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Field Notes

Thinking out loud, in writing.

Practical notes on technology, AI, and operations for small businesses. Written from the field, not the boardroom.

21 notes · 4 reading tracks · about 105 minutes of reading, start to finish

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Pick the one that sounds most like this week. Each track is a short reading list, in order.

LatestBusiness Strategy · October 13, 2026 · 4 min read

No Plan, No Choice: The Unplanned Business Exit

More than half of small business owners have no formal succession plan, and roughly half of all business exits happen for reasons nobody chose. What that means for the business you're running today, whether or not you're planning to leave anytime soon.

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Start with these three. About 13 minutes, all together.

  1. What Does Your Online Presence Say to Your Customers?Getting Found · 5 min read
  2. The Five-Minute Rule: Why Lead Response Time Is an Operations ProblemRunning Smoother · 5 min read
  3. Why Most Small Businesses Get AI WrongAI Without the Hype · 3 min read

Every note, by track

The whole library, in reading order.

Getting Found

Customers can't find you, or they find you and keep going.

8 notes · 44 min

  1. What Does Your Online Presence Say to Your Customers?A Hungarian restaurant that's the only one for fifty miles can get away with a dated website. A roofer competing against a hundred others in metro Atlanta can't. The difference is whether your online presence has to do any convincing.5 min read
  2. Your Website Should Work for You. Most Don't.Wix, WordPress, and GoDaddy builder sites are easy to launch. But easy to launch isn't the same as effective. Here's what a custom-built site actually does for your business.5 min read
  3. Your Facebook Page Is Not a Website. Here's Why That's Costing You Customers.You've got a Facebook page and solid Google reviews. That feels like enough. But for a growing number of customers, it isn't, and the numbers back that up.4 min read
  4. Your Google Business Profile Is a Free Website. Use It.Most small businesses set up a Google Business Profile and never touch it again. Here are five things you can do today that cost nothing and actually move the needle on local search.4 min read
  5. Nothing Changed on Your Website. Everything Changed Around It.Four reasons a website built in 2023 quietly stopped bringing in calls, and how to tell which one is yours.5 min read
  6. What a Small Business Website Costs in AtlantaAsk three people what a website costs and you'll hear $300 a year, $3,000, and $15,000. All three can be honest. Here's what each price actually buys in 2026, the costs nobody puts in the quote, and the questions to ask before you pay anyone.6 min read
  7. The Checkout Moved Into the Chat WindowAI shopping agents are already comparing prices, reading reviews, and in some cases buying, without a human ever landing on your homepage. What that costs, what it takes to be findable, and what changes next.7 min read
  8. Before You Spend a Dollar on AdsPaid ads aren't magic, and they aren't for every business at every stage. An honest quick-start on what to have in place first, who to target, which platform fits, how to set a budget, and what a first campaign really looks like.8 min read

Running Smoother

The business only works when you're there holding it together.

4 notes · 23 min

  1. The Five-Minute Rule: Why Lead Response Time Is an Operations ProblemThe research on lead response time is brutal: waiting even an hour can cut your odds of ever landing the job. A plain look at what happens in the gap, and what to do about it without living on your phone.5 min read
  2. Who Owns Your Business Email When Someone Quits?When someone leaves, the email, files, and logins they used should stay with the business. In a lot of small businesses they don't. Why a free email address belongs to a person and not the company, how to pick between Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, why your mail lands in spam, and a simple offboarding checklist.6 min read
  3. What IT Support Costs a Small Business in 2026A managed IT quote for a fifteen-person office can come back at $2,500 a month, and the owner's first thought is: for what? Nothing breaks. Here's what the three ways of paying for IT actually cost in 2026, what's hiding in each, and which one fits a business your size.5 min read
  4. Your Old PC Isn't Dead. It's Just Running Windows.A practical, no-jargon walkthrough for switching an old or slow Windows PC to Linux Mint Cinnamon: what it actually costs, what breaks, and how to do it without losing anything.7 min read

AI Without the Hype

Everyone says to use AI. Nobody says where to start.

6 notes · 26 min

  1. Why Most Small Businesses Get AI WrongThe problem is not that small businesses lack the tools. It is that they are solving the wrong problem first.3 min read
  2. The 82% Problem: Why the Smallest Firms Skip AIFederal data says the smallest businesses aren't skipping AI over cost or risk. Eighty-two percent say it just doesn't apply to them, and that's a translation problem, not a technology one.4 min read
  3. Five AI Tools That Can Save You Five Hours a Week (And They're All Free)You don't need a tech background or a big budget to start using AI in your business. Here are five free tools that handle the time-draining tasks most small business owners are still doing by hand.4 min read
  4. Now Make Them Work Together: Connecting Your Free AI Tools Into a SystemFive free tools are useful on their own. Connected, they turn your business into something that responds, books, and follows up without you managing every step. Here is how to link them.6 min read
  5. Stop Asking AI to Agree With YouThe best results from AI tools don't come from asking for a plan. They come from making the thing push back, argue the other side, or work backward from failure. Five prompts you can copy, no paid plan required.5 min read
  6. When the Free Stack Runs Out of RunwayFive free tools can carry a small business further than most owners expect. Here's what actually breaks when they can't carry it any further, and what replaces them.4 min read

The Long Game

Building a business that outlasts the next busy season.

3 notes · 13 min

  1. Two Booms, One Garage: What Watching This Happen Twice Taught Me About Staying CurrentI learned computers in my father's garage in the early nineties, building and selling machines that look like dinosaurs next to what we have now. Here's what watching two tech booms, thirty-five years apart, taught me about paying attention without losing your mind to it.4 min read
  2. Letting Go Is Not the Answer: How Founders Scale Without Losing What Made Them DifferentMost advice about scaling a business tells founders to let go. That's the wrong instruction. The real work is building processes, hiring the right people, and knowing when a tool can do the job instead of a body, so the vision that started the business survives its own growth.5 min read
  3. No Plan, No Choice: The Unplanned Business ExitMore than half of small business owners have no formal succession plan, and roughly half of all business exits happen for reasons nobody chose. What that means for the business you're running today, whether or not you're planning to leave anytime soon.4 min read

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