When It Grows

One job per bot

The rule that's run through the whole book matters most here. One bot, one job.

Written job notes

As the team grows, write down what each bot does. Not in its description, which is for the bot, but in a short document for you.

A second line, step by step

When Shelf Life adds plant-care kits, the steps go like this:

• Research bot checks the market, Chapter 2.
• Sourcing bot finds suppliers, Chapter 3.
• Numbers bot works out costs and margins, Chapter 7.
• You decide whether to go ahead.

A new place to sell

Adding a marketplace or another channel means more listings to keep in sync and more inboxes to watch.

Wholesale

Selling to shops means bigger orders, lower prices and different paperwork, like invoices and payment terms. Your outreach and numbers bots from Chapters 7 and 8 handle most of it.

Costs and usage limits

More bots and more routines use more of your Grok Bot allowance. My first book explains how usage limits work. As the shop grows, check each month:

• Which routines run most often, and whether they need to.
• Which reports you actually read.
• Whether any bot is doing a job that's no longer needed.

When to hire a person

At some point, a shop grows to where some jobs need a person. Packing, mostly.

A monthly check-in

Once a month, sit down with the team. Read the job notes. Look at the month's summaries. Ask a few questions:

• Is any bot doing a job badly? Fix its description or skill.
• Is any bot doing a job nobody needs? Pause it.
• Is there a job I'm still doing that a bot could take?
• Did any draft slip through that I shouldn't have approved?

Walkthrough: adding the plant-care line

Here's how the plant-care kits went, as a worked example of growing on purpose.

What went wrong: the bot that did too much

As the shop grew, the owner kept adding small jobs to the service bot. Customer email, then reviews, then social comments, then wholesale inquiries.

A worked example: the market stall

The owner tried a weekend craft market. The bots helped with the prep.

Questions people ask

How many bots is too many? When you can't remember what each one does without looking at the team page, you probably have too many.