From Race Tracks
To AI Startups
The unlikely journey that taught me why transformation is the most valuable skill in business.
If you had told me ten years ago that I would spend my days advising AI companies on creator ecosystems, community growth and platform adoption, I probably would have laughed.
At the time, I was standing at race tracks with a camera in my hands.
My world revolved around motorsport.
Fast cars.
Media passes.
Production schedules.
Deadlines.
Travelling from circuit to circuit, creating content and documenting stories from inside a McLaren-associated environment.
I was fortunate enough to interview industry leaders, including McLaren Racing CEO Zac Brown, as well as Christian England, yes, the very guy you lost to Lewis Hamilton in European Le Mans approximately 10 years ago. I spent years immersed in an industry built on performance, innovation and precision.
It felt like the future.
The Archive · Plate I
Photography · N. Magdalene
Where It All Began
Before AI, there were race tracks.
Before creator ecosystems, there were engineering teams.
Before platform adoption, there was performance.
The lessons turned out to be the same.
Then the world stopped.
COVID arrived.
Live events disappeared almost overnight.
Entire industries entered survival mode.
Motorsport became uncertain.
The business model I had spent years building suddenly looked fragile.
For the first time in my career, I was forced to ask myself a difficult question:
What happens when the thing you've built your identity around no longer works?
Like many entrepreneurs, I had two options.
Hold on to the past.
Or reinvent myself.
I chose reinvention.
What followed was a crash course in adaptation.
I moved into digital marketing.
Paid advertising.
Automation.
Content strategy.
Performance reporting.
At one point I found myself managing campaigns across more than 120 locations and significant advertising budgets for major brands including Pretty Little Thing, Very, Wren Kitchens and ASOS.
The work was different.
The skills were different.
But the lesson was the same.
The people who thrive are rarely the people who resist change.
They are the people who learn how to work with it.
Then Generative AI arrived.
While many people viewed AI with fear, uncertainty or scepticism, I felt something very different.
Relief.
Curiosity.
Excitement.
For the first time in years, I felt the same sense of possibility I had felt when I first picked up a camera.
The technology was changing daily.
Nobody had all the answers.
Nobody knew exactly where things were going.
It felt like a frontier.
So I started exploring.
Creating.
Experimenting.
Learning.
What began as curiosity quickly evolved into something much bigger.
I built communities.
I connected creators.
I collaborated with emerging AI platforms.
I joined creator programmes.
I tested products.
I provided feedback.
I observed.
Most importantly, I paid attention.
Over the next two years I found myself working alongside founders, developers, marketing teams and creator communities across more than fifteen Generative AI platforms.
Some companies grew rapidly.
Some struggled.
Some built loyal communities.
Others focused entirely on technology and wondered why nobody was paying attention.
A pattern emerged.
The companies that succeeded weren't always the companies with the best products. They were the companies that built the strongest communities around them.
That realisation changed everything.
Because suddenly I wasn't looking at AI through the lens of technology.
I was looking at it through the lens of people.
Creators.
Advocates.
Communities.
Relationships.
Adoption.
That's where AI Growth Alchemy™ was born.
Not from a desire to start a consultancy.
But from a desire to help founders avoid the mistakes I had watched so many companies make.
Today I help Generative AI companies build creator ecosystems, activate communities and transform innovation into adoption.
And when I look back at the path that got me here, I realise something interesting.
The journey wasn't really about motorsport.
Or marketing.
Or automation.
Or AI.
It was about learning how to reinvent.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Because the future belongs to people willing to evolve.
And if there's one lesson I've carried from race tracks to AI startups, it's this:
Transformation isn't something that happens to you.
It's something you choose.
In Her Own Words
"Looking back, I don't think I changed careers three times.
I think I spent ten years studying the same thing through different lenses.Performance.Whether it was race cars, marketing campaigns or AI platforms, the question remained the same:What makes some systems thrive while others disappear?
— Natalia Magdalene
Next In The Journal
Essay · No. 02