Derrick Hicks
Boise, Idaho
Overview
AI is moving faster than most businesses can adapt. And the responses I keep seeing don't work. On one side: the PDF Industrial Complex. Consultants who build a beautiful deck about AI strategy, collect the check, and disappear. You're left holding a PDF no one will even open. On the other side: the AI Bros. Slick demos that promise to print money while you sleep. You paid for the setup. It still doesn't solve a problem that matters. Both paths skip the thing that actually matters. The foundation. Here's what I've learned building with AI every single day: the tools aren't the bottleneck.
About
AI is moving faster than most businesses can adapt. And the responses I keep seeing don't work. On one side: the PDF Industrial Complex. Consultants who build a beautiful deck about AI strategy, collect the check, and disappear. You're left holding a PDF no one will even open. On the other side: the AI Bros. Slick demos that promise to print money while you sleep. You paid for the setup. It still doesn't solve a problem that matters. Both paths skip the thing that actually matters. The foundation. Here's what I've learned building with AI every single day: the tools aren't the bottleneck. The context is. Your AI doesn't know your business, your projects, your team, or the decision you made last Tuesday. Every conversation starts cold. Every tool starts from zero. Get the foundation right and everything changes. That's why I built Memory Engine. A persistent context layer that gives AI your identity, your work, and your priorities so it actually compounds over time instead of resetting every chat. And that foundation is what makes everything else possible. It's how I run fractional growth for Gold Front, build Convena (a multi-model AI advisory platform), and ship production systems in days instead of quarters. Not because I'm working more. Because the system underneath actually works. I've been in the exec seat. I helped scale ConvertKit from $12M to $41M ARR. I know what it's like to pay for answers and get a deck. Or pay for execution and get a half-built system and a Slack message that says "let me know if you have questions." That just won't cut it anymore in the age of AI. Get the foundation right. Everything else follows.