Same ingredients, different kitchen
”We do not rise to the level of our goals, we fall to the level of our systems.” James Clear
Previously at the Volcano Base I was getting whimsical about Porgs. Since then I’ve been designing systems for a construction company, a membership organisation and another that supports long-haul seafarers. No surface similarities at all, but they all share the same irksome problem: their systems are in their way.
Mission Briefing
Same ingredients, different kitchen
If you took 854 businesses like mine in the South East of England (same size, same sector, same economic weather) you’d find they make, on average, 47% more income than I do. You might reasonably assume I’m losing the game.
But their costs? 139% higher.
Which makes me, somehow, 16% more profitable.
This isn’t a story about heroism or hustle. It’s a story about recipes.
Most businesses are running with the same ingredients: clients, software, email chains, existential dread of the company away-day. What differs is the method. The sequence. The heat. The pan. The fact that you’re not supposed to throw all the spices in at once and scream “argh, my eyes!”
Inside the Volcano, I’ve put a lot of thought into systems. Not in the “I added another SaaS tool” sense, but in the “my data has a single source of truth and I don’t duplicate work across three apps, one intern and 25 inexplicable spreadsheets” sense. I automate what I can. I consolidate what I can't. And I try, above all, not to create extra entropy just to feel busy. I am calm.
Business isn't fair. Luck counts for more than we’d like to admit. Success can seem random. The maths doesn’t care whether you got there by genius or by quietly refusing to be as terrible as everyone else. Every bit of unnecessary overhead, every duplicated effort, every Teams message instead of a structured system, adds up.
My competitors are playing by old rules. Rules that say more revenue must be better. Rules that worship scale. But there’s a new physics in play now. Speed without headcount. Clarity without meetings. Progress with less friction. Margins earned not by charging more, but by wasting less.
Imagine building a business where progress isn’t an accident and chaos isn’t a department.
Question is: How much of your current system is tradition wearing a lanyard?
Classified Intel
Some interesting stuff I discovered on my adventures.
“Why I gave the World Wide Web away for free”
Tim Berners-Lee
Tim Berners-Lee gave the web away for free so everyone could use it and build together. Now a few big platforms harvest our data, turn users into products, and harm society. He calls for returning control to people, stronger rules, and a Cern-like nonprofit to guide AI and the web.
Why care: Setting data “free” in the right way is not weakness, but power.
“Turn chats into checkouts. Instant Checkout for merchants in ChatGPT”
ChatGPT now lets people buy products directly during chats using Instant Checkout, powered by the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP). Merchants appear in search results for free and pay only when a sale happens, making shopping easy and fast. Businesses can apply to join and connect their products for a smooth checkout experience inside ChatGPT.
Why care: It’s a vision of commerce embedded into conversation. It hints at how systems can become seamless interfaces rather than clunky add-ons. If you’re an ecommerce operation, you should check this out (pardon the pun).
https://platform.openai.com/docs/guides/agent-builder
Agent Builder is a visual tool for creating multi-step agent workflows. Drag and drop nodes, configure inputs/outputs, and preview runs with live data. Publish and deploy workflows via ChatKit or download the SDK code.
Why care: Because your margins lean on automations. These are the building blocks other businesses will soon adopt (if they haven’t already).
“Introducing apps in ChatGPT and the new Apps SDK”
https://openai.com/index/introducing-apps-in-chatgpt/
OpenAI has launched new apps you can chat with inside ChatGPT (like Spotify, Coursera and more), making tasks easier and more interactive. Developers can build these apps using the new Apps SDK, which is available now in preview. Apps will be available to most ChatGPT users soon, with more partners and features coming later this year.
Why care: This is about the fusion of interface and logic. Embed the functionality of your systems inside the AI interface your customers are already using. Oh, and dump website page views as a metric while you’re at it.
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