https://michaelxfan.com/blog/ Essays and notes on agentic commerce, e-commerce, and DTC growth. en-us https://michaelxfan.com/blog/decision-velocity-is-the-bottleneck/ https://michaelxfan.com/blog/decision-velocity-is-the-bottleneck/ Fri, 26 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT Everyone talks about how AI lets you delegate more. That's half the story. The real challenge is knowing what not to delegate. Once execution gets cheap, the scarce resource is decision velocity, and the job becomes protecting it. https://michaelxfan.com/blog/ai-changed-how-i-think-about-time/ https://michaelxfan.com/blog/ai-changed-how-i-think-about-time/ Wed, 24 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT I used to think productivity was about managing time. It isn't. The real constraint is cognitive energy, and not all hours are equal. Once AI makes execution cheap, the job becomes allocating your best units to the highest-return work. https://michaelxfan.com/blog/wanting-something-too-much/ https://michaelxfan.com/blog/wanting-something-too-much/ Tue, 23 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT The fix for something that finally matters isn't 300% more effort. It's a small, sustainable increase in attention. I learned this swinging between two wrong extremes: dropping my whole life for what I wanted, then pretending I didn't want it at all. https://michaelxfan.com/blog/health-is-finding-the-next-bottleneck/ https://michaelxfan.com/blog/health-is-finding-the-next-bottleneck/ Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT Health isn't one goal you finish. It's a sequence of bottlenecks. Six months ago mine was body fat (20.6% to 16.5%, done). Now it's LDL cholesterol and fiber, where a six-pill-a-day supplement covers under 10% of the daily target. https://michaelxfan.com/blog/what-ai-is-good-for/ https://michaelxfan.com/blog/what-ai-is-good-for/ Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT 61 apps, 48,100 events, $31,160 of Claude usage. The data says AI is most useful as a chief of staff, not a coach. Apps that produce artifacts win. Apps that produce advice die. https://michaelxfan.com/blog/start-companies-with-friends-after-40/ https://michaelxfan.com/blog/start-companies-with-friends-after-40/ Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT A quote attributed to Bezos: only start companies with friends after 40. Before then, most people are still figuring themselves out, and that uncertainty creates friction. Great teams aren't built on friendship alone. They're built on clarity. https://michaelxfan.com/blog/the-skill-that-keeps-winning/ https://michaelxfan.com/blog/the-skill-that-keeps-winning/ Thu, 18 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT Amazon FBA, crypto, influencers, AI: same story, different decade. Every generation thinks it found the shortcut. The winners learn to adapt instead. https://michaelxfan.com/blog/stopped-using-my-todo-list/ https://michaelxfan.com/blog/stopped-using-my-todo-list/ Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT Why my main productivity app got less important: I stopped managing tasks and started building systems that make each recurring problem disappear for good. https://michaelxfan.com/blog/acp-vs-ucp-explained/ https://michaelxfan.com/blog/acp-vs-ucp-explained/ Tue, 16 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT ACP (OpenAI + Stripe) standardizes checkout. UCP (Google) covers the full journey. What merchants actually do. (Seeded draft.) https://michaelxfan.com/blog/optimize-shopify-feed-ai-agents/ https://michaelxfan.com/blog/optimize-shopify-feed-ai-agents/ Tue, 16 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT The priority-ordered checklist: complete attributes, valid schema, real-time price and stock, structured reviews. (Seeded draft.) https://michaelxfan.com/blog/agentic-commerce-margins/ https://michaelxfan.com/blog/agentic-commerce-margins/ Tue, 16 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT The honest P&L view: it compresses brand premium and adds take-rates, but cuts CAC and support cost. (Seeded draft.) https://michaelxfan.com/blog/dtc-found-by-ai-agents/ https://michaelxfan.com/blog/dtc-found-by-ai-agents/ Tue, 16 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT An operator's playbook: clean data beats a pretty storefront. (Seeded draft, GEO format example.) https://michaelxfan.com/blog/the-agentic-operator-premium/ https://michaelxfan.com/blog/the-agentic-operator-premium/ Tue, 16 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT Why the AI-native ecommerce leader is worth more than the title suggests: benchmark pay against the headcount they replace, not the title they hold. (Seeded draft, formatting example.) https://michaelxfan.com/blog/the-abundance-layer/ https://michaelxfan.com/blog/the-abundance-layer/ Tue, 16 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT How cheap code changes everything for ecommerce: the constraint moved from engineering to judgment, taste, and distribution. (Seeded draft, formatting example.)