Pushing a String While Chasing My Tail
Launching a platform continues to be an exercise in patience and persistence.
Don't get me wrong — compared to where I was a year ago, even six months ago, where I'm at today is a different universe. Back then it was experimenting and failing. Today it's building correctly. But the failures early on were significant. They made me want to tear my hair out. No crying though — I don't cry.
(Not true.)
Pushing a String
Just when I'd think I'd made progress on one issue, a new one would creep up and the old issue would show up wearing a different outfit. I was pushing a string — ever heard that saying? — while chasing my tail at the same time. I did that for months.
The Orchestration Moment
But one day I realized I was about to cross into something called orchestration. (Forgive me — it's a tech term.) What it means is this: the orchestrator — the early pain of keeping the AI agents on track, accurate, and efficient — had been resolved to a point where I could actually rely on them for specific tasks. Now I could start looking at long workflows: sequences of work, not just one-off tricks.
The reliability gate
Early on, I couldn't rely on an AI agent to write content correctly or consistently. Couldn't rely on it for code either. The last thing I needed to do was unleash an unreliable agent that could hardly do one task well and apply it to a whole series of tasks. We've all worked with someone like that. Now imagine it happening at computer speed.
Gradually I figured out the things that made both of those work — and that was imperative, because the alternative was scaling the unreliability.
Coming Together
As I build the first version of my platform that I'm comfortable charging clients for, all of the lessons from the past twelve months are paying off. I'm seeing my vision come to pass. The clunky prototype I use every day is about to be replaced with the elegant tool that will let me — and my clients — do so much more.
I love it when a plan comes together.
But here's the funny thing. The lessons I'm learning about how to sell my product reflect the same themes in why I built what I built — and why I'm focused on small businesses in the first place. We all share the same struggles. We all deserve better tools. But most of all, we all need to be heard and seen — because what we do matters. That's the same lesson from hammers, nails, and learning to shut up — the best tools don't matter if you haven't listened first.
Building something real?
If you're a small business owner building something real, I'd like to hear about it.
