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Warning: Threw $2,800 at a chatbot wrapper instead of building real features
I launched a startup in Toronto last year that was basically a fancy chatbot glued to a Shopify store. Thought I was being clever by saving time with a pre-built AI wrapper from some US company. After 4 months and $2,800 in subscription fees, I realized nobody cared about the chatbot. They wanted better shipping options and a return portal. My co-founder finally showed me the support emails all asking for boring operational stuff (not AI magic). Felt pretty dumb paying that much for something nobody wanted. Anyone else waste money on trendy tech that missed the real problem?
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hayden_rodriguez4d ago
Man I used to be all about jumping on the latest AI hype train but your post honestly made me stop and rethink. It's easy to get caught up in shiny stuff when customers just want basic stuff to work right.
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reese5503d ago
and it's literally everywhere now, not just in tech. i saw it with my buddy who runs a little coffee shop, he was stressing about some fancy ordering app nobody asked for instead of just making sure the espresso machine worked. it's like everyone got addicted to the new new thing and forgot that the old thing is what actually pays the bills. same with how people remodel kitchens every 5 years now instead of just fixing the leaky faucet. feels like we're all just chasing dopamine hits from shiny stuff instead of doing the boring work that actually matters.
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