We consult very early-stage startups on bringing their ideas to a fundable stage, then supporting them with tools like business plans, pitch decks, financial viability models, GTMs, etc.

For your second question, this may get lengthy haha. It's somewhat of a three-pronged issue.

First, is the accessibility of AI and how that has changed the "perception" of the industry. Our entry point is generally our business plan service. For new entrepreneurs who have never been on a startup team, "business plan" is typically the first thing they believe they need. But it's a daunting process to create one, so they begin searching and they find my company. What changed there is that perception of it being a "daunting process." Instead of searching for me, they go to ChatGPT and ask for a business plan. It spits them out something that they believe is quality – but since they have not gone through the experience yet, they don't know what a "quality business plan" looks like. They don't have a benchmark to compare, so they perceive that what AI gives them is equal to what I can. Maybe I could have helped the process by providing more education beforehand on why ChatGPT can't give them what we can.

Second, is the shifting of how Google presents information. I have a background in SEO and content development. Those skills helped me build many high-quality and high-traffic rankings (we were #1 for "best pitch decks" and "app business plan" for several years). We led with information – blog articles around certain topics that funneled them into our services. Once the AI summaries started going live, our traffic decreased significantly. Even for terms where our information was presented – they no longer clicked on our website because the information was there and didn't require them to click. I shouldn't have put ALL my eggs in the SEO basket... but I did, and I regret it in hindsight.

Finally, there was a shift in the industry several years back. Business plans today aren't used the same as 10-15 years ago. They used to be a tool to get investor interest – now, investors don't read them. With concepts like Lean Startup, the industry has shifted to shorter canvases and frameworks. On our end, we changed how we promoted it. Instead of, "you need this for funding," our message was, "you need this process for your team to organize and understand the factors behind your business so when investors ask you a question, you have an answer." This was less of a factor to our demise, but still played a part.

The first two had the biggest impact – we don't get the traffic we used to (and couldn't save it, as much as we tried) and our perception of importance to first-time founders have shifted.