but falls apart the moment you step away.

And I know what it takes to rebuild a business into an asset someone else actually wants to own.

AI made analysis faster.
It did not make decisions better.
And it did not make selling a business any easier.

Founders do not need more noise.
They need visibility.
They need a co pilot.
They need a path from chaos to a premium exit.

So I built Chief Rebel.

We experimented, learned, iterated, and now the platform is live with real owners, real valuations, and real pull from the market.

Chief Rebel is the first platform built to help owners
• understand what their business is worth in real time
• fix the operational blockers that drag value down
• model their dream exit with actual data
• become exit ready long before they think about selling
• operate like someone who owns an asset, not someone trapped inside a job

What we do not have
• generic AI advice
• one size fits all coaching
• hype, noise, or empty promises

Just a straighter path to a business that runs without the owner and sells for what it’s truly worth.

We are onboarding founders, expanding integrations, and building the default ops and exit platform for 33 million SMBs.

If you want more information, message investor@thechiefrebel.com

Operate smart. Value accurately. Exit well.

Chief Rebel.

Kinza Azmat

You don’t need context, 

To treat someone with dignity.

That line sounds obvious.
Until you watch how often it gets skipped in real life.

I’ve seen this across teams, meetings, and fast growing companies.

→ Same deadlines.
→ Same pressure to perform.
→ Same roles around the table.

One leader pays attention to status.
Another pays attention to who is actually in front of them.

That choice shows up fast.

Everyone you work with is bringing more than their job description.
Unasked experience.
Opinions shaped long before this role.
Ability that stays quiet because no one made space for it.

✔️ When respect depends on role, people shrink.
↳ Conversations get careful.
↳ Ideas get edited down.
↳ Ownership stays limited.

✔️ When respect is consistent, the room shifts.
↳ Problems surface earlier.
↳ Half formed ideas get shared instead of hidden.
↳ People step forward instead of waiting to be invited.

This has nothing to do with being polite.
It shows up in small moments most leaders rush past.

Pausing instead of interrupting.
Letting someone finish even when it takes longer.
Giving the same attention to the person with no leverage today.

That’s where leadership actually lives.

Because the strongest leaders I know do not perform curiosity.
They make space.
They listen past titles.
They pull in voices that would otherwise stay quiet.

Do that consistently and culture starts to carry itself.

Trust becomes normal instead of forced.
People give more because they feel seen first.

If leadership feels heavier than it should right now, check this before anything else.

Who are you unconsciously ranking before you listen to them?

That answer usually explains more than your org chart.

What is one moment where showing respect earlier would have changed the outcome?
Drop it below 👇

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✅ Follow Kinza Azmat for posts on growing, leading, and scaling a business

Working harder won't make you wealthy.

It'll just make you tired.

I've seen this pattern hundreds of times.
Revenue up. Owner still in sales and delivery.
New toys in the driveway. No cash cushion.

A buyer looks, then walks.

Why?
The business depends on one person.
That dependency kills price and options.

The trap is identity.
Being the hardest worker and calling it pride.

It feels like progress.
It's just avoiding the real owner work.

Owner work builds a machine that runs and sells without you.

If this sounds familiar, stop grinding and do this next:

1. Define your exit target
↳ Set a value and a date. Review quarterly and track the gap.

2. Replace yourself in delivery
↳ List your top ten tasks and delegate what's necessary. Get owner hours under twenty percent.

3. Productize your delivery
↳ Write the steps, scripts, and checks. Eighty percent of work should run without you.

4. Lock weekly finances
↳ Close books weekly. Track cash and margin. Zero missed payrolls.

5. Separate owner pay
↳ Pay yourself a market salary. Stop ad hoc draws. Bank three months of runway.

6. Add buyer signals
↳ Centralize contracts and metrics. No single client over twenty percent of revenue.

None of this is complicated.

But most owners skip it because the daily grind feels more urgent than the exit plan.

For owners who build wealth, it's not about more hours.
It's about better work.

Which of these 6 steps are you stuck on?
Drop it below.

♻ Repost if this helped
✅ Follow Kinza Azmat for posts on growing, leading, and scaling a business

2.7 Million American Businesses Will Shut Down in the Next Decade

The McKinsey ownership transfer study reveals a devastating truth: 92% of small businesses that try to sell will simply close their doors instead.

In today's newsletter, I expose:

- Why 2.7 million businesses will disappear when owners try to retire
- The four specific steps to transform an unsellable business (with timelines)
- Why this work takes years of focused effort
- The brutal choice facing every business owner right now

This isn't about market timing or consultant speak like "optimization." 

It's about facing reality before it's too late.

Read the full newsletter below

Is your business actually sellable? 

What are you doing about it?

The quiet crisis destroying Main Street America 🏈 THE SIDELINE Kinza here. McKinsey published a landmark study on the economic crisis small business 

Open article: 2.7 Million American Businesses Will Shut Down in the Next Decade by Kinza Azmat • 5 min read

2.7 Million American Businesses Will Shut Down in the Next Decade

Richard Branson started 400+ companies. 

Most people think that's inspiring. 

The truth is that most of those ventures never reached their potential...because his attention was scattered across too many things at once. 

The ones that became billion-dollar businesses? 

They had focused operators running them while Branson stayed out of the way. 

This week's newsletter just dropped in your inbox. 

Inside: 10 rules Branson used to build Virgin into an empire without destroying it in the process. 

If you're juggling multiple ventures (or ideas) and struggling to finish what you started, this one's for you. 

Check your inbox or click below: "He started 400+ companies in 40 years (scattered focus killed most)" 

Not subscribed yet? 

Get it here: https://www.sideline.fyi/

10 lessons from Richard Branson's transformation: Offensive Coordinator → Head Coach Take the 3-minute quiz at 👉 Ownerquiz.com Richard Branson forced

Open article: 🏈 He started 400+ companies. Here's why most didn't reach their potential. by Kinza Azmat • 7 min read

🏈 He started 400+ companies. Here's why most didn't reach their potential.

Stop glorifying the scramble

Clear plans, simplicity, and calm are the strategy (not chaos)

We say we want speed and quality.

Then we celebrate late-night saves, random DMs, and
meetings about meetings.

Busy is not fast. It is costly.

Slow decisions. More mistakes. Tired teams. Messy numbers.

Here is what chaos actually costs a business:

→ Every unnecessary meeting burns 30+ hours a month
per team.
→ Context switching drops productivity by up to 40%.
→ Unstructured workflows double error rates on repeat
tasks.
→ Teams without focus blocks lose an entire workday
each week to interruptions.

The fix is not more hustle. It is fewer moving parts.

You want calm execution. Do this without excuses:

1) Assign one owner.
↳ For every task, name one person and outcome, review
weekly, 90% on time.

2) Cut standing meetings.
↳ Keep two recurring only, cap 30 minutes, under eight
people, audit monthly.

3) Use short checklists.
↳ For repeat work, write 5 to 9 steps, update monthly,
misses under one percent.

4) Centralize requests.
↳ Move all asks to one queue, triage daily, 100% tasks
logged before work starts.

5) Protect focus blocks.
↳ Give two 90-minute quiet blocks daily, no pings, cycle
time drops 20%.

That's the job.

Where are you still rewarding last-minute heroics over
quiet, repeatable delivery?

♻ Repost this if it helped
✅ Follow Kinza Azmat for posts on growing, leading, and scaling a business

Your “strategy” is fine.

Until a buyer sees these 10 red flags.

Buyers don’t pay for busy.
They pay for focused, scalable, de-risked cash flow.
Good companies lose nearly 20–40% in diligence for this.

Fix them now, while you’re growing.
Not when you’re tired and selling.

The 10 signs I flag in broken strategy:

1) No clear vision
➟ Direction is fuzzy or undocumented.
➟ It matters because teams misfire, execution slows and value drops.
➟ Use this before planning or any pivot.

2) Chasing every trend
➟ Shiny objects crowd out core focus.
➟ It matters because roadmaps fragment and cash gets wasted.
➟ Use this when new tools or channels tempt you.

3) Ignoring data
➟ Decisions are made blind.
➟ It matters because bad bets stack up and margins leak.
➟ Use this during weekly ops and pricing calls.

4) Overlooking customer needs
➟ Strategy is product-first, not customer-first.
➟ It matters because churn climbs and LTV falls.
➟ Use this before launches, messaging, or roadmap reviews.

5) Competing on price alone
➟ Discounting replaces value.
➟ It matters because margins squeeze and brand weakens.
➟ Use this when you're losing mostly on price.

6) No plan for scaling
➟ Growth runs without systems.
➟ It matters because chaos hits, SLAs slip, and cash crunches.
➟ Use this when capacity strains or demand spikes.

7) One-size-fits-all thinking
➟ Strategy is copy-pasted from others.
➟ It matters because misfit plays burn time and money.
➟ Use this when borrowing outside playbooks.

8) Failure to adapt
➟ Strategy stays stuck while the market moves.
➟ It matters because you lose share and offers go stale.
➟ Use this when lead indicators shift meaningfully.

9) Underestimating competitors
➟ Complacency toward rival moves sets in.
➟ It matters because surprise losses hit core accounts.
➟ Use this during QBRs or after big deal losses.

10) Lack of accountability
➟ No single owner on results.
➟ It matters because drift sets in and targets get missed.
➟ Use this at every initiative kickoff.

How to use this:
Run it in your next leadership meeting.
Pick two to fix this week.
Assign owners and deadlines.

When these go quiet, execution gets crisp and cash flow steadies.
That’s what lifts valuation long before you sell.

Save this for your next QBR or investor check-in.

♻ Repost this if it helped
✅ Follow Kinza Azmat for posts on growing, leading, and scaling a business

Clean financials matter.

They just aren’t what makes buyers stretch.

They pay up when you can keep customers, replace yourself, and raise prices.

I've sat on both sides of the table in M&A deals.

The pattern is always the same.

Clean financials open the door.
They never close it at a premium.

Every buyer I've worked with runs the same quiet audit after the books check out.

They dig into three things:
→ Do customers stay?
→ Does the business run without one person holding it together?
→ Can it raise prices without losing the room?

That's the real scorecard.

I've watched multiples drop mid-deal because the answers to those three questions didn't hold up.

But the structure underneath it wasn't built to transfer.

Here are five checks most owners skip because revenue is up:

1) Track customer retention.
↳ Group by start month, review quarterly, keep 6-month revenue retention over 90 percent.

2) Cut customer concentration.
↳ Rank customers quarterly, cap top five below 30 percent of total revenue.

3) Grow contracted revenue.
↳ Use annual agreements with auto-renew, audit twice yearly, hit 70 percent of revenue contracted.

4) Prove pricing power.
↳ Raise prices annually, track win rate monthly, keep gross margin above 55 percent.

5) Reduce owner dependency.
↳ Document key workflows, test handoffs monthly, keep owner time below 10 hours weekly.

That’s the standard.

Which one are you pretending is fine because revenue is up?

♻ Repost this to help your network.
✅ Follow Kinza Azmat for posts on growing, leading, and scaling a business

Business owners like comparing business to chess.

Chess is finite. The king falls. Game over.

That's not how exits work.

Business is Go.

Every decision you make places a stone.
Every stone claims territory.

The board doesn't shrink. It expands.

Buyers don’t pay for hero moves.
They pay for territory: recurring cash, retention, systems, team.

If you’re chasing checkmate, you’re capping your multiple and burning runway.

I turned that into a Go-inspired playbook for founders building to exit:

1. Go mindset over chess kills
→ Stop hunting checkmate.
→ Place stones in ops, customers, systems.
→ Your board expands with every hire or process tweak.

2. Lost deals = territory saved
→ Pass on that shaky client contract today.
→ In 3 years, it's the cashflow bullet you dodged while scaling steadily.

3. Skip "must-have" buys
→ That shiny tool or subscription? Passing looks cheap short-term.
→ It frees budget for core growth.
→ Think outsourcing vs. hiring too soon.

4. Stack small wins daily
→ Nail recurring revenue tweaks now.
→ A 10% pricing lift. A tighter onboarding flow.
→ They compound into 7-figure exits later.

5. Patience over power moves
→ Influence your niche slowly.
→ Build referral networks.
→ Brute-force ads burn cash. Territory endures.

6. Zoom out on "losses"
→ One bad hire flops? Not a war lost.
→ It clears space for your all-star team.
→ That team drives 3x valuation.

7. Do nothing strategically
→ Ignore VC bait or trendy pivots.
→ The founders who waited cashed out bigger.
→ Skipping the hype is a move in itself.

8. Cut shiny distractions
→ Ditch side gigs chasing trends.
→ Refocus on your hero product.
→ Margins explode when you stop splitting attention.

9. Messy over clean narratives
→ PE loves chess stories.
→ Your exit is built from gritty increments.
→ SOPs. Retention. Slim burn. Nothing glamorous. Everything valuable.

10. Think territory, not moves
→ Customer loyalty. IP moats. Predictable cash.
→ Founders exit rich by encircling value.
→ Place stones relentlessly.

How to use this:
- Pick two plays for this quarter. Place one stone weekly.
- Track territory: ARR quality, margins, retention, contract length.
- Review monthly and reallocate stones fast.

This is how you stop building a job and build an asset.
Territory compounds. Flashy moves don’t.

Save this and run one play before your next budget call.

♻ Repost this if it helped
✅ Follow Kinza Azmat for posts on growing, leading, and scaling a business

Premium exits go to business owners with clockwork revenue.

Turn recurring cash into your moat.

Most SMBs run profitably, but without predictability.
Buyers dock surprises, and they pay premiums for steady systems.
Get these numbers right and diligence shifts from interrogation to confirmation.

Here are 7 exit KPIs to track now:

1) Recurring Revenue: make it automatic.
↳ Cash that lands like a paycheck lowers buyer anxiety. 
↳ Drive MRR growth of 20 to 40 percent per year.
→ Plot renewals by month; secure multi-year deals with baked-in increases.

Note: If one quick cancel wipes it out, it is not a moat.

2) Revenue Growth Rate: steady over spiky.
↳ Buyers read the slope before your story. 
↳ Hold consistent 30 percent plus growth.
→ Set quarterly targets by segment and channel; smooth promos to avoid peaks and cliffs.

Note: Volatility cuts your multiple first.

3) EBITDA Margin: profit that sticks.
↳ In diligence, durable profit beats optimism. 
↳ Maintain EBITDA margins in the 15 to 30 percent band.
→ Remove owner perks from the P&L; lock pricing ahead of cost rises.

Note: Shifting "adjusted" figures erode trust fast.

4) Gross Margin: pricing power proof.

↳ A wide spread signals negotiating power with customers and suppliers. 
↳ Sustain 50 to 70 percent gross margin.
→ Reconcile COGS monthly; raise prices or cut SKUs that drag.

Note: Thin margins mean you are selling hours, not outcomes.

5) Churn Rate: keep who you win.
↳ Retention turns revenue into an asset. 
↳ Keep logo churn under 5 percent a month.
→ Run save plays at day 60 and 90; patch onboarding gaps in the first 30 days.

Note: Offsetting churn with upgrades hides the leak, not the risk.

6) LTV to CAC: unit economics that work.
↳ You last by earning more per customer than you spend to get them. 
↳ Keep LTV to CAC at 3 to 1 or better.
→ Tighten payback under 12 months; cut losing channels and double down on real ROAS.

Note: If CAC climbs while retention slips, pause and diagnose.

7) Net Revenue Retention: expansion inside the base.
↳ Growth from current customers is the cheapest fuel. 
↳ Push NRR to 110 percent plus.
→ Wrap add-ons into quarterly reviews; design tiers that invite upgrades.

Note: No QBR cadence means no upsell rhythm and weak NRR.

Exit-ready is a daily operating system, not a last-minute package.
Track these weekly and you compound valuation before the LOI shows up.

Which one hits hardest right now?

♻ Repost this to help your network.
✅ Follow Kinza Azmat for posts on growing, leading, and scaling a business

7 Exit KPIs Every SMB Founder Must Track

Your business is probably worthless.

I don't mean it's not profitable. 

I mean if you tried to sell it tomorrow, nobody would buy it.

McKinsey just confirmed what I see every day: 92% of small businesses that try to sell actually shut down instead. Link here: https://lnkd.in/dPuGPMkx

2.9 million Baby Boomer business owners are about to discover their life's work has zero exit value.

Here's the test: Could your business maintain current revenue for 90 days if you disappeared completely?

If you hesitated, you already know the answer...

The hardware store on Main Street for 40 years. 

The regional manufacturer with 75 employees. 

The family HVAC company serving three counties.

When these owners try to retire, most will discover nobody wants to buy what they've built. 

Not because the businesses aren't good. 

But because the businesses ARE the owners.

Customer relationships tied to personal reputation. 

Operations dependent on instincts developed over decades. 

Critical knowledge locked in one person's head.

This is the quiet crisis about to devastate rural and small-town America. When these businesses close, jobs disappear in communities with no alternatives.

On Tuesday, I'm breaking down the specific work required to transform an unsellable business into one buyers will fight over. 

Fair warning: it might take years of focused effort.

But right now, I want to hear from you:

Business owners: What percentage of your revenue would disappear if you left for 90 days?

Buyers/advisors: What's the fastest way you identify an unsellable business?

Be honest in the comments. 

This conversation matters more than most people realize.

He started new companies so fast his team couldn't execute.

10 ways Richard Brandon built a 400 company empire

Here are some lessons from what happened next:

LESSON 1: Never let the shiny new thing endanger the cash engine

When Branson pushed Virgin Atlantic, his partners nearly revolted. They thought he'd bet the company on an airline.

His move: Structured it so Virgin Music was "scarcely at risk." Lease terms where Boeing could take the plane back. Capped downside.

Your move: Before starting something new, ask: "If this fails completely, does it threaten what's working?" If yes, don't start yet.

LESSON 2: "Fun" is not a business criteria when you have a team depending on you

Early Branson: "Fun" was his prime business criteria. He took on "huge, apparently unachievable challenges" because they excited him.

The cost: His team couldn't plan. Priorities shifted. Execution suffered.

Your move: Ask: "Is this new venture strategic, or is it just interesting to me?" If it's just interesting, save it for later.

LESSON 3: Hire operators, not helpers

Virgin's record shops bled money because of "leadership gaps." Nobody could "organize them effectively."

Branson's fix: Found entrepreneurial managers, gave them resources, got out of their way. 

Your move: Stop hiring people to execute your ideas. Hire people who can own the entire business while you stay out.

LESSON 4: Keep sentiment out of capital allocation

Virgin had 102 record shops in the UK. They mattered for branding but bled cash.

Branson sold 67 shops to W.H. Smith for £23M in June 1988, even though it hurt the brand visibility.

Your move: List your current ventures. Which ones are bleeding attention/cash without earning their keep? Be willing to sell or shut down.

LESSON 5: Start small with capped downside, not big with uncapped risk

Virgin Atlantic started with one plane, lease terms that let them exit cleanly, and separation from Virgin Music.

"Dip our toe" before "bet the company."

Your "next new thing" checklist: 
(1) Can we do this without risking what we actually do? 
(2) Can we cap downside? 
(3) Can we exit w/o a mess if it fails? If no, don't start.

These 5 lessons changed how Branson operated.

But they don't tell you:
→ The complete framework for when to say yes vs. no to new opportunities
→ How to structure ventures so they don't cannibalize each other
→ What to do when you have 10 ideas but can only pursue 2

Tuesday's newsletter has the full Offensive Coordinator → Head Coach playbook.

If you start things faster than your team can execute, this one's for you.

Haven't taken the quiz yet? Find out your archetype: ownerquiz.com

See you Tuesday morning.

1o ways branson built a 400-company empire

$5T Baby Boomer businesses will attempt to transfer ownership in the next decade.

92% will shut down instead because nobody will buy them.

That's 2.7 million businesses closing. 

32 million jobs at risk. 

Trillions in wealth evaporating.

In Tuesday's newsletter, I break down:

- The devastating McKinsey statistics everyone's ignoring
- Why rural America is about to lose its economic backbone
- The specific work required to make an unsellable business sellable
- Why waiting until you're ready to retire means you're already too late

This is the quiet crisis that will reshape America...

Full newsletter drops Tuesday. Here's the link to the Fortune article: https://lnkd.in/dAEFphDm

Follow to make sure you get it.

Fortune: $5T baby boomer companies coming up for sale in the next decade...most wont transition

Brian Dordevic

Delivering profitable web design with SEO first approach. Official Google partner.

I started as a $4/hr offshore virtual assistant and became a USA citizen & business owner.

I help you generate more profit with your existing traffic efforts by optimizing conversion rates, improving your site speed & content strategy.

Chief Executive Officer

As the CEO of Alpha Efficiency, I steer the strategic direction of the company while managing an expanding team of 30+ professionals, spearheading growth initiatives, and driving operational efficiency.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) & Achievements:

Team Leadership & Management: Championed a culture of performance and accountability that led to a 35% boost in operational efficiency. Regularly oversee talent acquisition and retention strategies to ensure our team is well-equipped for success.

SEO & Content Management: Supervised the creation and execution of our SEO strategy, which saw a remarkable 60% surge in organic website traffic within six months, augmenting our brand's digital visibility.

Paid Media Strategies: Pioneered the deployment of innovative paid media campaigns, resulting in a 50% increase in brand awareness and a 30% rise in customer acquisition, significantly expanding our market footprint.

Performance Benchmarking: Developed and implemented performance benchmarks to ensure constant progress. The systematic monitoring of these metrics brought about a 20% improvement in overall productivity.

Stakeholder Management: Successfully maintained robust relationships with key stakeholders, attaining a 90% satisfaction rate, testament to our commitment to delivering value and fostering transparency.

Financial Management: Maintained stringent control over fiscal operations, consistently delivering profitability and surpassing financial objectives by 15% in the previous year, solidifying our position in the market.

This multifaceted role requires a delicate balance of leadership, strategic thinking, and operational excellence. It's my mission to continue propelling Alpha Efficiency forward, driving sustainable growth, and adding value for our stakeholders.

Your web developer built you a beautiful site (and disappeared)…

All you are left with:

• Your WordPress login sits at /wp-admin
• Bots already found it
• They're running thousands of password combos right now.
• Your plugins haven't been updated in months.

Each one is a door.

And hackers have the keys to every outdated lock.

• No 2FA
• No WAF
• No monitoring
• No rate limiting

You won't know you've been hacked
Until your AI SEO rankings tank.
And your clients stop calling.

Here's what a real setup looks like:

• A law firm launches a new WordPress site.
• Within hours, automated bots hit /wp-admin.
• But this time it's different
• Rate limiting kills brute force

CAPTCHA blocks the scripts.

2FA stops stolen credentials.

Firewall filters the noise before it touches the server.

A plugin vulnerability drops next week.

Updates are staged, tested, deployed.

Something still slips through?

File monitoring catches it in minutes.

Clean backup restores in under 10.

Most devs build pages.

The ones clients keep on retainer?

They protect revenue.

Be that developer.

I build internal tools and platforms that replace your duct-taped workflows. | Official Google & Hubspot Gold partner

"BREAKING: Claude can now do $10,000/month SEO for free."

After 16 years in SEO, I see 100% pure cope (here's how not to fall for SEO scams)

None of these guys share results.

None of them share case studies.

Because they don't exist.

It's grift wrapped in a thread.

I've been ranking sites since 2010.

• Real clients
• Real campaigns
• Real money moved ($13 mil VC funded exit secured)

And the recycled take never changes:

"Businesses quietly going all-in on AI + SEO will save a ton of money."
"This feels like buying Bitcoin at $100."

Nah.

Bitcoin didn't require you to understand search intent, site architecture, crawl budgets, or why Google just nuked your site overnight.

Same playbook every time:

List a stack of cheap tools.

Claude: $20/month. WordPress: cheap. Canva: free. GSC: free.

"Total cost: under $100/month." (You need 20x Max Claude, which costs $200. But they won't tell you that.)

Then: "people used to pay agencies $1k-$3k for this."

As if SEO is just hitting publish.

Same energy as people who pay for a gym membership and never workout.

The tool is not the skill.

It never was.

What AI actually cannot do:

• Tell you why your traffic dropped 40% after a core update.
• Read your GSC data and prioritize cannibalization fixes.
• Build a link strategy that doesn't get you torched.
• Audit your site architecture and know what to kill.

It cannot prioritize. It can only produce.
More content faster without strategy = a bigger mess, built quicker.
Can AI speed things up? Absolutely.

I use it every day.

Drafts. Outlines. Content workflows. Elite for that.

But it's a power tool. Not a tradesperson.

You still need someone who knows where to cut.

These posts get engagement because they sell a fantasy.

That expertise is dead.

That 16 years of pattern recognition gets replaced by a $20 sub.

It doesn't.

The people winning with AI right now aren't replacing skill.

They're stacking it on top of speed.

That's the edge.

Link under my profile for real ways to use AI in SEO (results, not slop).

I help you improve Local AI & SEO Mentions for your firm | Official Google & Hubspot Gold partner

Corporate HATES remote work.

This is how I started a 100% remote agency.

My "Overdelivery Stack" that scaled our clients to 8-figure exits:

• Nitro Cold Brew
• MacBook (or an iPad)
• Great Internet connection
• Stellar client results (recent client got acquired for $13,000,000)

I've scaled our clients from places like Ibiza and Paris.

And my team?

They're doing the same, working from places that inspire them.

✅ No long commutes
✅ No office distractions
✅ No pointless water cooler conversations

Want to swipe my SOPs that allow me to run this company from the comfort of my iPhone?

Sign up for my Substack for exclusive in-depth guides on how to grow a 100% remote company.

Link under my profile.

I'm 39, Serbian Turned American and run a 100% remote web development agency and a 20-people team.

December 2025, our client secured $13,000,000 VC-funded exit.

But it wasn't always like this.

I started from the bottom…

• Came with $3,000 to my name
• To infamous South Side Chicago
• Picked up a job at the grocery store for minimum wage

Fast forward to today, and here's exactly what we sell (steal this if you want):

• Local SEO packages: $2,000/mo+
• Content marketing and SEO writing
• Meta ads management: retainer + performance
• Website complete builds and optimization: $20,000-$84,000

And here's how we keep the pipeline full:

• Referrals
• YouTube Videos
• Post on X/Twitter daily
• Post on LinkedIn 5x/week
• Publish on Substack weekly
• Warm outbound via HubSpot intent data
• DM prospects who comment on competitor's posts

All run on this stack:

• Meta Ads Manager
• CallRail (call tracking)
• Claude + ChatGPT (AI)
• HubSpot (CRM and pipeline)
• Notion (operations and SOPs)
• Google Drive (Our workspace & reports)

The result?

Complete location freedom, 100% of work done from my iPhone while enjoying 
Versailles, Ibiza, and visiting family in Belgrade.

Build the right systems, nail the right offers, and you can scale past $500K with a lean team while driving 7-figure results for your clients.

I break it all down in my newsletter.

Weekly drops on (sign up via the link under my profile name):

• AI
• SEO
• Sales
• Marketing

63 minutes ago someone called to tell me I was dead.

Not metaphorically.

They had already filed an official Google support case claiming I had passed away, and they wanted everything:

• My Google Workspace account
• My entire digital presence
• My business domain
• My emails

The caller introduced himself as David Odza from Google Support.

Professional voice. Palo Alto phone number. A legitimate Google confirmation email sitting right in my inbox.

Everything checked out.

Except one thing.

I knew it was a scam.

Here's where it gets interesting.

He kept asking about my email address. Fishing. Guessing. Circling back to it repeatedly, trying to confirm which account was actually mine.

Then he landed on an old Gmail address.

He asked me directly, "Is this your email?"

I said yes.

What he didn't know was that he'd just found my honeypot.

A honeypot is a fake account that looks real, set up specifically to attract attackers. No real data. No connections to anything important. No value whatsoever.

A trap dressed up as a target.

I keep one precisely for moments like this — an old Gmail address I've never used for anything real, sitting there waiting for exactly this kind of situation.

He thought he'd struck gold.

I let him think that.

Because I had a reason.

I needed his IP address for the fraud report.

He initiated account recovery. Walked me through approving it on the phone — a classic social engineering move where they get you to authorize your own account takeover in real time.

I played along.

Then I watched it unfold in real time:

• He logged in from Massachusetts
• Changed the password trying to lock me out permanently
• I changed it back first
• Kicked him off a Windows machine he had no business being on

And walked away with his IP addresses, phone number, and fake identities

They spent hours planning a sophisticated deceased account takeover.

They got into an empty trap.

Got absolutely nothing.

Now everything, the IPs, the phone number, the fake identities "David Odza" and "Timothy Casper", is sitting in a fraud report heading straight to Google's security team.

The lesson?

These attacks are becoming more sophisticated every day. They use:

• Real confirmation emails
• Real Google infrastructure
• Real support case numbers

Set up a honeypot. Trust your instincts. And if someone calls to tell you that you're dead, maybe don't take their word for it.

This month I'll be running a workshop on how to use AI to protect yourself and your business from phishing attacks.

Sign up to the newsletter (link under my name) to learn when it goes live.

I typed twitter . com into my browser today.

Or so I thought. My screen went black. Then full screen. My keyboard stopped responding. Every key I pressed did nothing...

For about three seconds, I felt that cold drop in my stomach. The one that says: *you've been hacked.*

My mind raced. Passwords. Bank accounts. Client data. Fifteen people depend on systems I manage.

Then I did the only thing I could think of.

Cmd + Option + Escape. Force quit Chrome.

It worked. I was out.

My next hour was spent researching what happened. Scanning for malware. Checking extensions. Reviewing DNS settings. Preparing for the worst.

The diagnosis?

I missed one letter.

I typed `.cm` instead of `.com`. That's it. One missing "o."

Turns out `.cm` is Cameroon's country code. And someone bought `http://twitter . cm` (DO NOT TYPE IT INTO YOUR COMPUTER) years ago for one reason: to catch people who type too fast.

That domain redirected me through an ad-tracking network. The full-screen lockout was just JavaScript on a webpage. Not malware. Not a hack. A scare tactic designed to make you panic and do something stupid.

Like calling a fake tech support number. Or clicking a button that *actually* installs malware.

Here's what stuck with me.

I run a digital agency. I live in browsers all day. I know better. And I still almost fell for it.

Now imagine someone on your team who doesn't know what force quit is.

That's the real danger. Not the scam itself. It's that it only needs to work once on the wrong person.

Three things worth doing today:

1. Show your team how to force quit a frozen browser (Cmd+Option+Escape on Mac, Ctrl+Shift+Escape on Windows)
2. Tell them to never call a number displayed on a "your computer is infected" screen
3. Remind them that the scariest-looking attacks are often the least dangerous, and the quiet ones are what actually get you

One missing letter almost ruined my afternoon.

Don't let it ruin yours.

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Landed in USA 13 years ago (photo from THE Chicago South Side)

Cracked laptop...
Rented room
Zero safety

As if that wasn't hard enough:

No investors
No agency mastermind
Just wifi and the decision to figure it out

Fast forward.
Last quarter my agency helped clients lock in 8 figure exits.

Concrete wins, not theory:

• Around $2,000,000 in revenue for a disability law firm
• Over $4,000,000 in revenue for a home improvement company
• Enterprise grade web development shipped for a major non profit

None of that happened by accident.

Here is the operating system behind it:

Pick a painful problem

• I focused on local service providers
• When their leads stop, payroll hurts hard
• Solve that consistently and they remember your name and birthday

Sell the real wins

Not a massive “done for you everything” promise.
Just one clear outcome: Website + Local SEO sprint.

Easy yes.

Once they see it working, bigger checks make sense.

Create proof in public

• Hundreds of positive reviews on Upwork
• Daily posts on X and LinkedIn
• Documenting what works

The content brings people in already half sold.

Let systems do the follow up

HubSpot workflows, intent data, and simple pipelines.
No “just checking in” energy.

Prospects move through a process whether I am online or not.

Stack rare skills

• AI, technical SEO, CRO, local search
• Enough depth to solve hard problems
• Enough range to connect the whole funnel

Treat cash like oxygen

• Profit targets
• Weekly money reviews
• I built for boring predictability instead of viral spikes

Borrow other people’s trust

• Partner with vendors who already serve attorneys.
• They send us their clients.
• We send them better performing websites.

Everyone wins.

If you are in a new city, with no network and nothing but a laptop, you do not need permission.

Steal one of these.
Stack all seven.

Then let the internet do what it does best:

Turn specific skills into an agency that quietly prints results.

You want to get more details how I've done it? Sign up for my newsletter by clicking the link under my profile.

Your pal, Brian

P.S. I'm getting that hairline BACK.

I work 3-4 hours a day. While traveling. While running a 100% remote agency.

I’ve lived in places like Paris, Ibiza and Belgrade.

All while immigrating to United States.

It took me 10 years to build a system that runs without me standing over it.

• While holding a job
• While dealing with immigration paperwork

The secret?

I stopped being the bottleneck.

I built a business where every person owns their role, every task has a home, and the machine moves whether I'm online or not.

• No single point of failure
• No permission needed
• It just does things

This system has survived AI disruptions, algorithm changes, software migrations, and actual wars.

It's robust precisely because no one person holds the keys.

Most agency owners I talk to work 10-12 hours a day and still feel behind.

I used to be one of them.

But now, my lean system powers 8-figure exits for clients and multiple 7-figures of new top-line revenue.

The shift happened when I stopped managing tasks and started building systems that manage themselves.

If you're running a service business and feel chained to it, you don't have a work ethic problem.

You have an architecture problem.

I write about how to fix that every week. Link under my name.

I analyzed 3,000 websites across ChatGPT, Copilot, and Perplexity over 90 days.

What I found should terrify every marketer sleeping on backlinks.

Here's Sam Atlman’s dirty secret:

Google spent 25 years building a spam filter. These AI platforms are trying to do it in 25 months.

And they're losing. Badly.

ChatGPT and Perplexity were built on top of Bing's index. 

Bing has always been the bouncer who lets everyone into the club. 

• No ID check
• No dress code
• Just vibes

So now you've got AI tools confidently citing websites with fake authors, 100K random product pages, and thousands of AI-generated articles about nothing.

It's like building a library and filling it with phonebooks.

Meanwhile, Reddit became the golden child of Google's algorithm. Why? 

Because Reddit has something these AI crawlers don't: an army of angry moderators with zero spam tolerance.

Reddit is basically a self-cleaning oven. Post garbage, get downvoted into oblivion in 11 minutes.

But here's where it gets interesting for you.

These AI platforms are STARVING for quality signals. They need a way to separate real brands from digital ghosts.

And the #1 signal they're borrowing from Google's playbook?

Backlinks.

Backlinks are the passport into ChatGPT. The entry ticket into Claude. The skeleton key to Grok.

Every legit site linking to you is a vote of confidence these AI models actually understand.

While everyone is obsessing over prompt engineering and AI wrappers, the real power move is dead simple: get other websites to point at yours.

Same game. New arena.

The brands building backlink moats right now will own AI search for the next decade.

The ones ignoring it will wonder why ChatGPT recommends their competitor every single time.

The window is wide open. These platforms haven't figured out spam filtering yet. That's why our clients pay us big money to help them break into AI citations.

Which means right now, quality stands out like a lighthouse in a sea of fog.

• Build links
• Earn citations
• Own the answer

My backlink playbook on how to earn authoritative links is coming up on my newsletter. Link under my name. Sign up before I hit send.

You can be the one learning how to use the AI, or you can be the one influencing people who believe in it like gospel.

Which one are you?

The World is on fire. Your attention doesn't have to be.

News cycle hijacked your mind while AI is unbothered & keeps marching forward.

This is the most expensive time in history to drift.

In this bloody conflict the biggest casualty is your focus. 

And its consequences will reach you whether you pay attention or not.

• Oil prices will climb
• The economy will slow
• AI is already reshaping every industry

Stack a war on top of all that, and suddenly it feels like the ground is shifting under your feet.

You feel it as anxiety. That low hum in the background. The compulsive news checking. The sense that you should be doing something but you're not sure what.

Here's what I want to tell you: that anxiety is not a signal to panic. It's a signal to focus.

I've been here before...

I grew up with bombs over my head. I know what real chaos sounds like.

And I know that the people who came out the other side weren't the ones who froze or spiraled. They were the ones who got quiet, got clear, and moved.

This morning I woke up grateful.

• I have food in my fridge
• I have a roof over my head
• My internet connection is strong

That's more than enough. And whatever the world brings, I will meet it. 

With focus

Focus is the antidote to anxiety

Anxiety thrives on scattered attention. It feeds on doom scrolling, reactive decisions, and an endless loop of "what if."

Focus kills all of that. 

When you sit down with one clear task and give it everything, the noise disappears. The war doesn't stop. The economy doesn't magically recover. But you stop suffering from it, because you're building instead of drifting.

The last time I activated this level of focus was during COVID. 

Everything felt uncertain. I locked in anyway. 

It changed the trajectory of my business. Then I cleared $250,000 in 2020.

Just because the world is on fire, you shouldn't start feeling apologetic for building great things.

This moment feels the same. 

The next 12 to 18 months will be mission critical.

But this time we have two forces reshaping everything: war and AI.

One of them will work for you, if you play your cards right.

The playbook: focus in 3 moves

- Shrink your inputs.

Stop consuming news like it's your job. Set one 15-minute window per day. Outside that window, your attention belongs to your work and the people you love. Anxiety drops the moment your information diet gets intentional.

- Automate what drains you.

Every repetitive task you still do manually is stealing focus from the work that matters. Tools are evolving fast. 

• My Mac Mini runs localized agents
• My Notion is becoming an AI automation engine 
• Things that used to take hundreds of hours are now handled by machine

You don't need a massive budget. You need the willingness to experiment.

- Build one thing every day.

Not ten things. One. A paragraph. A system. A conversation that moves a project forward.

When the world gets chaotic, most people become reactive.

That's your advantage

"Overdelivering" may sound hard. Until you realize how small customer expectations in fact are...

And then you realize that 95% of your competitors can't deliver on basic promises they make. Let alone extras...

That is the mindset of customer service.

Things that are easy to you, and client loves, that's the middle ground you're looking for.

That's what drives positive reviews.

That's what increases your LTV.

And it is your job as an entrepreneur to figure out what that is.

Pinyerd Disability Law clients need a website that makes law information easy to find and navigate.

Our design emphasizes:

Accessibility for all users.
Intuitive navigation.
Clean, consistent layout.
Fast performance.

The results? 

Higher Google rankings, dramatically faster load times, lower cost per acquisition, and more relevant visitors.

Experience it.

I don't post Alpha Efficiency work often enough.

Client had an exceptional multiple 7 figure year.

Good design is great return on investment.

Your AI-created site is a lot like a template.

It loads in 4.23 seconds. Our clients' sites load in 0.8.

That gap matters more than you think.

Because a split second, literally, decides whether you're #1 or #2 on Google.

And #1 gets roughly 50% more traffic than #2.

• Not 5%
• Not 10%
• FIFTY

Do you know how fast your site actually loads?

Not "pretty fast." Not "it seems fine on my laptop."

The actual number.

Here's the thing about AI-generated code:

It's trained to write code that works. Not code that performs.

And those are two very different things.

Your site can function perfectly and still load in 4.2 seconds while your competitor loads in 0.8.

Google doesn't care who wrote the code. It doesn't care if it was Cursor, 

Claude, or a junior dev in a basement.

It cares about one thing: how fast that page reaches the user.

That's the part that should keep you up at night.

Not that you're losing money. That you can't tell you're losing money.

There's no invoice for the leads that never arrived. No alert for the customers who bounced at 3.1 seconds. No dashboard showing what your competitor
captured because their site was 400 milliseconds faster.

It's an invisible bleed.

And AI made it easier to bleed without noticing, because the code looks clean, ships fast, and passes every automated test.

But automated tests don't measure what Google measures.

We've built over 500 sites. The ones that rank aren't only the prettiest. They're the fastest.

And the fastest sites aren't built with the newest tools.

They're built by people who know what to strip away.

Right now your site has a load time.

You either know the number, or someone else ranks #1.

WordPress vs. Webflow for SEO:

One is proprietary.
Other one is open source.

One makes you pay $60,000 per year when you reach the limits...
The other one has no limits.

One dominates 42% of the web.
Other one doesn't let you create robotsLLM.txt file without making you pay more.

Choose wisely.

People have all the knowledge of the world and computing power in their pocket.

Yet they decide to scroll.

Make it make sense.

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