Notes from the build
What we're learning building an AI that runs real stores — shipped features, honest numbers, and the occasional wrong turn.
Automation vs AI: the difference in one answer
Automation follows rules a person wrote. AI infers an answer nobody wrote. The distinction, a comparison table, and where each one belongs.
Read articleAI for email marketing: a cart email teardown
One AI-drafted abandoned-cart sequence read line by line: what the model gets right, and the invented urgency a human has to cut.
Read articleSocial media automation for a one-person store
The ten steps a one-person store follows to post consistently, what goes wrong at each, and the five problems automation will not fix.
Read articleAI customer service for small business: when to automate
Automate the questions whose answer never changes. A table mapping question type and weekly volume to the right way to answer each one.
Read articleAI call center for small business: how a call works
What an AI call center actually does on a call, what it can resolve, what it cannot, and why the handoff to a person decides everything.
Read articleYes, your online store should have a phone number
A published number does work even when nobody calls. The case for it, the strongest argument against it, and the one condition that holds it up.
Read articleQuestions AI should never answer in customer support
Five categories of support question to always route to a person, the two catch-all rules, and what the AI should say when it stops.
Read articleYour first 10 customers: the unglamorous sequence
The steps that actually produce the first ten orders for a new store, what goes wrong at each one, and why running ads is the wrong first move.
Read articleWhat to sell online: how to test an idea cheaply
No software picks your product, including ours. Four filters that decide a good idea, a table matching what you have to what to sell, and five cheap tests.
Read articleHow to price a product: the margin math, worked through
Cost-plus, value and competitive pricing with the arithmetic done: loaded cost, markup versus margin, what a discount really costs, and how to raise a price.
Read articleHow to start a subscription box: the arithmetic first
Box cost, shipping, churn and the break-even subscriber count, worked through with illustrative figures, plus why month three kills most boxes.
Read articleAI chatbot vs live chat: what is the difference?
An AI chatbot answers the customer itself; live chat routes them to a person. A side-by-side table, plus where each one wins and how each fails.
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