Why Small Business Owners Are Ditching Their $500 SaaS Stack for Custom AI Tools
Rachel Zipsie spent 26 years building small businesses before she became one — and now she's the founder helping other small business owners stop overpaying for software they barely use.
In this episode of Empowered by AI, Michelle sits down with Rachel Zipsie, founder of Your Next Move and the Million Heart Movement, for a conversation about reinvention, letting go of old beliefs, and what it actually looks like to build AI tools for small business owners who don't have time to learn a new platform. Rachel spent nearly three decades in corporate and small-business support — including years at FTD teaching local flower shops how to run their businesses — before pivoting into founder life and, eventually, vibe-coding custom software for the small businesses she used to serve.
In this episode, you'll hear:
- Why Rachel walks small business owners away from $500-a-month SaaS stacks and toward one custom-built tool that fits how they actually work — and how she measures the ROI to prove it
- Her framework for telling the difference between healthy AI use and the "shiny object" addiction loop — including the discipline that has her running her entire business on three subscriptions
- Why she believes "there is no no anymore," and what that means for women entrepreneurs who were conditioned to wait for permission before making a move
Rachel's story is a grounded look at what it means to bring real skills — revenue operations, small business training, decades of listening to what business owners actually need — into a new era of building with AI. No hype, no shortcuts, just a founder being honest about what's changed and what she's still working through.
Connect with Rachel:
- Website: connectinggraceandgratitude.com
- Email: rachel@yournextmove.life
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rzipsie/
Connect with Me:
