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Short essays on AI, written for small business owners. No gating, no fluff, no PDFs to download. Just the truth, in plain English.

FeaturedBuying decisions

The 5 questions to ask before buying any AI tool

A practical checklist for evaluating any AI tool you're being pitched — from 'what specific work will this replace?' to 'what happens if the vendor disappears in 18 months?' Print this. Tape it to your monitor.

8 min readRead the guide

Questions

Why most AI implementations fail (and how to avoid it)

Four patterns we see over and over. Spoiler: it's almost never the technology.

6 min readRead

Tools

ChatGPT for small business: a real workflow guide

What to use it for, what to never paste into it, and the three prompts that do 80% of the work.

12 min readRead

Buying decisions

AI tools to skip in 2026

A short list, with reasoning. Updated quarterly. Includes the famous ones.

5 min readRead

Custom builds

When custom software actually makes sense

An honest framework for deciding whether to build, buy, or just hire a person.

7 min readRead

Tools

Email automation that doesn't sound like a robot

Templates, guardrails, and the one settings change that quietly fixes most email AI.

6 min readRead

Safety

What 'safe' really means with AI

Data, privacy, compliance, the lawsuit risk nobody told you about — the short, calm version.

9 min readRead

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