Two dumb reasons I waited to build AI bots

Author

Jeff Sauer
June 14, 2025

In partnership with

I finally built my first AI bot

The floodgates just opened.

After months of hesitation, I finally released my first "production-ready" AI bot last week.

And honestly? I feel kinda stupid for waiting so long.

Because the thing that was holding me back wasn't technical ability. It wasn't lack of knowledge. It wasn't even time.

It was two simple mental blocks that I bet are holding you back too:

  1. Terminology confusion

  2. Perfectionism about what makes something "ready"

Let me break this down.

First, the terminology thing is a mess. Everyone's throwing around words like agents, assistants, systems, and bots like they're interchangeable.

They're not.

Here's the simplest way to think about it:

A bot is basically the entry point – it's single-purpose, single-channel. It could be a custom GPT, a Google Gemini bot, an Artifact, or whatever.

It's just taking your knowledge/instructions and delivering more consistent results than random prompting.

That's it.

No need to overcomplicate it.

The second block was more subtle – this idea that something needs to be perfect before it's "production-ready."

But here's the breakthrough that changed everything for me:

The difference between a personal bot and one you can share or sell isn't some magical technical threshold.

It's just TIME.

Instead of spending 15 minutes building something "okay," you spend 20+ hours testing it, breaking it, fixing it, and using it yourself.

That's literally the only difference.

Mercer and I have been quietly building and using these bots in our own businesses for months. We've put in 20-30 hours building each one, testing and refining.

We've been treating them like internal tools – not realizing that what we were actually creating were products that others would happily pay for.

The funny thing about confidence is that once you get it in one area, it spills over everywhere else.

Now that I've crossed this threshold, I'm seeing bot opportunities everywhere. What used to feel intimidating now feels like a game.

And the timing couldn't be better.

We just wrapped our second AI-First Challenge, and the feedback was clear: people want to know how to build their own bots.

So we're doing something we've never done before.

We're hosting a "Battle of the Bots" workshop where Mercer and I will go head-to-head, building bots live, showing our exact frameworks, and breaking down our process step by step.

You'll see how we take something from "works for me" to "ready for the world."

Plus, you'll get access to the bots we've already built and tested – the same ones we use in our own businesses every day.

No need to put in those 20-30 hours yourself. We've already done the hard part.

If you're in ProfitSchool Pro, you'll get access to these bots automatically. If not, the workshop is your chance to get them and learn how to build your own.

Don't be like me, waiting months because of terminology confusion and perfectionism.

The water's fine. Jump in.

To Your AI-First Success,

Jeff Sauer 

P.S. The Bot Building Workshop is happening soon. Learn more and register here to get our framework, see our process, and get access to our battle-tested bots.

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