A new beginning
Why I’m building HIGH GAIN.
After 17 years in business, I want to refactor how everything gets done.
Most of the tasks we do on computers today will eventually happen automatically. I want to help make that happen.
A finance professional should be able to automate their reporting. A marketing team should be able to create its own analytics tools. HIGH GAIN combines custom solutions with training, so teams can keep building for themselves.
I find it hard to accept how much of our working lives goes into tasks we could make easier or eliminate. Too much talent is wasted collecting figures, chasing information and assembling reports. That work should happen automatically, so people can spend their time on tasks that they enjoy, both professionally and in their personal lives. I’m founding HIGH GAIN because I want that future to become reality.
Why HIGH GAIN
The work has to make sense.
Much of my experience is in marketing and communications. I worked on natural language generation and AI avatars at Pitchboy, a VR training startup, from 2018 to 2020. Since 2023, I’ve trained teams in generative AI and written a book about using it in marcomms.
While working on media outreach for an event, I used Claude to research journalists and tailor invitations, including in languages I don’t speak. After checking translations and spot-checking the research, I started getting replies in German from reporters who wanted to come.
Obviously, knowing how to do the job mattered. A well-written invitation is useless if the journalist has no reason to care. The research has to be good before we get to the email. Luckily, AI took care of that for me too. That’s the approach I’m bringing to HIGH GAIN’s work with marketing, communications, finance and HR teams.
What we’ll tackle
Start with the job that eats up your week.
Take the monthly marketing report. You pull figures from the ad platforms and CRM, try to reconcile them, then build a deck. By the time it’s ready, you’ve spent more time assembling the report than working out what to improve.
That’s a problem I want us to tackle. We could build a process that collects the figures and flags discrepancies before preparing a report for review. When something doesn’t add up, it goes back to the person who can resolve it. You're still 100% in control, the output is just orders of magnitude faster and better.
At our first meeting, I’ll ask the question below. We’ll then build a working first version of the solution and bring it to the next meeting. That’s your High Gain Moment™.
If we could fix one pain point or bottleneck with an AI workflow, process or app, what would it be?
Why I care
Teams should be able to do this themselves.
The person who understands a recurring problem should be able to do something about it. I want a finance professional to be able to change how their report is produced, or a marketing team to develop an analytics tool that answers its own questions.
That’s why training is part of HIGH GAIN. As we work on a solution, teams should learn how it works, how to check its output and how to adapt it when their needs change. I want them to be able to tackle the next problem themselves.
Why "HIGH GAIN?" The name comes from my love of guitar and heavy metal. With the right setup, a high-gain amp delivers a huge sound that stays crisp and defined: every note comes through, without getting lost in noise. That’s what I want AI to do for our work. Set it up properly, give it a clear signal, and you can get tremendous output without the wasted effort, endless revisions and busywork. More output, less noise.
The newsletter
I’ll show you what I’m working on.
HIGH GAIN Signals is where I’ll work through assignments like that report or a media outreach campaign. Each week, you’ll be able to follow the steps I took and draw inspiration for your own work. I’ll show you where I had to intervene and what I’d change next time.
If there’s a task your team keeps doing the hard way, send it to me. It might be something we work through in a future edition.
Eliott Maidenberg
Founder, HIGH GAIN