Hey, it’s Martin.
This week we ran AI-strategy discovery calls with a few, smaller companies through our new consulting business. I also caught up with a friend that works with tech at a much bigger enterprise.
These contrasting conversations made me think of inertia.
You know that motion when you swipe on your phone and the scrolling continues for a bit while gradually slowing down? That's inertia.
In businesses big and small there's inertia, too. Companies continue along the same path as before, even when they see or know that a course correction is beneficial. Depending on size and willpower, they may eventually course correct (not all do, see Kodak). But, that gap time creates opportunity.
Inertia in business is based on three layers:
Habits - individual best practices people in the org have adopted based on the below layers
Processes - the commonly defined ways the business operate
Technology - the tools and tech foundation the business operates on
The amount of inertia is based on this formula:
volume (people, processes) * time (the longer you've been on a path, the stronger this path dependence becomes)
When a business wants to adopt AI, it touches all the layers at the same time.
This makes it slow, painful and difficult.
It's also throwing many companies off track because it
is treated as purely a technology transition or
management pressured by stakeholders like the board starts running top-down strategy processes. Not to adopt AI, but to please the stakeholders.
The way companies orient towards and adopt AI is a good example of inertia. AI is extra interesting because it comes with a few modifiers that makes it more complex (and in my opinion widens the time gap):
it's evolving very, very fast
it's currently in a messy, chaotic state
nobody's really got time to get into it (because they're busy running their business)
That's the opportunity.
If you're a solopreneur or running a small team, you have almost zero inertia compared to enterprises. You can test an AI workflow on Monday and have it running by Friday. A Fortune 500 company needs three months of planning before anyone even opens ChatGPT.
This speed gap is your wedge.
While big companies are stuck in committee meetings debating AI strategy, you can be building services that exploit their slowness.
By the time the big players finish their strategy decks, you've already got revenue and real-world feedback loops making your offer better.
The businesses that win this window won't be the ones with the most sophisticated AI infrastructure. They'll be the ones who moved while everyone else was still planning.
Using skills in Claude
Anthropic just released Claude Skills. This is worth paying attention to.
What it is: Skills teach Claude how to handle specific tasks consistently. When you ask Claude to work on a spreadsheet, it loads the xlsx skill with deep knowledge about formulas and formatting. Same for presentations, documents, PDFs.
Why it matters: You can create your own skills. Got a client onboarding process you run every time? Document it as a skill. Now Claude executes it the same way without you re-explaining the steps.
Projects vs Skills:
We’ve discussed Projects (in both Claude and ChatGPT) at length before. Here’s how to think about Projects vs. Skills.
How to use it:
Go to Settings → Capabilities in Claude
Turn on the Skills feature, also turn on the "skill-creator" skill (and any other pre-built ones you wanna test)
Open a new chat and ask Claude to help you create a new skill
It will guide you through the process (using its own "skill-creator" skill) and package everything up for you
Upload your skill file in the same setting as the first step
Here are a few ways I'm exploring building skills right now:
structuring AI discovery reports for companies we work with
compiling business reports
polishing newsletter posts
Combining projects (knowledge) with skills (tactics) is the way to go here. Still exploring how best to think about this. Will report more later.
Want more to read? Here are some previous posts that readers enjoyed (thanks to Kelsey for suggesting this):
If you have ideas you want me to write about, hit reply!
Until next week,
Martin
PS: feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn and say hi! It’s always fun to chat with new readers.