This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with small-business-owner Kristina Martinelli, a 56-year-old AI consultant who formerly worked a corporate job. The following has been edited for length and clarity.<\/p>\n
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Getting displaced at 55 years old caught me completely off guard.<\/p>\n
I had just spent two years at a Midwest bank as a portfolio manager executive and had decades of experience in corporate technology when I was let go from my job. I grappled with whether I should return to corporate America<\/a>, asking myself, “Do I stay in an industry that refuses to value my worth as an older worker with institutional knowledge?”<\/p>\n Twenty-four hours after I lost that job, I started my own company, coaigence (spelled with all lowercase letters), an AI consultancy.<\/p>\n When I moved on, I felt nervous, but I leaned into my Fortune 500 and Fortune 100 industry background and used AI from day one.<\/p>\n Starting a business is really about establishing the need<\/p>\n By the end of coaigence’s first day, I had created a name for my new company, a framework, and a direction.<\/p>\n Obviously, the paperwork that goes along with establishing an LLC, an EIN, getting legal and tax representation, bank accounts for clients, and operating costs all take time. To start a business<\/a>, it’s not about mulling it over; it’s about following a dream and taking the first step.<\/p>\n I knew my AI services would attract corporate executives<\/a> because I have decades of experience consulting and strategizing for them.<\/p>\n I learned quickly how to build custom GPTs and created a sidekick<\/p>\n I had also been using AI before I was displaced, but I had only scratched the surface.<\/p>\n Once I decided to launch my company, I became a prompt engineer before anything else. I learned how to talk to AI in a way that got me back something actually useful and immediately started building custom GPTs<\/a>.<\/p>\n I poured everything into a PDF \u2014 my thoughts, my vision, and my goals. Then I uploaded it to ChatGPT and named my GPT sidekick Raivyn. I wanted Raivyn to speak and think like me. I don’t want emails and communications that sound robotic<\/a>.<\/p>\n I created an 80\/20 rule for AI adoption: 80% should be a human-driven approach complemented by 20% of AI augmentation. The human intellect must never fall by the wayside.<\/p>\n Tools that are helping me build my AI company<\/p>\n The base AI tools<\/a> are ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot for when I use Microsoft, Gemini for when I’m using Google, and Grok if I want to completely go out there with no guardrails and create silly images.<\/p>\n After I built Raivyn, I started uploading the ideas I had scribbled in a notebook into it. I also use colored pens. If I color-code my notes and tell Raivyn what each color means, I can take a photo, upload it, and she will organize it for me. Anything urgent is written in red.<\/p>\n I’m a big fan of Claude. It’s really good for putting things into a very organized, succinct, and formatted manner. I also use Perplexity<\/a>, which is an amazing tool for research because it cites its examples.<\/p>\n The best thing someone can do is try a little bit of all of them and see which one best meets their needs.<\/p>\n Read more from our Tiny Teams series<\/p>\n I made a costly mistake subscribing to AI tools at first<\/p>\n In order to get the best memory out of any of these tools, you have to subscribe, but I don’t recommend subscribing to any AI tool for a year.<\/p>\n It’s very easy to get pulled into subscriptions. I’ve gotten burned so many times thinking I’d get some dollars off. In a month, that tool could be third on the list.<\/p>\n