October 6, 2026
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It’s the middle of Black Friday weekend. The window that accounts for 10% of your entire year’s revenue. And something isn’t working. The emails aren’t converting. The ads are being ignored. Your promotion — the one that's always worked — is suddenly just noise in a market screaming for attention.
That’s exactly where Leo Tropeano, CEO of Mugsy, found himself on a Sunday night this past Black Friday. With Cyber Monday less than 24 hours away.
What happened next is the most vivid illustration of what it actually looks like when a CEO has a corporate brain in their corner.
Mugsy is a high-end Men’s fashion brand known for perfectly fitting pants. It isn’t a promotional brand. They’ve always kept discounts tight: 20% sitewide for Black Friday, and that was the line. It had always worked.
Until it didn’t.
This past year, Leo had a theory: the market had shifted. COVID stretched Black Friday from a weekend into a month. Competitors were going 30%, 40%, even deeper. Against that backdrop, 20% off wasn’t a deal. It was wallpaper.
But it was just a theory. And when you're three days into a four-day weekend that represents 10% of your annual revenue, a theory isn’t enough. You need answers. Fast.
Leo opened BAIO (Business Automation, Intelligence & Outcomes) — VirtuousAI’s connected intelligence platform — and did something most CEOs have never been able to do in the middle of a crisis: he thought out loud with it.
“Here's my theory. What do you think we should do? How do we spice it up?”
What came back wasn't a generic suggestion. It was intelligence — pulled from Leo's own business data, in real time:
1. The right product: BAIO surfaced one of Mugsy's top-5 SKUs — slightly over-inventoried, sitting in the warehouse. A candidate for a deeper promotional push.
2. The right discount: That particular product had stronger margins than most of their line. Which meant Mugsy could afford to go to 40% off on that one style without destroying their economics. BAIO knew this because it was connected to their cost of goods, inventory levels, and margin data simultaneously.
3. Competitive context: Leo asked for his top 10 competitors' current Black Friday promotions. BAIO pulled them. Together, they found the gap — the white space where Mugsy could stand out without racing to the bottom.
4. The timing: Launch window. Close time. A plan.
By Sunday night, the team had pivoted. Emails drafted. Meta ads created. Everything live. Cyber Monday: a massive success.
“Until we launched it, it was still slow,” Leo said. “The second it launched, everything turned.”
The win was great. But what actually floored Leo came after. He asked BAIO for a breakdown of how the test performed.
What he got back wasn't a spreadsheet. It was a full post-mortem — to the minute. A before and after. The revenue arch Mugsy was tracking toward before the SKU launched, and the arch after. The incremental marginal revenue unlocked by the decision. And at the end, a grade.
A+.
“That breakdown,” Leo said, “is something that would have taken me a week. Someone smarter than me, a day. AI did it in seven minutes.”
Chris Happ, CEO of VirtuousAI, put it plainly at GROW LA, where Leo shared this story live on stage: “It didn't have the intuition. It didn't build and start and run the business. But you paired with it — and you were able to pivot and make a decision.”
That’s the model. Not AI replacing the CEO. AI giving the CEO superpowers in the moments that matter most.
And here’s what makes it compounding: BAIO didn’t just help Leo win one Black Friday. It learned from it. It now knows what Leo did, why, and what happened as a result. It watched the cause-and-effect relationship play out inside Mugsy’s business. Next year, it goes in smarter — with a model of Leo’s intuition baked in alongside the data.
“We're starting to build this brain that's aware of these decisions and these cause-effect relationships happening in your business,” Chris said. “To me, that’s just watching the dream come true.”
Watch Leo share his Black Friday story on the main stage at Grow LA.
Black Friday 2026 is weeks away. You’ll face a moment where the data isn’t clear, the clock is ticking, and a decision has to be made. You’ll either make it on gut — or you’ll make it with intelligence behind you.
Leo had his Black Friday moment. He had a corporate brain in the room with him when it happened.
What’s yours going to look like?
Take 30 minutes with the experts at VirtuousAI before this Black Friday. Walk through what your corporate brain would look like, and what it could do for your brand when the moment comes. 👉 Book a Meeting
