A year without the algorithm

Aloha PLB Ohana,

I hope you had a great summer. I usually slow down my communication in the summer when Akasha is out of school and I work less, but I’m now realizing that I took the whole summer off!

So it's been a while since I've written to you… and there's a lot going on, so grab a coffee.

This one's long (but worth it!).

A year without the algorithm#

It's been about a year since I gave myself FULL permission to step away from social media as the primary way I grow this business.

I've always said social was just one channel. But if I'm honest, up until a year ago I still kinda bought into the idea that I needed to double down on it.

Post more, show up more, grow it. And when my nervous system finally backfired from pushing so hard in that direction, I relented. Nope. Not for me. I'll figure out other ways to grow.

To be fair, I still post on social (mostly to my personal Facebook page and LinkedIn) and would never tell you to stop doing it if it works for you.

I do it to keep the lights on, and only share when I'm inspired. But I put zero pressure on myself to hit any kind of cadence.

And yes… I questioned my judgement in the beginning. The first six months were a bit rough. Where were people going to come from?

But I just kept doubling down on the things I actually value: nurturing relationships, going grassroots, showing up in person. And now we're hitting a stride. It's paying off in dividends.

So here's what "growing the business" looks like for me now. These are things I absolutely think could be valuable for you to do in your business as well:

My local community. I upgraded my Chamber of Commerce membership this year to a sponsorship level so I'd have more front-and-center exposure here at home. So far it's turning out to be one of the best investments I've ever made in my business. More on why that matters below.

Partnerships. I'm building out a real partnership ecosystem, and it's going well. I'll say more about that in a minute, because there's an invitation in it for you.

Agent-Supported Outreach (not yet launched): I hesitated on including this one because it’s not quite in full swing yet, but I’m committed to giving my client family the behind-the-scenes look at what I’m doing, so here it is…

First, what it’s not: It’s not Outreach Slop, which there is a lot of these days with people using AI in a half-ass ways. Really, people should know better. It’s also not AI pretending to be a human and sending people cold emails en mass. It’s more thoughtful than that.

It’s using agents to research prospects, find ways I can add value as an icebreaker, and then delivering transformation before asking the transaction.

It’s the same way I always have done it, which is why I’m confident it’s going to work. I’m just going to use agents to go bigger and faster.

I’ll share more on this strategy once it’s fully engaged and operational.

What we actually do now#

You may have noticed this. Perfect Little Business has fully transformed over the last 6 months.

And let me tell you, it was a totally organic and intuitive shift.

It was also a return home of sorts.

My first online business was an online job board (directory), which then evolved into an agency, which then evolved into a coaching business.

Now we are more of a hybrid coaching/agency model that also builds Authority Directories!

Rather than just coach others on how to use/install AI systems, we build and install the AI systems, and then coach our clients on how to use adopt and them.

This allows everyone to get results more quickly, so it’s a win-win.

If you’re wondering what we do for clients exactly, here are our core services:

1. Digital Presence. We build, rebuild, or optimize it, and that includes a full website build if that's something you need or want. This has the most synergy with our past offers as it’s still heavily rooted in understanding the avtar, nailing the offer, getting the messaging right, and setting up the lead gen system.

2. Authority Directories. This is what was birthed by my rejection of the social algorithm. And this is how we establish visibility, grow authority, and get our clients recommended by AI engines. And there's been a happy byproduct: across the board, for my clients and for me, we're seeing a big uptick in organic traffic. People are still using Google. They're finding us because we're coming up in search. Anyone who tells you search is dead doesn’t know what they’re talking about.

3. AI-native transformation. Once we've built your site and your Authority Directory (ideally on AI as the foundation, using Claude or ChatGPT, with you owning your own codebase), it just makes sense to bring the rest of the business into that environment. That's what AI-native means. Not using AI as a tool, but making it the foundation of your operations, sales, marketing, and client success.

If you want the full story of how I evolved this past year, I put it in one video. It's called The AI Shift, and it's the best explainer I have for how I got to where I am: https://www.perfectlittlebusiness.com/the-ai-shift/

The experiment I can't stop talking about: agentic businesses#

Here's where AI-native goes next, and it's the thing I'm most excited about right now.

Over the past several months I've been building what I call agentic businesses.

Not businesses that use AI. Businesses where AI agents do the actual work of running them: the research, the scouting, the content, the outreach, the updates, all of it, with me steering rather than doing.

The first one I can show you is Ono Food Trucks (soon to be rebranded to Ono Hawai’i Eats).

It's a directory of Hawaii's food trucks and street food vendors, and here's the part that allowed me to actually take the initiative and start this project: AI agents scouted roughly 300 trucks across the islands to build it.

I didn't hire a research team. I didn't spend months collecting listings. I pointed agents at the problem and they went and found the trucks.

And what happens when the agents find the vendors?

This is where the Agentic Outreach model kicks in. The agents will create a free digital presence for the vendor, offer it to them, and if and only if the vendor wants it, we’ll offer additional paid services - all agentically serviced.

There are a few more agentic businesses in the works that I'm not ready to talk about yet. Some of them are in industries you would never expect me to be in. Let's just say I've been having a lot of fun, and I'll share more when the time is right.

Why does this matter to you? Because these little experiments are my R&D lab. Every workflow I build for Ono or one of the secret projects gets stress-tested in the real world before it ever shows up in a client engagement. When I say I can take your business AI-native, it's because I've already done it to my own, more than once, and I have the scars and the shortcuts to prove it.

I'm not officially offering this as a service yet. But I'll be honest, the door is open. If you've got an idea for a business that could run this way, a directory, a niche resource, a lean little venture you've been sitting on because you didn't have the hands to run it, I'd love to hear about it. Send me an email at hello@perfectlittlebusiness.com and tell me.

Mentoring people through building their own agentic business is absolutely on the table, and a few conversations like that might be exactly what shapes it.

Speaking of the team#

Many of you know that Tiffany Bergin (one of my lifelong best friends) is now part of the business. Her official title is Creative Director and Co-Founder, and her unofficial role is to be the person who keeps Cindy sane and grounded.

She also came into the business organically. I’ve been her unofficial business coach for years, and after she went through all of the Collective Wisdom apps I built earlier this year, I encouraged her to vibe code her own website and Authority Directory. She quickly had her own AI-Shift (the emotional experience I refer to as the ‘flip’ where suddenly how impactful AI can be for you snaps into place), she started helping me create the Digital Presence of our clients. And the rest is history.

I'm heading to one of her wellness retreats in Sedona this October, and I can't wait to connect with her in person, with nature, my body, and a group of great women. If you're curious about what she does in that space, go look at justbealigned.com. She's brilliant and deserves to have every one of her retreats filled to capacity.

Here's the part I've been building up to#

Remember how I started this post? A year ago I stopped chasing an algorithm and bet the business on relationships instead. Real people, real referrals, grassroots.

Well. That means you.

The people on this list are the reason PLB is still here after all this time. You've hired me, referred me, cheered me on, and told me the truth when I needed it. And the best clients I've ever worked with almost all came through someone like you.

So I'm making it official. We’ve launched a partnership program, and I want you in it.

Here's the shape of it. If you know someone who needs a website that actually works, an Authority Directory so AI engines and Google start recommending them, or a full AI-native transformation of their business, you send them my way.

We take beautiful care of them. And you get paid for the introduction. It's that simple, and the same goes for Baja Meets Bali, which I'll get to in a second.

I'm not looking for a hundred partners. I'm looking for a handful of people I already trust, whose networks are full of the kinds of business owners I love working with. That's you.

If you want the details, send me an email to hello@perfectlittlebusiness.com with PARTNER in the subject line and I'll send everything over.

If you already have someone in mind, tell me who.

Baja Meets Bali#

One thing this whole AI experiment has taught me: people want human connection.

They want to understand what their business means now that AI is in it. And it turns out we can do a lot in a short period of time. Rather than long, multi-month engagements, sometimes the best thing is to meet in person, knock out some significant workflows, make some big decisions, and redefine what the business is.

And figure out how you can be more present and human in it while AI handles the mundane and the heavy lifting.

So Tiffany and I are hosting in-person retreats for businesses. The program is called ALIVE, and you can find it at BajaMeetsBali.com.

Fun story on the name. I was working with Manus (AI) on the vibe for ALIVE, and I said I wanted water in it, because Tiffany and I both love the water. It came back with a Mediterranean feel, which is the other side of the world from me. I said no, we’re more like Baja meets Bali. Manus said, "Wow, that's got a ring to it." I said yeah, it does. And I bought the URL.

Go check it out.

And if you'd like to refer people to our Baja Meets Bali events, we offer a commission on those too.

Two housekeeping things#

The Collective Wisdom portal is sunsetting. I'm shutting down the Go High Level client portal soon.

Why? I'm walking the walk I talk: as I become more AI-native, I don't need it anymore.

I rebuilt our portal with AI, and it's powerful. I really like it. Many of you already have test logins to Authority HQ, and I'm adding a community element in the next week or so. I'll send a separate email with all the details.

Where I stand on AI right now. There's a lot of hairy, scary hype out there. You've probably seen the headlines about the Anthropic researcher who quit and warned that AI could end us all by the end of the decade.

I don't pretend to know what's going to happen with AI's capabilities. It's definitely progressing faster than anyone expected three years ago. But reacting to the hype and letting it take hold of our psyche and our emotions is probably the wrong move.

I wrote a long essay on my take. It was written before the whistleblower news, but it's about data centers, jobs, and our role as business owners.

It's about how we can actually take ownership of the narrative of how AI develops, if we participate in this industry and in our communities.

https://www.perfectlittlebusiness.com/essays/who-holds-the-pen/

This is a big part of why I'm being more vocal at my Chamber of Commerce.

I want access to this technology, I want it to be sustainable, and I want a say in how it takes shape.

And I believe that the way for me to have a real seat at the table of AI (and to ensure we all have a seat at the table when big decisions are being made) is to encourage small business adoption of AI.

Not because AI makes our business better, but because it’s our right to have it make our business better without it sacrificing our safety.

Interestingly, my little town of Kailua-Kona is introducing legislation to rezone for data centers.

We already have an electricity problem on this island, so I can't imagine it being a viable build here, but we'll see.

The essay is about a 10-minute read. If you want to know where I really land on all of this, and what I think our role is: https://www.perfectlittlebusiness.com/essays/who-holds-the-pen/

Mahalo for being here. It means a lot.

Cindy