The AI Echo Chamber
If you work alone with AI long enough, you might not be able to tell a good idea from one you’ve just convinced yourself is good.
I have a folder in my Google Drive full of businesses and offers that don’t exist.
A customer interview service. A matchmaking marketplace for marketing contractors. SaaS ROI studies. A video testimonial agency. Each one has its own folder, its own documents, its own model I began building out.
I created all of it talking to Claude and ChatGPT for hours, then talking it through with my wife for more. This went on for months, across most of the last three and a half years of exploring nearly every solo business model out there before I landed on what I wanted and am building today.
Most of those ideas never should have gotten as far as they did. They only did because I kept refining them alone, in a loop, with a very agreeable partner. (And I’m not talking about my wife, even though she was agreeable too.)
That’s the trap. And if you’re early in your solo journey and still trying to figure out what you want your business to be when it grows up, you’re probably in some version of it right now.
When you’re the only one in your business, you’re also the only one who gets it. Your spouse can listen, but they probably don’t live in your industry. So Claude, or ChatGPT, or whatever you use, starts to feel like a cofounder who is available at midnight, knows your whole situation, and always has another idea to add to yours.
But it’s a cofounder that rarely pushes back. It echoes your thinking back in cleaner words. It’ll help you polish an idea for six hours and never once tell you to close the laptop and go talk to a real prospect.
On a recent call, a fractional founder, six months into his own business, told me: “You get in that echo chamber, and you’re like, I don’t know if this is good, or if it’s just a byproduct of something I’ve convinced myself is good.”
That’s a real cost. Working alone with AI, you can slowly lose the ability to tell a genuinely good idea from one you’ve talked yourself into.
Your own conviction easily becomes the only measure of quality (and conviction is a terrible measure).
The moment you say the idea out loud to a real person who has context, it gets clearer fast. They spot the hole you talked yourself past. They ask the question you’d been avoiding. They tell you the part that won’t work because they’ve experienced it fail firsthand before.
As great as AI is, you can’t get that from a model. It has no skin in your game, and it’s never run the play.
So instead of one more session in the AI echo chamber, get your thinking in front of real people who’ll tell you what the AI won’t.
Part of that is talking to prospects and customers to test real demand. If you’ve followed my writing very long, you know I harp on that constantly.
But there’s a second kind of outside input solos skip: honest feedback on your business model, your offer, and your systems (marketing, sales, and delivery) from people who actually do this work. That often comes in two depths:
1. Peers.
People who’ve built something like what you’re chasing, made the mistakes, and will tell you what works and what doesn’t. This kind of feedback is usually fast and free. You drop a question in a channel and someone who’s been there answers. You grab thirty minutes on a call and get an honest reaction. This is one of the reasons I built 10x Solo: a group of full-time solos, fractionals, and small agency owners who’ve done this long enough to save you months of guessing. (It’s one of the things I wish I had a few years ago when I got started.)
2. An advisor or coach.
This option is good for questions or inflection points that are too big or too specific for surface feedback. This person needs the full picture: your model, your clients, your numbers, what you’ve tried, and what you actually want. That’s what I do with my clients. Because I have the full context, I can push back on their thinking rather than react to a snippet. Good pushback needs context. The more someone understands your situation, the more their “I don’t think that will work and here’s why” is worth.
I asked a fractional client recently what has been most valuable about our work together. In her words, “a safe space to examine my work,” with the “context and documentation handled” so she could “reflect and act instead of spinning (her) wheels”.
That’s what the AI echo chamber can’t hand you: a place to think next to someone who holds the full picture of your business.
You’re probably thinking, “Of course the guy who advises solos says you should hire an advisor.”
A consultant asked me this week if I’d ever hired one of my friends/competitors in my space who does what I do. My answer: not yet, but it’s on my list, and I already know the two people I’ll ask when I’m ready. I’m in the same AI echo chamber you are. I won’t pretend I don’t need it.
My invitation for you (and me) this week is small:
Take the idea you’ve been spinning on with AI. Instead of opening another chat, put it in front of one real person: drop it in a channel, or grab a call with a peer. And if it’s the kind of decision that could reshape your whole business, get someone to go all the way in with you.
Claude will help you think. You just might not know when you (and it) are wrong. The people who have been there and understand your business will.
Keep building,
Garrett
P.S. When you’re ready, here are two ways I can help you:
Join the 10x Solo community. A private community for full-time B2B solos, fractionals, and small agency owners. Weekly workshops, honest peer feedback, and referrals. Apply here.
Work with me 1:1. For maxed-out consultants, fractionals, and agency owners who want to make more money in less time by refining their business model, offers, and systems. Only a few spots open at a time. DM me to set up a time to chat.
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