— Field notes

The journal, in long form.

Practical guides on AI automation, AI agents and building products. What things cost, how to choose between options, and how to start, written by the team that builds them.

Total pieces

49

published

Topics

Five

automation to MVPs

Style

Plain

prices included

49 pieces
AI Agents★ Featured

AI agents for business: what they do, what they cost, and where to start

A plain-language guide to AI agents for business in 2026. What an agent is, the jobs agents handle well in support, sales, marketing, finance and operations, the three ways to get one, what it costs, the guardrails that matter, and a 30-day path to a first agent.

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AI Automation

AI acceptable use policy template for small and mid-sized businesses

A free AI acceptable use policy template you can copy and adapt in an hour. Includes a one-page version for very small teams and a full poli…

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AI Agents

How much does an AI agent cost in 2026?

What an AI agent costs to buy, to build and to run in 2026. Subscription and per-conversation pricing for off-the-shelf agents, typical pric…

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AI Agents

AI agent vs chatbot: the difference, and which one you need

The practical difference between a rule-based chatbot, an AI chatbot and an AI agent. What each one can and cannot do, a side-by-side compar…

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AI Agents

AI agents for customer service: what they handle, what they cost, and how to roll one out

A practical guide to AI agents for customer service and support. Which requests an agent can resolve on its own, what should stay with your…

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AI Agents

AI agents for e-commerce: from order questions to catalog upkeep

A practical guide to AI agents for online stores. Pre-purchase questions, order status, order changes, returns and exchanges, subscriptions,…

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AI Agents

AI agents for finance and accounting: what to hand over, and what to keep

A practical guide to AI agents for finance teams and accountants. Invoice capture and matching, expense checks, payment chasing, reconciliat…

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AI Agents

AI agents for marketing: the work they can take on, and the work they should not

A practical guide to AI agents for marketing teams. Where agents save real time, from repurposing and reporting to list hygiene and ad check…

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AI Agents

AI agents for real estate: faster lead response, less admin, and the fair housing line

A practical guide to AI agents for real estate agents, teams, brokerages and property managers. Instant lead response, showing scheduling, l…

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AI Agents

AI agents for sales: where they help, where they hurt, and how to start

A practical guide to AI agents for sales teams. The jobs an agent does well, from instant lead response to CRM upkeep, what should stay with…

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AI Agents

AI agents for small business: start with one job

A practical guide to AI agents for small businesses. How to pick the one job worth handing over, good first jobs by type of business, what y…

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AI Automation

How much does AI automation consulting cost in 2026?

Typical 2026 price ranges for AI automation consulting: audits, single automations, custom AI agents, implementation programs and monthly su…

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AI Automation

AI development cost in 2026: price ranges by project type

What AI development costs in 2026, by type of project: adding an AI feature, a chatbot over your documents, document processing, an AI agent…

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AI Automation

AI readiness checklist: 25 questions to answer before you spend money on AI

A practical AI readiness checklist for small and mid-sized businesses. Twenty-five yes-or-no questions across five areas: the use case, your…

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MVP & Product

Fixed price vs time and materials: which to choose for a software or AI project

Fixed price versus time and materials for software and AI projects. Who carries the risk under each model, a side-by-side comparison, when e…

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AI Automation

How to automate data entry: a practical guide for businesses

How to automate data entry in a business, step by step. The five methods, from integrations and forms to AI document reading and browser aut…

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AI Automation

How to automate email responses without sounding like a robot

How to automate email responses in a business, from simple auto-replies and templates to AI-drafted replies and full inbox triage. Which ema…

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AI Automation

How to automate reporting: from weekly spreadsheets to reports that build themselves

How to automate business reporting step by step. The four levels, from scheduled exports to live dashboards and AI-written commentary, how t…

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AI Automation

How to hire an AI automation consultant

A practical guide to hiring an AI automation consultant or agency: what they actually do, the difference between a consultant, an agency, a…

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MVP & Product

MVP vs prototype vs proof of concept: what each one is for

The difference between a proof of concept, a prototype and an MVP, explained by the question each one answers. A side-by-side comparison, wh…

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AI Automation★ Refreshed

AI automation ROI: how to estimate hours saved before building

A practical framework for estimating the dollar value, payback period, and 12-month ROI of an AI automation engagement before you commit to…

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AI Search & SEO

GA4 → AI search attribution: tracking ChatGPT and Perplexity referrals correctly

A practical guide to tracking inbound traffic from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Google AI Overviews in GA4. The referrer values, the cha…

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AI Automation★ Refreshed

Anthropic MCP for B2B SaaS automation: when to adopt

A practical guide to Model Context Protocol (MCP) for B2B SaaS automation in 2026. What MCP actually is, what it changes about agent tooling…

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Founder Ops★ Refreshed

What changed in B2B SaaS marketing in 2026: a year-end review

A year-end review of what actually changed in B2B SaaS marketing in 2026. AI search reshaping inbound, the death of programmatic SEO, the ri…

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MVP & Product

How to evaluate a productized agency: 12 questions to ask

12 specific questions to ask a productized agency on the scoping call to evaluate whether they'll actually deliver on the productized promis…

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AI Search & SEO★ Refreshed

How to get cited by ChatGPT in 2026: a B2B SaaS playbook

A concrete playbook for B2B SaaS teams trying to be cited inside ChatGPT answers in 2026. The signals ChatGPT actually weighs, the page-leve…

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MVP & Product★ Refreshed

From idea to paying users in 90 days: a realistic founder timeline

A realistic 90-day timeline from B2B SaaS idea to first 10 paying customers. The week-by-week founder workload, the build choices that compr…

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AI Automation★ Refreshed

Internal tools vs customer-facing AI: scoping the right automation first

Why most B2B SaaS teams should ship internal AI automations before customer-facing ones. The scope, risk, and ROI differences. The scoping f…

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Founder Ops★ Refreshed

Pre-launch checklist: 30 things to ship before your SaaS hits paid users

A 30-item pre-launch checklist for B2B SaaS in 2026, organized by category. Auth, billing, security, performance, monitoring, content, legal…

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MVP & Product★ Refreshed

SaaS MVP scope creep: 8 patterns to refuse on the scoping call

The 8 scope-creep patterns that turn a 6-week SaaS MVP build into a 12-week one. How to spot them on the scoping call, the language to refus…

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AI Search & SEO

Schema.org for B2B agencies: a 2026 implementation guide

A practical schema.org implementation guide for B2B agencies in 2026. The exact JSON-LD types every agency site needs, the agency-specific p…

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MVP & Product★ Refreshed

Stripe Tax for SaaS: what it does, what it doesn't, what to do

A clear-eyed guide to Stripe Tax for B2B SaaS in 2026. What it actually automates, what it leaves to you, the jurisdictions where it works w…

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MVP & Product

Auth + billing for SaaS MVPs: Clerk vs Auth.js + Stripe in 2026

An opinionated comparison of Clerk vs Auth.js (NextAuth) plus Stripe for B2B SaaS MVP authentication and billing. Cost, time-to-ship, vendor…

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AI Automation★ Refreshed

When to build vs buy AI automation

A clear-eyed framework for deciding whether to buy an off-the-shelf AI automation tool, configure n8n / Zapier, or build a custom automation…

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AI Automation★ Refreshed

What it actually costs to run an AI automation in production

A real cost breakdown for running an AI automation in production in 2026. LLM API costs, infrastructure, monitoring, vector storage, and the…

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AI Automation

LangChain vs LangGraph for production agents in 2026

An opinionated comparison of LangChain and LangGraph for production-grade AI agent workflows in 2026. When each is the right call, what each…

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AI Automation★ Refreshed

OpenAI vs Anthropic for B2B SaaS automation in 2026

An honest comparison of OpenAI and Anthropic for B2B SaaS automation workloads in 2026. Model quality, pricing, tool calling, MCP support, l…

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MVP & Product★ Refreshed

Productized agency vs freelancer for a SaaS MVP

When a productized agency makes sense versus hiring a freelance developer for your SaaS MVP. The cost, speed, scope, and risk trade-offs nob…

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AI Search & SEO

Reddit citation strategy for B2B SaaS in 2026

Why Reddit is the highest-leverage citation source for B2B SaaS in 2026, which subreddits to engage, the 95/5 rule that keeps you un-banned,…

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MVP & Product★ Refreshed

The SaaS MVP tech stack for 2026: the boring-by-design choice

An opinionated tech stack for B2B SaaS MVPs in 2026. Next.js 16, TypeScript, Tailwind v4, Drizzle, Stripe, Clerk, Vercel. Why each choice, w…

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MVP & Product

SaaS MVP timeline: a realistic week-by-week build plan

A realistic six-week SaaS MVP build, broken down day by day. What gets done in week 1, what's in flight by week 3, what counts as 'done' by…

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AI Search & SEO

How to track LLM citations (with a 2026 tools comparison)

A practical guide to tracking when ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews cite your site. What to measure, the tools that do i…

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MVP & Product★ Refreshed

What to cut from your SaaS MVP v1

Every founder over-scopes their MVP v1. Here's the canonical list of features to cut from version one. And why each one tends to look essent…

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AI Search & SEO★ Refreshed

AEO vs SEO vs GEO: what changed in 2026 and what to do about it

AI search has reshaped the SEO playbook. Here's what's actually different about Answer Engine Optimization in 2026. What carries over from c…

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AI Search & SEO★ Refreshed

Astro vs Next.js for SaaS marketing sites in 2026

An honest comparison of Astro 5 and Next.js 16 for B2B SaaS marketing sites. Performance, AEO, dev velocity, hosting cost, and which fits wh…

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MVP & Product★ Refreshed

How much does it cost to build a SaaS MVP in 2026?

A clear-eyed look at MVP development cost in 2026 for SaaS products. What you'll pay across no-code, freelance, productized agencies, tradit…

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AI Search & SEO

How to write llms.txt for a SaaS site (with examples)

A practical guide to llms.txt and llms-full.txt for B2B SaaS sites. What they are, what AI engines actually do with them, the schema, common…

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AI Search & SEO★ Refreshed

The minimum schema markup every SaaS homepage needs in 2026

A copy-paste guide to the JSON-LD schema markup every B2B SaaS homepage should ship in 2026. Five schema types, the exact fields that matter…

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AI Automation

n8n vs Zapier vs Make for SaaS internal tools (2026)

An honest, side-by-side comparison of n8n, Zapier, and Make for B2B SaaS internal automation in 2026. Pricing, ownership, LLM support, ops c…

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