Drink Your Own Champagne
I’ve had over 100 founder conversations in the last few months. And there’s a pattern that stops me in my tracks every time.
Founders building AI products…
who don’t use AI to run their own business.
It’s wild.
The founder selling AI tools for LinkedIn visibility… with 800 followers.
The founder building “AI for pipeline management”… still tracking deals in a Google Sheet.
The founder promising efficiency… while running meetings the same way they did in 2019.
Here’s the thing: buyers don’t just buy your vision.
They buy your proof.
If you build tools for LinkedIn growth, I expect you to be the best on LinkedIn.
If you build tools for sales efficiency, I expect you to run a lean, tech-powered sales motion.
If you build tools for scaling teams, I expect your own team to be a model of that playbook.
It’s not just optics.
It’s credibility.
Because founders forget: you are the first and best case study.
Why don’t founders do this?
They’re so heads-down building product, they don’t dogfood it.
They convince themselves their product isn’t “ready” for them yet.
They underestimate how much prospects care about proof over pitch.
But here’s the truth:
If you don’t trust your product enough to run your own business with it, why should anyone else?
The flip side: the founders who do drink their champagne.
These are the ones that stick.
The AI founder who runs his own team off the exact workflow his product enables.
The founder who builds an “AI chief of staff” and shows up to a call with my summary already written by his own platform.
The founder who launches a demo and says, “This isn’t a demo environment. This is our live instance. We run on this every day.”
That’s a different kind of pitch.
That’s a proof point you can’t fake.
Don’t tell me what your product could do.
Show me what it’s already doing…for you.
Because if you don’t believe enough to use it yourself, nobody else will either.