Congratulations! You’ve taken over (or started) a small company that’s stuck, stalled, or sliding backward. Maybe revenue growth flatlined, customer churn increased, or you’re just buried under operational noise. Here’s the brutally practical playbook for turning things around in the AI era.
Step 1: Get real (with yourself and the team)
Companies under USD 1M in revenue rarely fail due to competition. They usually fail because founders deny reality.
Gather your team into one room (no Zoom!). No fluff, no motivational speeches, just put the real numbers on a screen:
• Monthly revenue
• Cash runway
• Growth rate
• Customer churn rate
Say this out loud: “If nothing changes, we won’t be here next year.”
Bring customer feedback, financial analysis, anything to give insights your team can digest.
Step 2: Ruthlessly simplify
Small businesses are destroyed by distraction. You’re doing too much with too few resources.
• Kill every initiative that’s not directly tied to revenue or immediate customer retention.
• Shut down unprofitable or marginal products. Less is more.
• Cancel pointless meetings. Replace with concise daily standups.
Involve AI in everyone’s job to be 30% – 50% more efficient.
Step 3: Find your “Hair on Fire” product or service
To make it past a million in revenue, at least one of your products needs to feel like oxygen to your customers. Not “nice to have,” but “how did I live without this and why wasn’t it emailed to me in beta three years ago?”
• Call your best 10 customers personally. Ask them bluntly: “Why do you stay? What’s indispensable about us?”
• Listen closely. Double down on the product or service they mention.
Analyze what your competition is doing and working. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel.
Step 4: Reset your customer acquisition
Once you know your winning product, build a repeatable, profitable acquisition channel:
• Immediately stop marketing that doesn’t clearly return investment.
• Experiment with 3-5 AI-assisted channels: automated personalized emails, hyper-targeted Instagram / Facebook / TikTok campaigns, or AI-driven content marketing
• Pick the one that works. Pour fuel on it.
Use generative AI (e.g., Midjourney, Canva AI) for visual content or LLMs to rapidly test marketing messages. A/B test faster and cheaper.
Step 5: Automate, then delegate
Your most valuable resource is your attention and your team’s attention.
• Use AI to automate bookkeeping
• Automate customer support with conversational AI.
• Offload routine decisions with internal AI copilots for scheduling, invoicing, and task management (Motion, Reclaim.ai).
• Your goal: free at least 20% of your team’s time immediately. Redirect that time to customer value.
What did you automate this week?
Step 6: Pricing: You’re probably charging too little
A small business usually prices products based on fear rather than value.
• Raise prices 20% immediately. You’ll lose fewer customers than you think (and often gain respect).
• Offer a premium tier with extra digital (AI-driven insights?) or faster service.
• Experiment quickly and confidently.
Feel the market and price it accordingly.
Step 7: Weekly execution check-ins
Set one-hour weekly meetings:
• Revenue updates
• Customer wins or losses
• What worked, what didn’t, and what you’re changing next week
Use AI tools (e.g., Trello or Notion AI) to summarize weekly progress, making each meeting actionable, concise, and free of fluff.
Final thoughts
Turnarounds at this scale aren’t glamorous. They’re not about visionary pitches or inspiring talks. They’re about boring stuff like doing fewer dumb things and more smart things quickly.
Your job? Use AI to get out of your own way faster, figure out what works, and make the USD / EUR 1M ceiling into your new floor. Execution it’s the only thing.
Use AI ruthlessly to automate, clarify, and scale your impact.
Execute quickly, adjust faster, and your USD / EUR 1M ceiling quickly becomes your new floor.
