Amazeballs! 

I have never heard this slang term before until yesterday. Context: 40 Accounting Zach, wrote a song about our family reunion and used AI to sing the country lyrics. My sister-in-law, Diane, an attorney by trade, responded, Amazeballs! Amazeballs is a slang term used to describe something that is extremely good, impressive, or surprising. The term perfectly describes how you need to be when launching new products and services in the AI era.

I have had two more of these experiences just in the past week!!

But most business owners do not experience this because they wait too long.

There’s another term for that. But this is a family-friendly blog.

They wait until the product is perfect. The process is perfect. The website is perfect. The dashboard is perfect.

The problem?

By the time everything is “perfect,” the AI market may have already moved on. Way past you.

I know, I have been guilty of this in the past and it’s especially hard to release today while AI technology is moving so rapidly.

That is why one of the most powerful concepts in business is the minimum viable product, or MVP. It is not about launching something sloppy or cutting corners. It is about getting something valuable into the hands of real customers so you can learn, improve, and build momentum.

When done right, an MVP can still create a wow experience.

I was reminded of this last weekend, in Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic..

My wife and I had just celebrated our 30th anniversary, and we stayed at the new Moon Palace resort. This place is going to be massive. Beautiful property on the beach. Great views. Incredible people and culture. Pools everywhere. Golf course views. The whole thing.

But the resort had only opened a couple of weeks earlier. The official grand opening was still months away. Construction was still happening. Not everything was finished. You could tell they were training the team, testing the systems, and working through the details.

In other words, it was a minimum viable product.

But they handled it very well, despite the imperfections.

As we arrived, they shared that the resort was still being built out. They thanked us for being there early. And then they did something that completely changed the experience.

They paid for the entire stay.

Not the flights, of course. But the hotel at the all-inclusive hotel. And we can use those four days at many other Moon Palace resorts in the next year.

That one decision changed everything.

(Moon Palace Resorts, Punta Cana, The Dominican Republic)

Amazeballs, #2

Were there unfinished areas? Yes. Did it feel like they were still figuring a few things out? Absolutely.

But instead of feeling frustrated, we felt like we were part of the opening story. We could see the vision. We could feel the potential. Because they created the right exchange of value, the imperfections did not ruin the experience.

They actually made the experience more interesting. Now, I want to go back and see it completed.

That is the lesson.

An MVP does not need to be perfect. But it does need to be honest. It needs to create value. And it needs to give the customer a reason to believe in where you are going.

I see this with our clients. A client may be building toward a big product, but that does not happen overnight. It takes testing, investment, listening to customers, and being willing to adjust.

At first, the value may not be fully built out. Maybe the price needs to be lower. Maybe the first customers need extra support. Maybe you need to explain that they are getting early access to something that will keep improving.

The key is that you are not asking them to accept a bad product. You are inviting them into the process of building something better.

We have lived this inside 40 Accounting™ as well. 

For the first couple of years, 40 Accounting™ has been our own MVP. We were supporting clients, hiring quickly, improving processes, and figuring out how to create a better financial experience for small business owners. 

We knew where we wanted to go. But we were also building while flying the plane.

Now, with the power of AI, better systems, stronger processes and more people, we are creating scorecards and financial tools that are better than what we were trying to build a decade ago with far more money and complexity.

Back then, I was the VP of Finance and Operations leadership role in a company that grew from 70 employees to 450 employees in three years. It was bananas. One major strategic initiative was building a company scorecard using Power BI. We spent hundreds of hours and a lot of money trying to make it work.

The biggest issue was trust. And the project never met the original expectations.

Our team just created our new client accurate financial dashboards in a crazy short period of time.

Our clients now have this amazing dashboard with historical financials with more precise detail than ever before. First, we make sure our trained team with accounting degrees gets the data right before it gets in the AI tool. Second, we modify the outcomes to assure they are logical and consistent with our knowledge of the client. Then, we can post and store this information to be shared in a secure location for our clients. 

Amazeballs #3

If the data is not right, the dashboard does not matter. If the information is hard to adjust, the tool becomes frustrating. If it does not help leaders make decisions, it is just a pretty picture.

Small business owners do not need more pretty pictures.

They need to know if they can hire another employee. They need to know if they can buy inventory to increase sales. They need to know if they have enough cash for the next three months. They need to know where profit is leaking and where opportunity is hiding.

That is where AI is changing the game.

Not someday. Right now.

We can now spend more time on the 5 most important financial decisions with our clients; instead of just trying to make sure the financials are accurate.

We are using tools that allow our team to create faster, better, more useful outputs for clients. People with different levels of experience can now use these tools to help produce wow experiences.

Somebody, somewhere, is already building a faster, cheaper, better version of what you do. Maybe they are in a garage. Maybe they are already selling to your customers.

If you are not experimenting with AI, MVPs, better systems, and faster feedback loops, you are falling behind. Faster than you think.

That does not mean you need to blow up your business.

Start small. Pick one service. One process. One client experience. One report. One offer. Build the minimum viable version. Be honest about what it is. Price it fairly. Deliver real value. Ask for feedback. Improve it.

Then do it again.

The businesses that win over the next few years will not be the ones who waited for perfection.

They will be the ones that launched, learned, improved, and created wow experiences faster than everyone else.

So here is the question for this Saturday:

What is the MVP you should already be testing?

And what are you waiting for?