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EP277 Is AI Going to Take the Gift of Failure Away? asks Julie Cole

AI Literacy for Entrepreneurs

Release Date: 08/27/2026

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Episode description

Julie Cole and her co-founders started Mabel's Labels in a Hamilton basement 23 years ago, back when customers were still nervous about typing a credit card number into a computer. They figured out early that they weren't really running a label company - they were running a tech company that happened to make labels. Nothing off the shelf did what they needed, so they built it themselves.

Which is why her read on this moment carries some weight.

She's watched every technology wave since. She's not a skeptic and she's not a cheerleader. She uses AI, has a clear personal rule for when she will and won't, and is clear about where companies are getting it wrong with customers. But she circles one worry: young entrepreneurs are now building in a day what took her team six months in that basement, and she isn't certain the lessons survive the shortcut. She's worried AI is going to take the gift of failure away.

Also in this one: the LinkedIn post that made her furious, why she has two full-time people whose entire job is email, what her funeral-director son has to do with AI-proof careers, the Air Canada chatbot case, and why turning up in person has become a strong marketing strategy.

About Julie Cole

Julie Cole is co-founder and Senior Director of Mabel's Labels, the Hamilton-born company she and three co-founders launched from a basement in 2003 and grew into a household name. She's a recovered lawyer, a mom of six, an award-winning entrepreneur, and the best-selling author of Like a Mother: Birthing Businesses, Babies, and a Life Beyond Labels. She's a regular on Canadian television and a fixture at women's entrepreneurship events across the country - which, as this episode argues, is not incidental to how she's built the brand.

 

What we get into

  • (00:33) Why a label company is actually a tech company

  • (01:03) Hamilton, 2003, and the fact that there wasn't a nerd among them

  • (02:24) Susan's shoe labels, and a core memory involving a three-year-old choosing fonts

  • (03:08) Watching kids grow up through the icons they pick

  • (04:02) Twenty-three years of technology waves - what's different this time

  • (05:26) Six months in a basement versus one day now. What gets lost?

  • (06:45) You can't put your head in the sand about this

  • (08:10) "I didn't know you could write like that" - the LinkedIn post that stung

  • (08:54) What fresh hell is this

  • (09:49) Where companies are getting AI badly wrong with customers

  • (11:13) Julie's litmus test for when she'll use AI and when she won't

  • (11:55) Six kids, generational skepticism, and hiding the tab when they walk in

  • (13:25) Susan's podcast platform story: how a 30-minute task became 24 hours

  • (14:47) The Air Canada chatbot case, and who's responsible for what your bot says

  • (15:58) Founder-forward PR, and the CEO as the next influencer

  • (17:14) The fake expert problem, and how people will start telling the difference

  • (18:17) Lower your production quality. Let the dog in.

  • (19:08) Turning up in person is having a moment

  • (19:55) "Don't tell me you're authentic. Show me."

  • (20:29) LinkedIn's report-AI-slop button, and the problem LinkedIn built for itself

  • (21:13) "If I rest, I rust"

  • (22:34) Fifty employees, and the two whose full-time job is email

  • (23:18) On companies that won't hire until you prove AI can't do the job

  • (24:10) "I want them all to be plumbers"

  • (26:15) The funeral director son, and jobs AI can't touch

  • (27:26) Where AI actually shows up in Julie's week

  • (28:25) Taking pain away from her team, not work away from them

  • (29:26) Kids' budgets, biochem formulas, and a grade 10 history practice test

  • (31:13) The gift of failure

  • (31:59) Calculators, plagiarism, and what professors used to catch by eye

  • (33:18) Susan's answer: make them defend it like a thesis

  • (34:48) Neurodivergence, executive function, and where AI is an unambiguous win

 

Quotes

"I'm worried that AI is going to take the gift of failure away from them." - Julie Cole

"I like them to struggle. I like them to sit in their boredom. I like them to sit in frustration. Good stuff comes from that." - Julie Cole

"Back when we created something like that, it took us six months. They did it in a day." - Julie Cole

"You can save time all you want, but if you end up losing customers along the way, is it worth it?" - Julie Cole

"People are really going to start noticing who are the experts because they went to AI, and who are the experts because they've lived it and learned it." - Julie Cole

"Don't tell me you're authentic. Show me." - Julie Cole

"It's not taking work away from them, it's taking pain away from them." - Julie Cole, on using AI instead of queuing work with her design team

"If I rest, I rust." - Julie Cole

 

Resources

Mabel's Labels: www.mabelslabels.com

Julie's page, including her book: www.mabelslabels.com/juliecole

Like a Mother: Birthing Businesses, Babies, and a Life Beyond Labels

Julie on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/julie-cole-llb-ma-3794671

Julie on Instagram: @juliecoleinc

 

If this episode landed, read this next in Swan Dive Backwards: Chapter 12, Does AI Make You More or Less Creative? - the paintbrush-versus-photocopier question, and why AI-produced work reads as forgettable. 

Susan's book, Swan Dive Backwards is available on Amazon

Amazon Canada https://lnkd.in/dixxKJgV

Amazon USA https://lnkd.in/dFH5khHw

Amazon UK https://amzn.eu/d/07y3Gkvl

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