Before I was consulting on AI and operations, I was just Rory, the son of the owner of The Inferno Club.

If you grew up around North Florida at a certain time, you might remember a place like it:

• Packed nights
• Live performances
• Cash flowing
• Everybody knowing your dad’s spot

On the outside, it was thriving.

Behind the scenes, it looked like a lot of family businesses:

• Endless paperwork
• Stocking and restocking
• Vendor negotiations
• Security issues
• Staffing challenges
• And almost everything important living in one person’s head, my father’s.

As he got older, all that responsibility, all those relationships, all that unofficial “operating system” needed to go somewhere else.

It did not.

And eventually, like so many businesses, the music stopped.

Today, when I work with owners through Cymilleum AI and as an Exit Strategist with Exit Factor Atlanta South Metro, I see versions of The Inferno Club everywhere. Great brands. Great stories. Thin systems.

The Hidden Cost of “It Is All in My Head”

There is a statistic you hear a lot in exit planning. Eight out of ten businesses never sell.

When you grow up inside a business like The Inferno Club, that statistic stops being theoretical. It becomes personal.

A big reason so many businesses cannot transition, sell, or even safely pass to the next generation is simple:

Too much of the business lives in the owner’s mind, not in systems.

Things like:

• How to handle the Friday night rush
• Which vendors can be trusted in a pinch
• How to calm an angry customer
• How to spot a problem before it hits social media

For years, those things lived in my dad’s instincts and experience.

Today, AI gives us a second chance most owners never had.

AI as the Successor Your Systems Deserve

AI will never replace the soul, story, or community impact of a business like The Inferno Club.

But it can capture, organize, and scale the wisdom that would otherwise disappear when an owner retires, burns out, or passes on.

Here is what that looks like in practice.

1. Turning tribal knowledge into playbooks
2. Building an internal “ask me anything” assistant Imagine your managers and staff having a private AI assistant they can ask:
3. Protecting relationships and reputation
4. Creating a clearer path for the next generation Whether your successor is a child, a manager, or a buyer, they inherit:

This is not about making you less important. It is about making your contribution endure.

If I Could Go Back to The Inferno Club With AI

If I could walk back into my dad’s club with the tools we have now, here is what I would do:

• Sit him down for a “download day.” Capture every story, rule of thumb, and war story about:
• Turn that into a digital operating system. Use AI to:
• Build a manager’s assistant. A private AI that says:
• Give the family choices. With systems in place, we would have had real options:

We never got that chance. But your business still can.

How Cymilleum AI Helps You Protect What You Have Built

At Cymilleum AI, I carry The Inferno Club with me into every engagement.

I am not just thinking about today’s revenue or next quarter’s stress. I am thinking about:

• The story behind your business
• The people it has supported
• The future it could still fund

Our work together typically looks like:

1. Legacy and knowledge mapping
2. AI powered documentation and training
3. Operator focused automation
4. Future ready options

On the Exit Factor side, these same systems are often the difference between a business that quietly closes and one that can be packaged, valued, and transferred.

Your Story Deserves a Second Act

If you are a business owner, especially in a service based or franchise style model, your story is bigger than:

“I worked hard, then closed the doors.”

Your story can be:

“We built something that outlived our time at the helm.”

AI, done thoughtfully and in a human focused way, is not the star of that story. It is the supporting cast that keeps your legacy on stage.

If you are ready to explore what that looks like for your business, that is exactly why Cymilleum AI exists. And if you are also asking, “Could this business someday be sold?” that is the bridge between the work we do at Cymilleum AI and the exit readiness work I lead through Exit Factor Atlanta South Metro.