Prerna Malik is the co-founder of Content Bistro (soon to be Profitably Yours) — a business she and her husband Mayank have been running since 2011. We talked about what “intentionally profitable” actually means, where AI fits (and where it doesn’t), and what growth looks like to them.
This is an abridged version of our conversation. Listen to the full episode right here, or find it on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
What was the reason you guys started this business?
So for that, we need to go back to 2008. I was a new mom. I’d been working full-time right out of college, and I needed a creative outlet. So I started a blog. It grew very organically — guest blogging, paid writing, real connections being built. Those were the good old days of blogging.
Then in 2010, Mayank got really sick. He was in constant pain. Doctors couldn’t figure out what was going on. He had to quit his job. He was on bed rest for over a year. We used up all our savings on medical bills. We sold our car. It was a really hard time for us.
When he started getting better, I remember we were at his mom’s house, sitting in the living room, having this discussion about him going back to work. And he was like, “What if we take the part-time blogging thing and try to do that full-time for a year?”
I loved the security of the paycheck. The idea of another year of not knowing whether it’s going to work or not was probably the scariest thing ever. But he was really keen and very excited about it. So we gave ourselves a year. Fifteen years later, we’re still here.
How do you primarily get clients today?
Referrals are still our number one source of business. No surprises there. We are very proud of the fact that we have a lot of referrals and a lot of repeat business. I would say year-in-year, we are at an 89% repeat project rate. And then email marketing is another big source of business for us.
You’re building in public, you’re moving fast with AI tools. How do you balance that moving fast with staying focused on what really matters?
It means saying no to a lot of things. The YouTube channel. Writing a book is the other one. I would have loved to have written a book by now. Absolutely. Was it possible? Not really. So you learn to kind of balance your capacity. I mean, OK, let me correct that. Was it possible? Sure. But did I want to pay the opportunity cost for that? Not really. That would be the real answer.
Yes, Mayank and I both work in the business, but we are also parents. We are very involved in our daughter’s life. She’s heading to college this year. We also deal with chronic health conditions. So we’re very mindful of the fact that if we push beyond what is our capacity, it may work, but we may end up getting burned out. After 15 years in business, we’re smart enough to know that it’s okay. Some things will need to wait.
Why do we need or why do we want to write a book or start a YouTube channel or run ads to get more leads? Right now we are pretty fully booked for our services. We’re currently booking for June, July, and we’re recording this in April. We’re also in the middle of a rebrand. So we had to take that decision — let’s just focus on what really matters to the business and to our clients, and everything else can wait.
What are some of the things you’ve been training people to do with Claude, and why?
My focus has always been conversions. My background is in conversion copywriting. I do conversion copywriting for clients. Sales is basically my thing. If we can use AI — whether that’s Claude or ChatGPT or Gemini — if they’re helping you drive sales or improve customer experience, I think that’s a very smart move for you to start making.
Most recently I did a Claude for Conversions workshop where we spent the first day setting Claude up so it understands your business. It’s very tempting to just jump straight into the deep end and ask it to do things for you. But without giving it the right context, without giving it the right training, without giving it the right background and know-how — it will give you something. But whether that something is usable or not is a whole other question.
And what that does is it leads to this whole illusion of productivity. You’re creating stuff, but that stuff isn’t serving a purpose. My goal is to help business owners use AI strategically. So when it does work for them, it gives them outputs that they can actually use. That’s my north star.
What’s the biggest misconception people have about AI?
That it’s a cure-all. It’s a cure-all. It’s a magic bullet. I see this all the time on my Instagram feed — “Oh, Claude just killed coders” or “Claude just killed copywriters” or “Use these prompts and fire your marketing team.”
I know why they do it, because it gets clicks. And yeah, see, I’m talking about it, so it’s obviously getting noticed. But the fact is that AI is not a magic bullet. It is a really great tool. It’s a great team member, but you need to treat it like a team member and not a magic bullet. If you were to hire someone to do a certain job for you, would you just tell them to do it without any context, without any training, without any know-how? No. Then you cannot expect to do that with AI.
It can do it all. Yes, it can. But only when you train it right. Only when you know when to hire out to AI and when to keep something for yourself. And also when you know how to evaluate what it’s giving you so you can give it strategic feedback instead of just going back and forth and ending up in a yelling match.
I’ve noticed this almost frantic, addictive feeling that comes with building things with AI — it’s hard to turn off and disconnect. Have you experienced that?
I work a lot with AI, so I completely understand exactly what you’re talking about. But you’ve got to be very mindful and intentional about how you spend your time. I always go in with a goal or a problem to solve. And I am very particular about keeping certain things analog and enjoying the slow and not automating everything just because it can be.
Even in our AI mastermind, we have a space for analog with AI. Simple example: everyone’s talking about how Claude sends them a morning briefing of everything that needs to be done. I still use a planner. I still use a planner, pen and paper, and I write down what needs to be done at the end of the day. So when I come in every morning, all I do is open my planner. Can I set up Claude to send me a morning briefing? Absolutely. Do I want to? No. Why? Because I love the feeling of writing on paper.
I set up writing agents for our clients across platforms — but I still do my own writing. Why again? Because I’m a writer. I love to write. It’s a huge part of my identity. Our clients love the confidence that they know that I may be using AI for research. I may be using AI for testing. I may be using AI for automating certain processes. But when I’m writing, it’s me.
With the time you’ve been saving with AI, what are you doing outside of your work?
So many things. I’m reading more. I go for walks twice a day. I’ve signed up for group workout classes because now I have more time.
I’ve set up Claude to design my workshop slides. So this just happened — I had this guest workshop that I had to do on Monday this week, and I needed my entire slide deck created. I assigned Claude the task to design it. I went and had breakfast with my daughter, came back, my slides were done. This is how I enjoy using it.
I am planning to start learning how to bake bread, which has been my nemesis forever. I love baking, but I’ve never succeeded with baking bread.
But most importantly, I feel just knowing that work is getting done and it’s getting done to the quality that I want — that gives me a lot of peace of mind.
We’ve always had time in our business. After the initial few years, we were very careful to work between 20, 25 hours. And we still do that. It’s just that now we get more done in those 20, 25 hours.
What does growth mean to you?
Growth for us has always been growing on our own terms, which is why we never really chased a revenue milestone. It’s always been: what is our enough number? How would we get there?
For me, growth is not feeling resentful of the business you’ve built. Enjoying the work that you do every day. Even though you’ve been doing this now for 15 years, you wake up excited. You still enjoy getting on calls with clients. You still enjoy working. You still enjoy thinking about work. I feel that is growth — and you’re doing new things.
AI for me was one of those moments where I realized I could be creative and I could be working with things that would have intimidated me. I’m 46 years old. I have never touched a line of code in my entire life. And now I’m working with Claude. I’m working with Lovable. I’m building micro-apps. I’m building agentic workflows. Like, what even is that? I’m using terms like RAG. The other day I was talking to my husband — it’s been such an equalizer in my world.
That for me is growth. Learning new things, staying excited, moving at a pace that feels good for you and is right for the season that you’re in.
Listen to the full conversation with Prerna wherever you get your podcasts.
Website: contentbistro.com
Prerna’s LinkedIn: Prerna Malik
Content Bistro’s Instagram: @contentbistro