Artificial intelligence (AI) is powerful and may accelerate your startup planning – but on its own, it won’t start or build a billion-dollar company (or will it?). The most successful entrepreneurs don’t just use the latest tools – including AI. They combine them with street-smart skills to beat others using the same tools. That’s how they turn tech into traction, and ideas into unicorns.
Here are 6 strategies used by unicorn entrepreneurs who combined the latest tools with real intelligence and street smarts to launch scalable, profitable companies – without giving up control. If you’re serious about building a unicorn on your terms, these are for you.
1. Plan Like a Pro: Why the Process Beats the Plan
As a CEO wisely noted, “It is not the plan that is important but the process of planning.”
This rings especially true for entrepreneurs in emerging industries, where the future is unpredictable and assumptions are constantly tested. No plan is ever fully accurate – but the act of planning is what prepares you to respond with clarity and agility.
Planning isn’t about locking in a roadmap – it’s about sharpening your thinking. It helps you surface assumptions, weigh scenarios, and build the confidence to pivot when needed. Use both AI and your own Real Intelligence to craft your plan. AI can reveal patterns and possibilities, but your human insight is what gives the plan depth and adaptability – and helps you fit your strengths and adjust for your weaknesses.
Ultimately, it’s not about getting every detail right – it’s about knowing what to do when things go differently than expected.
2. Find Your Edge in a Fast-Changing Market.
Emerging trends, and the strategies used by billion-dollar entrepreneurs to dominate them, are unique. This is especially true of emerging trends created by revolutionary technologies where the technology obsoletes the old business models and allows new ventures to grow and destroy the old. The latest example of this phenomenon is the Internet that destroyed many giant companies that stuck to the old business model. Use AI as a guide and input all the latest data about ventures and competitors to pick the right strategy to succeed – maybe AI and your Real Intelligence can help you find your edge.
- Jeff Bezos started Amazon.com as an online bookseller. When he found that “everyone” wanted to buy “everything” from him, he expanded his vision and his plan before others and led the emerging Internet industry. Maybe the rest of us can improve our skills by adding AI.
3. Pivot Smart: Choose the Right Strategy
New ventures will have to deal with the uncertainty of an emerging industry, including the number and quality of the other entrepreneurs entering, and their strategies. AI can spew out alternative plans. But can AI pick the right one based on an accurate assessment of your skills and that of your, often unknown, competitors. Given that there are many factors that affect success, and that AI is a hindsight-based forecasting tool, this is an area that will need improvement. It will need your Real Intelligence.
- When the big-box retail industry emerged, Sam Walton sold his small stores in small towns and launched Walmart in the big-box category – but in small towns to dominate the industry.
- When the PC industry emerged, Steve Jobs had to compete against Bill Gates. Gates won – using an alliance with IBM. But when he returned to Apple, Jobs dominated with the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad by selecting the right alliances and building his own platforms for music and apps.
- Travis Kalanick launched Uber as a limo service, but pivoted to peer-to-peer rides when he spotted greater demand—and the billion-dollar opportunity behind it.
4. Launch Lean and Stay in Control.
VCs do well at replacing entrepreneurs – they do it in up 85% of their investments.
But 94% of billion-dollar entrepreneurs took off without VC to stay in control. They used a combination of business smarts to find the finance-smart strategy, and finance smarts to find the bootstrapped growth strategy. Maybe AI can add to your business smarts and finance smarts.
- Bob Kierlin built Fastenal with a unicorn launch strategy by finding, and developing the right people, to grow at 30% per year from internal cash flow
- Gaston Taratuta built Aleph with $2,000 by selecting the best markets (outside the U.S.) and the right positioning (with Stanford U)
5. Outsmart “Smart” Money.
If there is no other difference, a venture’s success may be determined by the financial resources of the venture relative to its competitors. eBay had to change its financial strategy and get VC after launching when it encountered new competitors that had more resources. Use AI to know what other entrepreneurs and investors are doing – and ask it to suggest adjustments. But use your street smarts to select and your skills to execute better.
- Richard Burke built UnitedHealthcare with a unicorn finance strategy of getting financing from physicians – he had no other choice. And the physicians had the money
- Michael Dell beat competitors with much more financing by using a very smart strategy – direct to consumers. This strategy allowed him to customize the PCs, offer the latest components, build a better relationship with his customers, and get higher gross margins. Maybe AI can help other entrepreneurs outsmart the “smart” money.
6. Don’t Just Use Mentors. Improve on Them.
There are very few billion-dollar entrepreneurs who have built more than one unicorn. New industries require new strategic thinking because you “never stand in the same stream twice.” That’s why entrepreneurs like Musk and Jobs are unique. Mentors often seem to be the same – they give advice based on what they did – and would you want advice based on what they have not done? It is reasonable to assume that AI will learn fast from all the new data on the Internet and can better adjust to the real situation in the emerging industry. Use mentors, AI, and your street smarts to find the best advice.
My Take: AI is a powerful tool – but street smarts build the unicorn (at least for now). AI can generate alternatives and draft a plan, but success comes from smart evaluation and execution. Entrepreneurs need to assess those plans in real-world situations, applying smarts, skills, and strategies in real time when every decision can be a game-changer. AI is a powerful tool, but it’s only part of the equation. The real magic happens when entrepreneurs merge tools like AI with street smarts to make better, faster decisions and execute better to win.
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