Everyone Warned Us About Business Partnerships. We Merged Anyway.
Two women running AI businesses got put in the same networking pod. Two years later, we'd merged into one company.
This is the origin story of Her AI Club — how a calligraphy business and a six-month rock climbing trip through Asia both somehow ended in AI, why we merged instead of staying friendly competitors, and the week we each quietly wondered what we'd get to keep for ourselves.
In this episode:
- How two very different roads led to the same place: a Palo Alto tech job that became calligraphy that became Amazon paper planners, and a ski town that became Asia that became an accidental first client
- Why we merged two AI businesses instead of staying in our own lanes, including the honest part nobody puts in the announcement post
- How custom GPTs turned into Builder Skills, and why 20-page prompt packs never worked
- How to keep up with AI when the tools change weekly — Joyce's answer is that she doesn't try
- Where AI is headed, and why we think the answer is being decided right now
Chapters:
- 00:00 — Welcome and the Unhinged Check-In
- 00:30 — Kinsey had ChatGPT vet a podcast host before saying yes
- 01:45 — Joyce got free BTS tickets, so ChatGPT wrote her a study guide
- 04:55 — Joyce's story: calligraphy, tech dude bros, and a warehouse in Florida
- 09:15 — Why she wanted to bring AI back to her community
- 11:20 — Custom GPTs, 20-page prompt packs, and what changed
- 13:00 — How custom GPTs became Builder Skills
- 15:50 — Kinsey's story: a ski town, six months in Asia, an accidental first client
- 17:55 — The Amy Porterfield problem and how Authentic AI got its name
- 21:50 — How we met: the pod nobody should have put together
- 23:40 — The 2025 Summit and our first collaboration
- 28:45 — "Okay, I have a crazy idea"
- 29:45 — The part where we each wanted to keep something for ourselves
- 30:50 — Everyone warned us about business partnerships
- 32:35 — How Joyce keeps up with AI (she doesn't)
- 33:45 — Where AI is headed, and who gets to decide
- 37:40 — What we're going to go try this week
"I don't try to keep up with it." — Joyce, on running an AI business in an industry that changes every week
What we're going to go try this week:
- Kinsey — wiring a podcast player widget to an RSS feed, then teaching a bot inside it to recommend the right episode
- Joyce — turning her ChatGPT BTS study guide into a gamified Claude dashboard, with Easter eggs
One thing before you go: the Her AI Era Summit is October 12–16, and it's the event this whole show came out of. Save your seat here.
Full show notes and links: herai.co/podcast
Come find us: Her AI Club · @heraiclub
Listen anywhere: Apple Podcasts · Spotify · Amazon Music
New episodes every Monday.
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The Claude Skills Playbook — our personalized playbook that shows you exactly which Claude Skills would save you the most time in your business.
→ Get the playbook: https://skillsplaybook.com
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✨ COME NERD OUT WITH US
Her AI Club™ is where women entrepreneurs go deeper with AI — together. Skills, templates, live calls, and 300+ women who get why you were up at 11pm building a bot.
→ Join the club: https://heraiclub.co/
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🎙 THE SHOW
New episodes every Monday. Follow so they land in your feed, and if this one made you laugh or gave you something to try, a rating helps more women find us.
Connect with us:
Kinsey → follow on instagram: @ai.kinsey | @authenticai.co
Joyce → follow on instagram: @ai.joycechristine | @heraiclub
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The Her AI Era Summit is happening October 12–16 🙌
→ Join the waitlist: https://heraierasummit.com
Podcast edited and managed by Pamela Krista
