Serious AI with Chris Duff
September 24, 2026
Two days after picking healthcare as the focus vertical for Serious AI, I bought a $2,400 ticket to the MGMA annual conference in San Antonio. This episode is the whole plan behind it: why healthcare, how the pain points got checked before anything shipped, and how Claude researched every speaker and all 171 exhibitors before the trip. The goal is a $2M client pipeline. That is the plan, not a result yet, and I’ll report back on how it goes.
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(Podcast transcript below)
So I’m going to share with you all how I’m turning a $2,400 conference ticket into a $2 million client pipeline. So this is Serious AI with Chris Duff. Remember at Serious AI, we focus on enterprise, AI implementation, and we have been moving at game buster speed. Since we started this venture here, literally a couple of weeks ago, not even, since we’ve fully gotten off the ground here. And right now, the core focus for companies that we’re going after is within the mid-market band, so call it roughly $5 million to $500 million in annual Obviously, pretty large band here, but that’s the rough allocation.
But we really didn’t have a specific industry targeted here. And based on some initial conversations with various relationships, we’re getting a lot of interest kind of across a bunch of different industries. And fortunately, in the age of AI, you can provide a key value and get up to speed in almost any industry within a day if you ask really focused questions here, which is how I’m orienting myself and what we’re planning to do. Nevertheless, when I was chatting with a couple of mentors, literally two days prior to this. And they were suggesting, hey, how do we narrow down your ICP a bit?
You know, ICP meaning ideal customer profile or client profile, depending on who you ask. And, you know, figuring out, okay, even if you have a wider funnel to start, you have perhaps two to three core industries, core verticals that make more sense to initially target or favor as leads come in because they’re like, hey, Chris, we think you can probably serve virtually anybody here, which is, you know, a major compliment to here. But nevertheless, you’re eventually going to have to be supply constraint on who you can actually serve. So what’s the best commercial opportunities and where can you be the absolute best at?
And one that I had considered, one of my other mentors had mentioned was the healthcare area. So I mentioned that as really the primary, first being that I could leverage the medical degree that I have and I have not utilized it. It be dusting it off for the first time in several years since I used to be in healthcare venture capital. So that certainly helps, plus just a background within healthcare outside of the MD, just the knowledge base in and of itself remains strong there, plus the relationships I still have within that area. Though some would certainly need to be nurtured further again.
It’s an industry that at least have a handful of connections and relationships who could provide certain referrals within that area. Plus, beyond that particular path that’s more specific to me or my own relationships here, I mean, healthcare. When you look at industries that seem to be still growing or at least remaining strong in the face of relentless AI progress. And when you look at who is still getting hires, or the jobs that keep coming up are the only areas in the economy that are routinely adding jobs, it’s pretty much health care and social services.
Which isn’t surprising, right? Given how much you need people to you know, care for a number of the sick and elderly and young across our population. And they’re just like routinely cash flowing entities. And some of the biggest companies in the world are health care entities. So I don’t think you can pick on any vertical and you have, you know, trillion dollar opportunities potentially depending on where you go after. And so I was like, OK, yeah, this one makes a lot of sense for a number of reasons that there were a handful of others, but we’re going to stick on health care right now for the primary.
And so, you know, really, since I started this venture is like, hey, just continue to take massive action daily, just every single day. You have to be treating every single day as a week in real time, just in terms of progress that can be made reliably with these AI tools. And so with that in mind, I was like, okay, literally the following day after hearing that what should I start to investigate as far as targeting the healthcare vertical specifically? And so based on what some of my mentors had indicated, first that they were asking, hey, we have some potential clients that could be good targets for you, but do you have like a one-pager here, even the website?
So obviously the website is like primary marketing material, but nevertheless, like if they’re asking for a one page or sure I can spin that up, you know, have Claude Code build that out. So it’s even more targeted specifically to what these guys were asking for. And, hey, by the way, since you have some, you know, potential health care clients that might be looking, let’s just build out a separate health care landing page that really centers in on like my medical background and, hey, what are the core AI focus areas that a number of health care firms might be struggling with?
And again, health care is like super broad, right? You could have medical practitioner organizations, hospitals, surgery groups, you’d have medical advice companies, pharma, insurance, like it’s a really broad umbrella. But when I was considering, okay, what might be the best fit out of all of these? And again, going back with Claude about this, like, yeah, probably focusing on the provider practices in medical organizations as the key target to go after. And it was also noted that pharma and CROs, which are clinical research organizations and so forth, they have the highest tier regulatory requirements imaginable for implementing any software let alone AI here and so like they can be difficult in terms of efficiencies that we might want to build in and still healthcare you’re going to have to be dealing with HIPAA regardless and have extra guardrails especially if you’re going to be touching any patient data all of that would have to be noted so I put all that on the website And initially, Claude came back with like a handful of pain points related to AI being implemented in healthcare organizations, and I forget exactly which ones they were.
I mean, one was like, hey, our staff is inputting patient data on public AI models, and like we can’t have that, we need better guardrails in place. Something to that effect. And while certainly plausible and I don’t doubt that’s happening, like there’s, I think even as nascent as the AI industry is, like there’s enough understanding that we should not be putting, you know, patient identifying data within public models here. And so I was like, hey, can we really investigate claims like this? Is this still as current as a pain point that these organizations are dealing with, or can we find something else that really puts into words what provider organizations are dealing with?
So, whenever they’re reading our website, it’s basically reading their exact thoughts here. And this is exactly the Ask Method. This is classic internet marketing. I’ve learned this from Ryan back in the Ask Method, I mean, 10 plus years But now you can just do it so much more simply here. And so I just had Claude go out and like, hey, really deep dive across the internet here, figure out what these organizations are struggling with. And it was able to determine, oh, yeah, I actually now have statistical evidence, you know, real data coming from late 2025, 2026 on what these organizations are dealing with specifically.
And you can see all of this on seriousai.partners/healthcare, our specific healthcare page. And in so far as what it determined, I mean, as you can imagine, a lot of it dealt with a billing issues or dealing with insurance companies that could certainly relate to that as a current patient trying to dispute a claim from our son’s hospital stay when he was born in the hospital, like he was absolutely crazy how bad the customer services going back and forth with this. So that rings true in my mind. And again, has all this cited data behind it. So you can see that you have the exact words, the exact phrasing that these organizations and the people behind them are utilizing.
So I can build that into the marketing copy, talk to people directly and already know how to orient my marketing. And then by the way, like I updated our AEO targeting, which is AI engine optimization, because it was more of a general funnel initially, like, hey, what’s like fractional head of AI and so forth, starting to rank on that. And like, okay, let’s, if healthcare is gonna be our primary vertical, let’s start targeting that instead. And based on what these core issues are that we’ve identified here. So we can start building up a reputation that’s going to show up on the search engines in the AI models as far as what these organizations, if they’re looking for solutions here, then my name is going to be popping up here.
So then you start creating the flywheel based on the marketing that we’re addressing. So that was just one angle there. And in the meantime, one of my other mentors had mentioned like, hey, do you think about maybe applying to some of these conferences as a speaker and then doing like live builds? I’m sure you can get a whole bunch of clients that way. And again, you having the MD here just opens up a lot of doors there. Really interesting thought from that side. And I think I do have a lot of public speaking chops. And so I had Claude also go search, hey, figure out, and I took the transcript from that meeting.
So like, I didn’t need to repeat any of this necessarily. It was like, hey, what were the things that were discussed? Here’s the, what were the key suggestions? What should we look in further here? I liked that conference idea. Can we figure out a list of top targeted healthcare conferences? Which ones might be looking for speakers that can talk more about AI potentially and, you know, start getting a short list on which ones to go after. So had all of that going on in the background too. Then, in the meantime, also had another search process utilizing Apollo’s email scraping tool that would be able to search across, for instance, any medical organizations in the state of Texas that was within the mid-market band size I was targeting as far as an ICP seeing which ones we’re hiring for a head of AI or some type of AI type of role and starting to figure out okay is there a route to reach out to any of them or based on how these conference search goes like maybe we can utilize that technique to start reverse engineering contact info and potential initial problem solving for some of these speakers or presenters at any of these conferences.
Again, all of this was done within like 24 hours of even starting to consider a healthcare primary vertical here, again, just moving at relentless speed. And so now to catch you all up as far as the latest, again, sometimes it almost feels like destiny where things really start aligning with the goals that you’re setting for yourself. And so in this particular case, the nearest and soonest medical conference was gonna be this weekend. That we’re talking, you know, starts on Sunday, September 27th, 2026, depending on when you listen to this. A few days away here, and it is the MGMA Annual Summit.
And this is the flagship conference for medical provider organizations. So, like the exact sub niche that I was going after. Various physician groups, surgical groups, renal treatment labs, and so forth. All of these groups will be attending this particular three-day conference in San Antonio. While there wouldn’t be any speaker slots, it’s like, okay, I could not imagine for better clientele here. And so I went again back into Claude and Claude Opus 5.5 just came out, which is as powerful as Fable, but costs much less. And again, it’s just remarkable how much these inference costs for AI continue to go down here.
So I can just throw more and more at the wall of like, okay, but let’s figure out on how to maximize each these opportunities. And so I had Claude go in and like, hey, I need to figure out what, you know, is this conference legit? Like, I’ve been out of the healthcare game for quite a while here. I don’t even know if this like, what this brand is, who’s going to be attending? Can we start figuring out who these speakers are? It’s like a mess of a schedule. There’s so many sessions. Like, how should I even start considering what to do? You know, it’s 75 minute drive, like maybe I get a ticket for a day and decide if I want to still attend here for the remainder of the days.
I see a couple of presentations on AI here, but like, how should I really think about this? And that’s always the thing, oftentimes when I have like the general strategy on how to approach something, I throw all of it at Claude and like then I start really paring down. Okay, let’s create subtasks out of this Now that we have a general idea and it came back very positively. It’s like yeah This is the target to go to like your schedule square And again, so sometimes that things happen for a reason here I was already expecting to be traveling next week because I was intending to go to the Smoky Mountains inner-circle Trip for the land industry with you know, Seth Williams Neil Clements Dave Denniston and so forth But since I pivoted fully out of land, other than reviewing a handful of deals here and there, it didn’t make sense to go to that trip.
So it’s like, hey, now it’s another live event that is lined up precisely for what you’re doing here, so let’s jump on it. Initially, when I see something like that, my reaction off the bat is like, I’ve been working solidly from like my home office, my digital home. And I know if this is really like the best thing I need to be going to, it’s gonna start on a Sunday. Do I really wanna drive down there? But what I’ve really started to lean into is just like, hey, generally the more uncomfortable choice is going to be correct. And what I’ve really started leaning into is what would the most aggressively determine version of myself do at any decision point, especially as it relates to this business.
Follow your instincts for that. Trust your judgment as it relates to that question. And indisputably, the most aggressively determined version of myself would go to this conference. And so it was like, no question, okay, just utilize that. And then I updated my MD file, like, hey, utilize that, you know, determined, aggressively determined framing for like all of our decision making. If we’re really going for the gold with this business and taking the most massive swing possible, that should be our kind of barrier of decision making for anything going forward.
And so like that can just kind of constantly keep it top of mind here, what’s it gonna take to be the best and what should I do and what should I not do as it relates to that particular goal. And so, initially I thought the price tag was only a hundred bucks cause it was like, oh yeah, this is the a hundred years that this MGMA has been around. So a hundred bucks, but then it turned out, no, that was just a special like several months ago. Okay, yeah, what are the bridge? No, in fact, it’s $2,400 for a ticket. That’s just a few days away. And I have no revenue coming in for this business yet.
That’s been completely booked at the moment yet. But it’s like, no, this just seems absolutely incredible. And I had Claude, before I pulled the trigger on it, I was like, yeah, research every single attendee here. I want to see all the vendors as well here. Do we have any direct competitors? We don’t have the full attendee list, but we have all the speakers here. Research, all of them, split them up by tiers in terms of reviewing all of their publicly available info, their organization, their behind, look at their Google reviews and so forth and figure out which ones are utilizing AI not to the level that it is even remotely optimized here.
And can we put together artifacts that we can send over to them as an intro email or LinkedIn. So immediate value add, something they could act on even if we never chat again, but it’s an initial opener and something that I could go speak to them in person about, oh, and by the way, I’m going to have a full printout package of all of these deliverables and an exact time gated step-by-step plan on how to navigate the three-day conference when it’s most likely that I’d be able to meet any of these particular target clients. And by the way, you can also get business cards, probably yeah, a hundred of them specific to your healthcare arm of Serious AI.
Get all of that to go and just insane in terms of the parallel processing that I was able to do here. And my whole goal for these artifacts is, yeah, don’t just present, hey, here’s what’s going on with the organization. Show some skin here in terms of show some of the value, like how we would address some of these issues here, how I would utilize AI to fix precisely what’s going on in their business as it relates to current customer complaints, Google reviews, et cetera, and just navigating their website, seeing what types of holes there might be, whether in communications or potential billing issues and so forth here, go ahead and present that to them.
Don’t go overboard, like give them a snapshot, something they could review in five minutes and determine whether it might make sense to have another conversation. Like that is the result that I’m going after, regardless of whether they choose to engage with us or not. And so all of this was done earlier today before I was recording this. And so now I have a tiered list of 14 different organizations that were initially parsed from, you know, 100 plus of possible targets that Claude reviewed in full and determined, okay, here are your best possible targets for clients in the exact way that you can help the organization.
And by the way, it reviewed all 171 vendors that are at this particular conference. And it’s like, again, like, are there any other advisory firms that might be competitors here? You know, there’s a number of software firms out there that are, you know, obviously backed by AI, even like, you know, $30, $50 million Series A funding here. And they’re targeting, you know, very specific parts of some of these clinics and operations. So it’s like, you know, some of these gated solutions that are very specific, yeah, they could be implemented in some of these organizations, but, you know, I think for the case of my firm, it’s figuring out, hey, where are these organizations that just don’t have a firmware AI strategy?
Or maybe they’re looking at some of these tools, but they’re not sure how to fully get their staff on board with them. They’re not even sure how to really implement them or validate them and make sure that they’re actually worth the cost of the price tag here. They just don’t have somebody who really understands how to implement AI within organization, which is the whole point of the fractional head of AI. So that was really the positioning here. And by the way, the MGMA host organization, they’re trying to do more public reporting on AI use within provider organizations, but they don’t have anyone core to their AI team either.
So it was like, hey, Claude pointed out, hey, either way, the host organization, they could, you know, they’re clearly indicating an interest on being able to report on this more and knowing that this is a problem area for their member organizations, but that they need help just by looking at how they’re positioning themselves publicly. And so, hey, go to their vendor table and just try to open up the discussion on what I can potentially do for their organization as well. Again, just take big swings. Go talk with everybody here, sign up for this event, this event, this event, that’s more related to AI will naturally self-select for other people who have an interest there and go chat with them.
And all of a sudden, I have this just insane game plan. This is exactly what Tim Ferriss had done. When he was launching his first book, The Four-Hour Workweek, he used this exact strategy. It wasn’t obviously nearly as automated, AI didn’t exist as it does today, 20 years ago, but he had the exact game plan of like, hey, print out specific to people wanted to talk to and demonstrating the value of his book and that eventually led to a publishing deal and meeting with the very precise people who could best help him in that journey. So that’s exactly what I’m doing here.
And even Claude is pointing out too, he’s like, yeah, not just the printouts, but make sure you include a handwritten note on top of that, a business card on top. Really stand out here. So I’m going to do all of that to make sure that, again, I can take this $2,400 ticket that I bought after making a pivot less than 48 hours prior in terms of vertical that I’m going after and turn it into a $2 million client pipeline. Will it actually happen? Who knows from that side, but I could not have built a better plan this. As this was all getting built out and I was reviewing, all that trepidation about going to another live event here and I haven’t been to a bigger conference like this, all the discomfort, it just was turning more and more into excitement.
My eyes kept widening like, oh my gosh, the opportunity here is just bigger than I ever thought. Now it’s up to me to execute on it, but I don’t think I could have developed a better game plan to put it all together. So you all will be hearing about that soon enough and I’ll get, at the very least here, at the very least, I will be getting a ton of research back on exactly what healthcare organizations are struggling with from an AI perspective, regardless of whether I’m able to land any particular clients from this conference here. So just want to give you the download on what’s going on and how fast I am moving in this particular direction here.
And I’ll be able to report back here shortly. So if you’re interested in what we’re doing here, seriousai.partners, you know, Our goal is to be the premier enterprise AI implementation agency in the world. That is how we’re making all of our decisions here internally. So with that in mind, looking forward to next time. Take care everybody. Subscribe and share. Bye.
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