You need a microscopic slice of it. Everyone loves quoting massive numbers. McKinsey estimates AI could add around $8 trillion to the global economy. Impressive. Also, it is meaningless if you do not know where you fit. Here is the part people miss. 0.0001% of that market is still a multi-million dollar business. And McKinsey is not alone. PwC estimates AI could contribute up to $15.7 trillion globally over time. Again, a huge number. Same takeaway. You do not need to build the next ChatGPT. You need to solve one expensive problem really well. After working on dozens of real AI implementations, I have seen a clear pattern. Almost every project fits into one of three categories: • AI that talks to people at scale • AI that makes people faster at their jobs • AI that moves data accurately without human effort That is it. Everything else is just a variation. The real opportunity is not invention. It is an application.

They die because you’re solving the wrong problem. Here’s the shift that changes everything: Stop selling features. Start hunting for lost money. Technical problems sound safe: • Manual work • Slow workflows • Broken tools But to a buyer, those are just annoyances. What actually gets budgets approved? • Revenue leaking • Customers leaving • Risks growing quietly • Opportunities slipping away A simple way to run discovery: Step 1 Ask the technical question to open the door. “How long does this take today?” “How often does this break?” Step 2 Keep digging until you hit business impact. “What happens when this delays a deal?” “How much does this cost you each month?” That’s the moment the conversation changes. You’re no longer pitching software. You’re showing them what it costs to do nothing. People don’t buy tools to be “more efficient.” They spend money to stop losses, avoid risk, and capture upside. Find the loss. Everything else becomes easy.

The old way: Big list. Mass emails. Cross fingers. Low replies. Zero trust. The new way looks boring on the surface. But it actually works. You start with targeted data. Add context about who they are and what they care about. Send a relevant message, not a pitch. Then build a relationship, not a funnel. Same effort. Very different outcome. People don’t ignore you because they hate sales. They ignore you because you sound like everyone else. Relevance beats volume. Context beats clever copy. If your outreach feels “dead”, it’s probably not the channel. It’s the approach. Curious, which side are you still on?

I’ve been testing a simple Claude + Apify flow and it works stupidly well for outbound in the ASEAN market. No code. No APIs. No engineering help. Just results. Here’s the idea (2-minute setup): You connect Apify directly inside Claude Desktop and let Claude pull leads from X in the background. What you need: • Claude Desktop app • Apify account How it works: 1. Open Claude Desktop 2. Settings → Connectors / Extensions 3. Add Custom Connector 4. Name: Apify 5. Server URL: https://mcp.apify.com/mcp 6. Save Done. Now just ask Claude: • “Find 15 qualified leads for my AI automation service from X” • “Find 20 video editing agency leads from X in Singapore / Indonesia / Malaysia” Claude handles Apify silently. You get clean leads, fast. I’ve curated the exact prompt + setup file I’m using

And honestly, I get why. But here’s the part people skip talking about. Clawdbot isn’t plug-and-play magic. Because it runs on your own machine and can touch real files, emails, calendars, and commands, the risk surface is real. A few honest downsides I see: • Setup is not beginner friendly. You need solid technical chops. • Security is on you. One misconfigured permission can expose sensitive data. • Maintenance never stops. Updates, models, skills, infra… it’s a commitment. • Great for builders. Overkill for teams that just want results fast. Self-hosted AI assistants sound powerful. They are. But power without guardrails can get messy quickly. I’m curious, though: Would you rather A) full control + responsibility or B) less control but peace of mind? How are you thinking about this tradeoff?