THE OUBAITORI EDIT

I saw a post from @simplysocialkristen https://www.instagram.com/p/DdwvhxaRVCk/on Instagram that made me laugh because she was describing herself as basically the opposite of AI. There she was with a decidedly non-water beverage, joking that it takes her an hour to make a graphic and she hadn’t consumed water all day.

And I realized something: apparently, I’m more like AI.

I encourage people for a living, and I consume water all day long. I’m also decaffeinated by necessity rather than choice, which feels like an important distinction. I still live for coffee. Most days that means decaf at home, although sometimes it means a Dunkin decaf with blueberry syrup and almond milk because I refuse to let caffeine intolerance steal every bit of joy from me.

But Kristen’s post also got me thinking about something considerably bigger than my beverage habits. We’ve spent the last few years talking about AI as though businesses have to choose a side: human or artificial, authentic or automated, personal or efficient.

I don’t think those things are opposites. Moreover, AI tools for small businesses reveal a shift: technology can do more for us.

The genuinely human parts of our businesses become more valuable, and founders must show up again.

Your Audience Doesn’t Just Want Your Content. They Want Context.

For years, small business owners were taught to polish everything. Create the perfect grid. Develop the perfect brand voice. Photograph the perfect product. Schedule the perfect posts. Follow the right hooks, use the trending audio, post at the right time, and optimize everything.

However, somewhere along the way, social media started feeling considerably less social; AI tools for small businesses could help.

Now AI can help us create captions, brainstorm ideas, edit videos, analyze information, organize content calendars, and generate graphics faster than most humans ever could. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The problem begins when efficiency removes the person behind the business.

Your customer can buy things almost anywhere. What they can’t get anywhere else is you: your perspective, your story, your reason for creating the thing you’re selling, your weird Tuesday afternoon realization that a customer keeps using your product differently than you intended, the package that arrived looking completely wrong, the prototype that failed, the product everyone loves that you almost didn’t launch, or the comment from a customer that changed your mind.

That’s where founder-generated content becomes incredibly valuable.

Founder-Generated Content Is More Than Talking-Head Videos

When people hear “founder-generated content,” they sometimes picture a business owner constantly pointing a camera at themselves. That’s not really the point.

Founder-generated content is about letting the person, thinking, and process behind the brand become part of the brand. There is a big difference between saying, “Our new collection launches Friday,” and telling people, “I’ve been working on this for six months, and here’s the problem I was trying to solve.” One is an announcement. The other invites someone into the story.

Founder-generated content might be you packing orders, choosing materials, explaining why you rejected a prototype, visiting a supplier, answering a customer question, showing your workspace, talking about a business mistake, or explaining why you’re changing something. It can also be as simple as asking your customers what they think.

One of my favorite examples of this is Jess from Whiny Wines. I’ve mentioned her before because I love watching how she involves her customers in the brand’s evolution. Instead of disappearing behind a corporate-looking logo and periodically emerging to announce a product, she’s letting customers participate in decisions and conversations.

They aren’t simply watching the brand develop. They’re helping shape it. That’s an entirely different relationship, and for a small business, that relationship can become one of your biggest competitive advantages.

Your Customers May Be Your Best Focus Group

Traditional businesses have spent enormous amounts of money trying to understand what customers want. Small businesses now have something incredibly valuable sitting right in front of them every day: a comment section.

Social media strategist Shannon McKinstrie regularly reminds creators about the social part of social media, and I think that’s increasingly important. We’re so conditioned to ask, “What should I post today?” Maybe we should also be asking, “Who am I talking to today?”

Those aren’t the same question.

When someone comments on your post, they’re giving you information. Five people asking the same question reveal a content idea to you. Customers who repeatedly request a color, size, scent, feature, tutorial, or variation give you product research. When people tell you why they bought something, they’re helping you understand your positioning. When something unexpectedly resonates, they’re telling you something about your audience that analytics alone might not explain.

This is where social media becomes less about broadcasting and more about listening.

Your audience shouldn’t necessarily dictate every decision you make. You’re still responsible for the vision of your company. But there is enormous value in building with people rather than constantly marketing at them.

Show Me the Messy Middle

I think we’re also craving more behind-the-scenes content because we’ve become accustomed to seeing the finished product. Observers glimpse the launch, but the 17 versions that came before it remain unseen. We see the beautiful storefront, but we don’t see someone sitting on the floor surrounded by shipping boxes at midnight. We see the published article, but we don’t see the 14 browser tabs, abandoned headline, and cup of reheated decaf sitting beside the laptop.

And that’s often the interesting part.

If you make candles, show me how you choose fragrances using AI tools for small business. Additionally, if you’re a reseller, tell me what makes you pick one thrift-store item and leave another. For photographers, reveal what happens before the final edited photograph. Bakery owners should show their best products while acknowledging that failures offer a human perspective. If you’re a designer, show me the rejected ideas. If you’re creating a digital product, show the problem that made you start it. If you’re a service provider, share what you changed when customers kept struggling.

That content does something a perfectly polished advertisement often can’t. It gives me a reason to care about the person behind the product.

So Where Does AI Fit Into All of This?

This is where I think we’ve created a false choice. I don’t want AI to replace the human element of my business. I want AI to help me protect it. There is a significant difference.

I don’t need technology to manufacture a personality for The Oubaitori Edit. I already have one. Nor do I need it to invent my experiences, opinions, relationships, or curiosity. What I do need is help managing the enormous amount of information and administrative work that comes with a modern content business.

Because I’m one person. I have a family, responsibilities, and limited hours. I have ADHD and executive-function challenges. And like most small business owners and creators, I can easily spend so much time organizing the work that I have no energy left to actually do it.

So I’ve started looking at AI differently. Instead of asking, “What can AI create for me?” I’m increasingly asking, “What can AI take off my plate so I have more time to create, connect, and serve people?” That question has led me down an interesting rabbit hole.

I’ve used ChatGPT to help me build my own Content Studio, essentially creating one central place where I can organize content ideas, future features, interviews, affiliate products, and editorial plans instead of scattering them across spreadsheets, notes, and half-forgotten browser tabs.

Then I created a Deal Discovery Desk to help sort through the overwhelming number of deals across retailers so I can spend my time deciding which products actually make sense for The Oubaitori Edit rather than manually digging through thousands of listings.

And because sometimes the biggest obstacle isn’t knowing what to do but getting my ADHD brain to decide what to do first, I created something I call The Next Right Thing. Instead of staring at an enormous list until everything feels equally urgent and I accomplish none of it, the idea is simple: help me figure out the next reasonable thing to do.

None of these tools replaces me. That’s precisely why I like them. They support the parts of my work where I struggle so I have more capacity for the parts where being human actually matters.

Maybe the Goal Isn’t to Become More Efficient at Being Human

AI can do some things remarkably quickly. Let it. There are also things it cannot replicate: your relationship with your customers, your lived experience, your taste, your intuition, your sense of humor, your willingness to admit something didn’t work, the story behind your product, the customer who gave you an idea, the conversation that changed the direction of your business, and the community forming around what you’re creating.

Maybe the smartest way for small businesses to approach AI isn’t to ask how much content we can automate. Maybe it’s to ask how much busywork we can automate so we have more time for the conversations, creativity, and relationships we shouldn’t automate. Because people don’t need another perfectly optimized brand talking at them. They want people. And ironically, AI might actually give small business owners more time to be one.

On Tuesday, I’m continuing this conversation from the other side: how AI and thoughtful automation can help small business owners serve customers better, reduce repetitive work, and create more space for making great physical and digital products. I’ll also take you inside some of the AI tools I’ve built for myself, including my Content Studio, Deal Discovery Desk, and The Next Right Thing, and explain how they solve actual problems rather than adding another shiny piece of technology to manage.

For today, though, here’s the question I’d ask: If you stopped worrying about what you’re supposed to post and simply let your customers see more of the person and process behind your business, what would you show them?