- Original Poster
- #1
I figured I would share with you guys my experience building out a "business operating" system with a number of AI/opensource tools that I could host myself and not be reliant on any subscription other than OpenAI.
Now this isnt using GPTs in the nice UI that Chatgpt has but fully customised agents dedicated to doing what i want on a day to day basis.
What I learnt from it has been alot and I cant lie there have been many a time I wanted to throw the box out the window. For context i hosted Openclaw on a virtual machine on my own server. Setting it up wasnt too bad but definitely not for a non technical person. Especially since this was the first time id properly attacked Linux in anger.
The way i set things up was a bit different to standard setups of openclaw that just use 1 agent to do everything I wanted specialised "agents" in a sort of business structure. So a CEO and below that the different branches of the "leadership" positions and initially specialised agents per type of work.
So here is the "Bad" what i learnt in this specific case was that many agents gets messy. In total i had 58 "agents" each with a specific job and workflow that it would do. The problem came with orchestrating them all. Individually they were fine but orchestrating at that many levels meant things became confused if I just wanted it to run one of the skills. So lesson learnt was to have the specialisation but keep it to those "leadership" roles as otherwise they were just there not doing much apart form orchestrating approvals.
The Ugly then is as most of these tools are open source managing the underlying tools updates was a bit of a hassle. Config files change here there and everywhere meaning you have to manually update things like ordering of the openai accounts you have linked, or security changes here and there. These can be managed if you set things up in a way to not update your main system first but as this was an experiment with these tools you have to see how things would go if someone who had not clue would work it. The other "Ugly" issue that could happen is if you are using API keys then the cost can skyrocket. I have used the open AI login for this and its definitely saved me on API fees. So that is something to really watch out for but also setting the models to lower cost of local models also helps with certain things.
And now we get to the Good. Once you setup your skills there is so much power to be had. For instance I have linked my setup to a number of Discord bots to allow me to communicate from wherever I am without opening up the interface to the world and only I am a member of the discord server. The workflows i have setup mean that every morning all of the socials for the day are ready for approval, if anything needs rewriting I can give my instructions and its all tracked in my logs. All PR actitivties are dealt with including alerts to write and responses to write with again ability to rewrite or approve. There is alot more that I have automated but i wont list everything but as it has the ability to use browser automation within reason anything is possible to be automated as long as you know the "flow". And then even better set it up to self learn with input form you.
So whats the lesson? This is in no way something to be done by the faint of heart or a solopreneur/small sme. The ways to fall over the complexity and the opportunities for security and reputational risk are too great.
However its also incredibly powerful setup for an SME Owner. Want to repurpose your content on tiktok and youtube? Have a workflow setup that will take that video you recorded, snip it up and send it out. Want to keep your socials active have it automate producing what content to post and approve what goes out or get it to rewrite and have it all in your "brand voice" and scheduled at each platforms best time for your users. Reddit is another great example of where a business can share their expertise but its a damn slog to manually search for what you should be answering so make it easier with either showing threads to answer and show off you biz or draft the responses too and get them posted for you.
Im gonna keep playing and building tools for myself and also see how this "Operating System" can be easily made ive only really scratched the surface as I am starting to look at "trading bots", other locally hosted things like TwentyCRM, Mautic for email sequences etc. But i definitely see an opportunity for small businesses to really power past other businesses within their niches by taking advantage of these solutions as long as they are setup right for them especially with the understanding of how the SMEs work within their business. So rather than a usually SSAS tool that they have to work around it can become something that works for them and works to their style.
I know a couple of you guys have had a play with Openclaw too how has your experience been I know some of you struggled with getting it to do complex things which i have found ways around especially with how I have various knowledge bases stored. But how have you found it for the past few months and what have you manage to build?
Now this isnt using GPTs in the nice UI that Chatgpt has but fully customised agents dedicated to doing what i want on a day to day basis.
What I learnt from it has been alot and I cant lie there have been many a time I wanted to throw the box out the window. For context i hosted Openclaw on a virtual machine on my own server. Setting it up wasnt too bad but definitely not for a non technical person. Especially since this was the first time id properly attacked Linux in anger.
The way i set things up was a bit different to standard setups of openclaw that just use 1 agent to do everything I wanted specialised "agents" in a sort of business structure. So a CEO and below that the different branches of the "leadership" positions and initially specialised agents per type of work.
So here is the "Bad" what i learnt in this specific case was that many agents gets messy. In total i had 58 "agents" each with a specific job and workflow that it would do. The problem came with orchestrating them all. Individually they were fine but orchestrating at that many levels meant things became confused if I just wanted it to run one of the skills. So lesson learnt was to have the specialisation but keep it to those "leadership" roles as otherwise they were just there not doing much apart form orchestrating approvals.
The Ugly then is as most of these tools are open source managing the underlying tools updates was a bit of a hassle. Config files change here there and everywhere meaning you have to manually update things like ordering of the openai accounts you have linked, or security changes here and there. These can be managed if you set things up in a way to not update your main system first but as this was an experiment with these tools you have to see how things would go if someone who had not clue would work it. The other "Ugly" issue that could happen is if you are using API keys then the cost can skyrocket. I have used the open AI login for this and its definitely saved me on API fees. So that is something to really watch out for but also setting the models to lower cost of local models also helps with certain things.
And now we get to the Good. Once you setup your skills there is so much power to be had. For instance I have linked my setup to a number of Discord bots to allow me to communicate from wherever I am without opening up the interface to the world and only I am a member of the discord server. The workflows i have setup mean that every morning all of the socials for the day are ready for approval, if anything needs rewriting I can give my instructions and its all tracked in my logs. All PR actitivties are dealt with including alerts to write and responses to write with again ability to rewrite or approve. There is alot more that I have automated but i wont list everything but as it has the ability to use browser automation within reason anything is possible to be automated as long as you know the "flow". And then even better set it up to self learn with input form you.
So whats the lesson? This is in no way something to be done by the faint of heart or a solopreneur/small sme. The ways to fall over the complexity and the opportunities for security and reputational risk are too great.
However its also incredibly powerful setup for an SME Owner. Want to repurpose your content on tiktok and youtube? Have a workflow setup that will take that video you recorded, snip it up and send it out. Want to keep your socials active have it automate producing what content to post and approve what goes out or get it to rewrite and have it all in your "brand voice" and scheduled at each platforms best time for your users. Reddit is another great example of where a business can share their expertise but its a damn slog to manually search for what you should be answering so make it easier with either showing threads to answer and show off you biz or draft the responses too and get them posted for you.
Im gonna keep playing and building tools for myself and also see how this "Operating System" can be easily made ive only really scratched the surface as I am starting to look at "trading bots", other locally hosted things like TwentyCRM, Mautic for email sequences etc. But i definitely see an opportunity for small businesses to really power past other businesses within their niches by taking advantage of these solutions as long as they are setup right for them especially with the understanding of how the SMEs work within their business. So rather than a usually SSAS tool that they have to work around it can become something that works for them and works to their style.
I know a couple of you guys have had a play with Openclaw too how has your experience been I know some of you struggled with getting it to do complex things which i have found ways around especially with how I have various knowledge bases stored. But how have you found it for the past few months and what have you manage to build?
