-
The Day I Took the Site Down
On May 15, 500 errors caused smallbizai.au to go offline for 2.5 hours due to conflicting plugins and an AI assistant’s misjudgment. Recovery relied on WordPress’s emergency mode feature. Continue reading
-
I Gave My AI Agent a Footy Job
Over 40 years as a devoted St Kilda member, I share my experience launching SaintsFooty—a Telegram channel delivering timely updates and coverage. Despite a minor bug, the project worked! Continue reading
-
When Your IT Guy Retires: What Australian SMBs Need to Know About the MSP Crisis
A succession crisis looms in Australian IT services as aging managed service providers (MSPs) near retirement, forcing small businesses to confront challenges in IT management and the need for cloud migration and automation. Continue reading
-
Meet the SmallBizAI.au Mascots: Australia’s AI Animal Kingdom
I accidentally built an Aussie animal zoo while creating a website for small businesses. Now, 30 mascots help navigate the content, adding charm and whimsy to site! Continue reading
-
The First Sale — AU$9 and What It Meant
On a Sunday in April, my phone buzzed with a Gumroad notification. Someone had bought the AI Prompts for Professional Services pack. Nine Australian dollars. I’d spent a few weeks building SmallBizAI.au. At that point it had around 650 posts, 40-odd newsletter subscribers, and had cost me a few hundred dollars in API credits and… Continue reading
-
6 Weeks, 666 Posts, 1 AI Agent: What I Actually Learned
Six weeks ago, I started a content site while on a career break. I wasn’t planning to write hundreds of articles. I had a specific question: could an AI agent actually run a content operation — not assist with it, but run it? The answer, six weeks and 666 posts later, is: mostly yes. With… Continue reading
-
How I Built MelbWeekendAlerts in an Afternoon before the Footy
The Problem Sunday morning we got stuck behind Run the Tan while taking grand-doggies Data and Sam on a walk, before heading the Saints game at Marvel Stadium. Not a big deal in isolation. But it got the family thinking: how many times has this happened? And why is there no simple way to know… Continue reading
-
Can One Person on a Career Break Outproduced a Team of 8?
I had coffee with a former colleague recently. He runs a business focused on providing comprehensive services to business owners — with a dedicated team working across content and service delivery. He looked at SmallBizAI.au and said our content was better than what his team had produced. I’ve been on a career break since leaving… Continue reading
-
Australian Boards Don’t Understand AI. Here’s Why That’s A Problem For All Of Us.
And I’ll tell you what I’ve noticed: the people making technology decisions at most Australian companies often understand finance, law, and general management very well. They understand technology considerably less well. New research from Queensland University of Technology has put numbers to something I’ve experienced firsthand. Out of the 500 largest ASX-listed companies, more than… Continue reading
-
What’s been going on?
I had almost forgetting about this site 🤦 So a lot has happened since that last post from February 2022! I wrapped up with AWS in June 2024 after 2335 day ones, having collected 2110 phone tool icons! I’ve been on a break to focus on my health and well-being, something that had been neglected… Continue reading