Nobody's even trying.

Everyone keeps telling me how hard it is to win right now.

I hear it constantly. How saturated the market is, how many competitors are out there, and how AI is making everything even more commoditized than it was before. There are too many people doing the same thing, and it's impossible to stand out and win anymore. Every conversation I have with an entrepreneur eventually lands on some version of "it's just so much harder than it used to be."

And I get it. It definitely feels that way sometimes. But then I look around at my actual experiences as a customer, and I start to wonder if we're all talking about the same world.

Because I've never had more bad customer experiences in my life than I'm having right now.

There's a hotel near my house in the Hudson Valley called The Hasbrouck House. It's a beautiful old stone building built in 1757 that (at one point) had great food, a nice bar, and packed crowds. When Jennifer and I moved to the area a little over three years ago, it was the kind of place we'd take friends when they visited. Especially on Wednesday nights when they ran a burger special that packed the place from wall to wall. That was a regular occurrence for us in 2023.

Fast forward to the first week of 2026, and they announced they were closing for good. Both the hotel and restaurant are done.

I texted a few friends to see if they'd heard. Nobody was surprised. "We've been saying that for years," one of them replied. "It's been empty for the last year." "Kind of shocking they couldn't make it work, huh?"

But it wasn't shocking.

Not to anyone who'd been there recently, at least.

The night it clicked

Back in late 2024, Jennifer and I walked in, and the bar looked open, but nobody was behind it. There wasn't a bartender or a host to talk to. Just empty stools and some loud indie music playing in the background. We sat down in our usual spot and waited for someone to come out.

Meanwhile, another couple came in and stood at the host stand looking around, clearly expecting someone to greet them. For about five or six minutes, nobody came. Long enough that I started feeling uncomfortable for them as they just stood there, looking around, wondering if anyone was going to help.

Eventually, a frazzled bartender appeared from the back. He yelled loudly for the hostess to come, and she appeared, acting surprised that people had come into the restaurant.

Jennifer and I shook off the experience and ordered a glass of wine and a beer. The bartender told me that all three draft lines were down, so I had to opt for a can instead. When Jennifer's wine came out, it was the wrong one, and it was warm. She mentioned it to the bartender, and he said he'd grab a cold bottle from the wine fridge. Ten minutes later, with almost half of my beer already gone, he came back and told her they were actually out of that wine completely. No offer to grab something similar. No solution. He just stood there.

As we left, we looked at each other in disbelief. What the hell had happened to this place? After hearing similar rumblings from friends, we agreed to take a break from going there.

Six months later, we forgot and decided to give them another chance. We brought our dog Munchie, who'd been to the Hasbrouck House with us plenty of times before. He was always welcome in the bar.

This time, the bar and restaurant were both empty, and we appeared to be the first customers of the night. As we walked in, a new host informed us that dogs weren't allowed. If we wanted to stay, we'd have to sit in the reading room. We wondered out loud if this was a new rule. Iron fist. No, this has always been the rule.

There wasn't a single customer in the entire establishment. And they were turning away their first customers of the evening, over a rule that never existed, for a seven pound dog who'd been coming for years.

We didn't have the energy to argue. We just left.

The pattern

I've been noticing this kind of experience everywhere lately.

A few months ago, when we were planning our winter sabbatical in California, I reached out to a few rental places to ask about staying. 90% of them never emailed me back. I finally heard from one three weeks later, who apologized in between telling me how hard it had become to make money as a host.

And it's not just vacation rentals. Or restaurants. Contractors disappear mid-project, basic questions require three follow-ups, and proposals show up late or not at all. I'm not talking about rare disasters. I'm talking about the normal experience of trying to spend money with someone in 2026.

The bar hasn't just dropped. It's fallen through the floor.

And this is happening at the exact same time that everyone's panicking about how competitive the market is. How you need to find your niche and build your brand and differentiate yourself.

But stand out from what, exactly?

From people who don't respond? From businesses that make it hard to buy from them? I'm not sure I'd call that a brutal competitive landscape. It feels more like folks beating themselves.

What this actually means

I think a lot of people don't realize just how important the unsexy stuff in business actually is. The communication, the expectation setting, the customer service, the admin work. They believe the product or service quality speaks for itself, so they skimp on everything else.

The Hasbrouck House had everything going for it. A historic building, killer location, great food, and reasonable prices. But none of it mattered because they couldn't manage to greet people at the door and bring the right drink. Over time, those small miscues compounded across their entire customer base. And people stopped showing up.

For online businesses, the host stand could be your landing page. Or your checkout process. Or the email someone sends asking a question before they buy. Every one of those moments is a chance to make people feel taken care of, or a chance to lose them before they ever give you money.

The good news? This stuff isn't complicated. It's just overlooked.

Make it easy to pay. Answer the common questions before people have to ask. Deliver quickly after someone buys. Set expectations so people know what's coming and when. Respond to inquiries like you actually want the business.

None of this is revolutionary. But right now, it's rare. Which means if you're someone who does these things, who responds within a reasonable timeframe, who makes it easy to do business with you, you're not just meeting the minimum. You're in rare company.

The bottom line

The Hasbrouck House had a 300-year-old building, a perfect location, great food, and they still couldn't make it work.

But they didn't lose to a competitor with better food or a nicer space. They lost to themselves. They stopped paying attention to whether people felt taken care of when they walked through the door.

The game isn't as hard as everyone thinks. The bar is on the floor. Showing up and making it easy for people to do business with you puts you ahead of almost everyone.

So here's my question: where are you making it hard for people to give you money? Where is there friction in your process that frustrates the people who want to buy from you?

Reply and tell me. While I can't reply to every person who writes in, I still read every response.

That's all for this week.

See you next Saturday.