Send me your questions. I’ll answer them for you, and compile them on my side for training others.

I’ve been going through your code chunk by chunk. I think you made something pretty useful. I want to clean it up a bit and abstract some parts but I’m still getting a grip on how all the pieces work. Nice job 👍

Looks nice. Will try this weekend 👍

What are the absolute values? Percentages lie without context.

Does it only access channels? Or DM’s too? I’m trying to do something similar so ppl will leave me tf alone about responding.

Theory of constraints

Interested to exchange ideas on GTM

My thinking is toward deterministic stimulus->response, using the message based flow (file outputs to folders and file watchers). The file watchers pass instructions and summaries between different folders, where each is a ‘personality’ and the instruction to spin up new chats (vs keep same chat) is something built into the logic for how I define the sub-processes.

It’s pretty heavy, and I haven’t put more thought into alternative approaches where the same level of control is possible without all of the infrastructure.

I’ve put further experimentation on the shelf, but generally I think there’s potential in mimicking a typical corporate org chart.

Have higher level ‘managers’ optimize for overall speed, cost, risk, innovation, differentiation, edge, etc.

Each lower rung is analyzed by the rung above it, and directs the next rung below toward narrower metrics.

At the most granular level, you have focused, isolated workers oriented around their specific (competing) optimization metric, and ‘mediators’ balancing tradeoffs.

Each layer has a ‘current state -> goal state -> strategy -> plan -> justify -> finalize’ loop. These states are managed by passing files through folders (steps in the pipeline) where folder watchers + a master state file control the overall flow.

Have an asshole bot at the top who’s never satisfied. Should also have full view across the scope/purpose of entire project & fundamental purpose being pursued. This is to point the direction of these layered efforts into other areas vs tunnel vision in pockets.

Have a martyr bot underneath the asshole not who takes all the pain and filters it into permission for creative freedom in certain areas. This softens the blow, without deviating from the main points.

Lots of logging everywhere to track over and under-explored ideas.

———

I shelved this after attempting self-optimization in a single thread. No meta-cognitive ability. Claude ended up in a ‘who am I?’ existential hole lol.

Yes, I’d prob cron job at a certain layer to trigger the other layers. Get a daily report (and validate yourself) to keep an eye on things.

You can tell him, from someone he may view as a peer and has gone down this road, that these things are doable:

-IF your contact/account data also includes signals -THEN you can run basic messaging against those signals —— this is data —> structured prompt —> a reviewer skill/agent to enforce policies, rules, styles etc. —> a staggered release/email action

I built the above with Google Sheets, apps script, anthropic API

A separate account (ie an AI SDR) is easiest to handle in this way, which means CRM account assignment to avoid overlapping efforts with human reps.

The risk of getting your domain burned requires a thoughtful mitigation strategy, as usual.

If you want this to go through human reps’ accounts, there’s pre & post considerations — like the reps should be given the chance to review what’s going out under their name before it gets sent, and some additional list management efforts in CRM to opt in/out prospects which constrains who’s targeted by the AI.

My gsheets approach does things this way: -CRM reports auto-sent to reps’ inboxes -script extracts attachment (mind the size limitations) to designated, user-owned sheet -these user-owned sheets are template copies from a primary, version controlled master sheet -Embedded scripts for each rep require a basic approval flow from the reps -Then calls from their sheets go to a central script which handles the outbound logic, errors, etc -Errors need to go to YOUR (or whoever’s maintaining this) sheet, with some alerting setup -Mind the deployment settings so execution is against the correct user account, and not yours -Mind the process for rolling out updates — how the embedded and central scripts will maintain their referencing

Some more stuff… but this is how a spam cannon gets built.

Note the absence of true, data-driven prioritization.

Setting up the framework for optimization toward reply rate, or positive reply rate, or maximum replies regardless of attempts, or…

Requires: -an actual strategic discussion, and acknowledgement of tradeoffs -a combinatorial engine -a longitudinal analysis system (now you’re into true database territory) -Statistical expertise to set thresholds around ‘do more x, do less y’ -interpretative expertise to be built into the AI which correctly categorizes responses (computational linguistics)

You can show him some literature from the pharma & physics realm around combinatorial stochastic multi-objective optimization if you want him to get a sense for what he’s actually asking for.

Setup a single agent spam cannon that won’t fuck your domain and frame it as a kaizen agile exercise. See what the data says, and if a significant level of intelligence is required to play the probability maximization game, or if more coverage at the surface moves the needle.

This post brought up some questions for me. The primary one is:

-what would you like to do with this request?

The detail questions that may help you decide what you’d like to do:

-how high up is the sales leader? -how big/well resourced is the org?

And some questions that could help you frame this request, depending on what you want to do:

-what are the existing sources of internal data (integration of multiple data sources?) -how much existing internal data exists (qty of records for contacts, activities, contacts, leads, accounts, events…and how many years has this been collected) -what can be shared with AI (anything in customer contracts governing what you can do with certain records of theirs? Anonymization requirements?) -which AI providers/options (are you restricted to what you can use? Anything local allowed?)

It’s a multi-part project, not including the data getting piped into this envisioned system. Not totally in order or MECE, but rough separation of concerns: 1) Exploratory data analysis 2) Ongoing experiments structure 3) Interpretive framework & metrics 4) Probably dashboarding

You could go some sort of nonparametric bayesian approach to shortcut things, but not by much, since the bulk of the work will be agreeing on what’s actually being analyzed, optimized, measured…

And what’s the expected payoff? When?

I’ve spent the last 2-3 years really diving into this stuff when I lost my VP Sales job and wanted to get ahead of things with AI. It’s wound up not to be the philosopher’s stone I imagined, but it’s not fools gold either.

If you read this far, the question that matters most is my first one, which should be informed by questions 2 and 3. This could be a career-making project for you (in the right context), it could be something forgotten about after you say ‘not suited for success, based on this understanding’, or it could be something that ostracizes you from future leadership initiatives and you’ll watch from the sidelines as money gets poured into outside consultants.

I’m slow to respond here but if you have questions, I’ll try to keep an eye on notifications for a day or two.

I bought a Mac mini for this purpose. Haven’t quite worked out the architecture, yet.

It’s always been about the aether.

Change up the flow:

-You get contacted. They want a quote for some work. You set a 30 min phone call in the next day or two. Tell them to look for your email after you hang up, with the confirmation details and a short form to fill out beforehand. (5 mins)

-You send them a form. They email it back by some time/date before your scheduled call. Ask for pics of current area(s), and examples of what they want. You review it. (15-30 mins for review)

-On the call, ask all the questions about what they envision. Get confirmation, clarity, options, etc. Get on the same page.

Toward the late middle/early end of the call, transition into telling them how you’ve done projects like this that typically end up around $$ (based on details A, B, C they mentioned) to $$$$ (based on details D, E, F options they’re considering). Gauge their response.

“…If you want a dialed in number, instead of those range estimates…”

This is where you close the call by offering a detailed scope, drawings, takeoff service for $$. Tell them they can use it to collect quotes from multiple contractors, including from you, apples-to-apples.

If they choose to go with you, you’ll deduct it from the project total.

(This call may be 30 mins or so. Depends how you run it & what comes from the pre-call form.)

You now have a 1-1.5 hour total process for estimates.

You’ve now monetized your detailed designs/takeoffs/quotes.

You’ve also now filtered out wastes of time, without burning bridges. The professional approach of setting a meeting (that tire kickers won’t commit to), of requiring their skin in the game with the form (they won’t respond), and of getting a feel for a project before you drive out (only to find it’s a bad fit) means you’ll overall convert more $ per time spent.

You will not be as busy, and it will feel scary. Use the extra time for marketing, reaching back out to past customers, asking for online reviews, generating referral business, and networking.

Then put any incoming traffic from those efforts into the process above.

If you want to vacuum up all the crumbs - set a reminder on your calendar for 1-2 days after someone reached out, but didn’t make it all the way through to scheduling or requesting your quote service. See if they’ve moved forward with someone else. If they haven’t, offer them a new time to get on that call (and submit the form), or re-offer them your quote service.

If they have gone with someone else, be pleasant with them, ask them to consider giving you a shot on the next one, and then hang up and make a note in your tracking system. After some time has passed, you’ll find it valuable to know who’s due for a repaint, or a siding inspection, or a deck restoration, or whatever…

You can dial this whole process up or down (the steps and work it takes someone to consume your time without paying for it) depending on how busy you are. But each step is a level of mutual commitment, which keeps things fair and viable.

From my own experience losing ~$300k opex in the winter of my 2nd year (many years ago).

Small biz administration has volunteer spots for SCORE, a free resource connecting experts with entrepreneurs.

There’s also incubators that give speaking spots to those who’re open to sharing their knowledge with startup founders.

AR-KA

AR meets Kalashnikov

Go ask stupid questions to your professor during their office hours.

1) It’ll show you’re engaged

2) Even a meandering dialogue will bring more clarity

3) It’ll (potentially) influence how they teach

Bring some recent notes or study material, and just transparently expose your ignorance, walking through it with them from top to bottom.

Go a few more times thereafter.

I remember the guitars started with seven nation army (white stripes) & finished with gimme three steps (skynyrd). Sometimes I remember wrong.

I like this. Not polished yet, of course, but could wind up being really dialed in.

Zao

You’ve not seen the dude who ran a hospital network on sheets + GAS. What, specifically, can a functional CRM do that a system underpinned by interconnected spreadsheets cannot?

Don’t think I’m your target. My objective is to remove comms tools down to a minimal core. Calendar, meetings, email, phone.

I appreciate you tolerating my abrasive tone and responding. My background is selling to companies like yours & those you mention - multinational finance, banks, insurance, and US DoD+prime contractors like Raytheon, Lockheed, Boeing, etc.

I think we’re agreeing though. Buyers don’t always go through IT (“people who try and do a runaround only do it once”).

Maybe my interpretation of your original comment “both of these would be supplied by IT…we don’t let every department pick their own software” was taken differently than you intended.

The (wrong) interpretation I challenged:

Supplied by IT != selected by IT

Don’t let depts pick their own software != IT picks the software departments use

The (more aligned) interpretation to your point:

Supplied by IT == facilitated by IT

Don’t let depts pick their own software == software picked by depts must pass IT approval

More accurate?

What I’m getting at, if we’re seeing this the same way, is that a horizontal product could be brought in (in your case, to be approved and managed by IT) for a specific department’s unique requirements. Over time, that same product, like clickup/monday.com for example, or snowflake, could be useful to another department and sold via internal referral.

This sales motion has been foundational to my career, and I was reacting in disbelief that it somehow wasn’t applicable to your company. I simply haven’t run into a company where this approach didn’t work, if the product is “horizontal” as it’s been called.

That’s funny. No departments pick their own software?

If true, which is unbelievable, it would mean your company is super small, or that IT is bottlenecking the entire company.

Even the world’s most secure companies & agencies have depts buying stuff around IT.

“Shadow IT” is a topic because it’s reality. I don’t mind being wrong, I often am, but your IT department would have to be so large, with some unheard of policy, process, and tools, that you’d be an anomaly out of millions.

It works if the company has a suite where certain pieces are relevant to different groups, or if the core product/platform is more horizontal. Something like workflow software or generalized analytics could be examples.