Seb's Awesome Website

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been navigating my first semester of electrical engineering in university + the demands of a growing automation business.

The experience has been a helped me with time management. And it forced me to confront a brutal truth about my business model…

The Start of School… (again)

The first week of school was surprisingly calm. With a light homework load, I was taking client meetings between classes and spending my evenings building automations. I was "doing the work."

During this time, I was reading business books like $100M Money Models by Alex Hormozi.

I realized that right now I didn’t really have a business. It was a high-overhead, low-paying job that I had created for myself. 😔

The "Customization Trap"

The proof was in a single project: a "vibe check" system for a really nice client I met at StartupFest.

Initial Scope: A simple ~15-30 hour project.
Reality: A 120-hour marathon of custom development and revisions.

When I finally did the math, dividing the project fee by the hours invested… I was making a much less than minimum wage. 💀

I was caught deep in the Customization Trap. I was selling my time for a fixed, low price, and it was completely unsustainable.

Before starting the contract, I was so inexperienced so I thought I was charging appropriately. Now, I realize how much effort goes into even the "simplest" project...

The Pivot to Predictability

The pain of that realization forced me to pivot. My #1 priority became building a predictable, scalable client acquisition machine.

Relying on events is great, but it isn’t a system. (I will definitely keep going to events, it's just that I want to diversify my lead flow.)

So, I invested in cold email infrastructure with Instantly.ai and started learning the ropes. My first few campaigns were "mid," but they produced results: a 3% reply rate and a booked meeting.

Lesson: Businesses Buy Results, Not Bots

That little meeting was another critical lesson. I went in planning to sell my "AI Responder Agent," but the prospect was only interested in one thing: Lead Generation.

It’s an obvious truth in hindsight: businesses don’t buy automations; they buy results. Specifically, they buy more revenue.

Internal Efficiency Tools = Low Value
Sales/Revenue Tools = High Value (3.5x more lucrative)

This sharpened my focus completely. From now on I'm focusing on building bots that directly lead to more sales.

The "Grant Bot" Experiment

This new focus led me to my next project: the Grant Bot. It’s a system for a robotics startup. The bot scrapes the internet for government grants in Canada → then recommends the best fits.

The client's reaction to the V1 demo was immediate, even though I was just showing him a spreadsheet of scraped data. 😅

Why? Because the Grant Bot isn't a "nice-to-have" vitamin; it's a painkiller.

Finding grants is a manual, soul-crushing nightmare for founders. But, these grants can be worth hundreds of thousands in funding. A system that solves this problem is not just selling an automation: it's literally selling free money.

The build process has been challenging (reverse-engineering Salesforce APIs, web scraping, database), but the end product will be valuable and Productizable. ✨

The Path Forward: From Freelancer to Business

I’ve had to make modifications for past clients, juggle classes (+ learn which ones to skip), and push through the difficult middle stages of a new product build.

My business model has to evolve. I am moving away from highly personalized, one-off projects. The goal is to take on jobs that involve building high-value systems that can be productized.

The New Strategy:

Get Paid to Build It Once: Find a client with a painful problem.
Productize It: Build a robust solution.
Distribute It: Sell that same solution to 100 other people with that problem.

What's Next?

Build the Engine. More cold email campaigns focused exclusively on Lead Gen.
Targeted Strikes. Using platforms like Upwork to find high-value sales-focused projects.

It’s been a painful but rewarding month. The goal is no longer just to be a builder. The goal is to build a business.