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VCs are growing wary of ‘AI-washing’ – but real innovation is still winning investors

Business


Venture capital investment surged to a 10-quarter high of €108.3bn in Q1 2025, fuelled by artificial intelligence, which accounted for over  €44.6bn raised. In recent years, AI has felt like a money-printing machine. Investors, eager to avoid missing out on the next big thing, were quick to back almost any startup that mentioned AI in their pitch deck. The idea didn’t need to be particularly well-implemented or useful. In some cases, even the illusion of innovation was enough to earn a unicorn valuation. But investors are now wising up to AI-washing. As the CEO of Gradient Labs — an AI…

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Productizing Your Services for Highly Profitable Leads and Sales

Business

Productizing Your Services for Highly Profitable Leads and Sales by Social Media Examiner

Are you struggling to scale your business beyond random acts of marketing? Wondering how to create a more systematic approach that drives consistent, profitable results? In this article, you’ll discover how to productize your services to generate more profitable leads and sales while building a sustainable revenue engine. Why Scaling Your Service Begins With Strategic […]

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Friendship is a story

Business

How did we meet? What were we doing when we shifted from acquainted to friends? Who else is in our circle? How do we make space for each other and how do we dance together toward our center?

You’ve shown me who you really are, and I trust you enough to share my dreams and fears.

I know the sound of your laugh before you even start laughing and you remember things about me that I sometimes forget about myself. There are inside jokes between us that no one else would understand.

I remember you standing up for me, and I hope I’ve done the same for you. Can you count on me the way I count on you?

I’d miss you if you were gone.

Brands are not our friends. And most of them are simply acquaintances. But the most successful marketers understand how deeply our emotional bond with friends runs, and try to echo some of those feelings. Manipulate the process and you’ll inevitably disappoint the very people you seek to serve.

With their relentless push to humanize, brands have blurred the lines of connection and culture, but they’ve also reminded us that the stories we tell ourselves about our most important people are priceless and irreplaceable.

Authenticity is impossible to measure, and so consistency carries us forward. What do we expect when we hear you knocking? What promises are you here to keep, and how often are they kept?

[Coming in October: Seven years ago, I worked with my friend, bestselling author Bernadette Jiwa to launch The Story Skills Workshop. Bernadette has consistently helped people around the world get clear about the story they tell and the change they seek to make–in all arenas. She’s running it again in October.]

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