You’re Running Your Business on Vibes (And You Can’t Afford to Anymore)
I’ll go first, since I’m asking you to be honest: for years I ran businesses on a pricing methodology best described as “eh, that feels right.” I called it instinct. It was vibes.
And vibes work fine — right up until they don’t.
The $0 That Wasn’t
I learned exactly how badly when we finally got real software into our winery, Resistance Wine, and I looked at the dashboard. Our margins showed $0. Our conversion target said “TBD.” Not because the business was failing — it was doing great — but because nobody had ever entered the actual numbers. We were flying a plane and the entire instrument panel was a sticky note that said probably fine.
Here’s the thing most founders won’t admit: you don’t actually know your numbers. You know your bank balance and a feeling. You can tell me your gut margin on your best product and be off by twenty points, because you’ve never once sat down and done the math per unit, per channel, per customer. You didn’t do the math because doing the math was expensive — it meant an analyst, a spreadsheet, and a weekend you were never going to spend.
What Actually Changed
That’s the part that changed. AI made running your business on math about as cheap as running it on vibes. The analyst-grade work — unit economics, customer segments, which products actually make money versus which ones just feel important — is now a conversation, not a quarter-long project.
So the question stops being “can I afford to know?” and becomes “can I afford not to?” Your competitors are about to be making decisions with real numbers at the speed you make them with your gut. That’s not a fair fight, and you’re on the wrong side of it.
Where Your Gut Is Quietly Bleeding You
You don’t have to boil the ocean. Pick one decision you currently make on instinct — what to price, what to promote, which customers to chase — and actually run the numbers this week. Just one. I promise the gap between what you felt and what’s true will be the most expensive number you’ve been ignoring all year. Mine had a dollar sign and a straight face.
Vibes got you here. They will not get you through what’s coming.
Final Thoughts
Why It Matters: When margins were fat, “approximately right” was survivable. As they compress, the gap between your gut and your real numbers stops being a rounding error and starts being the difference between profit and a slow leak.
What to Do: Pick one gut-based decision this week and run the actual math with AI. Just one. Let the size of the surprise tell you how many more are hiding.
Coming Up Next: The four-fingered self-portrait that taught me more about AI than any webinar ever could — and why “shipping ugly” beats “studying it.”
Disruption with a side of humor — Kirk Drake, signing off (until the next post).
Like this? I talk about going from gut to math — without hiring a finance team — when I speak. Book me here.
