The Cheese #64 🧀 - Open Claw, Commerce Roundtable, and Allbirds

AI is kicking my butt

Pulled back a bit more on the autonomous agent deployment. I ended up killing 3 of my agents (the 3 I had deployed for BattlBox). I already started to replicate one of them fully via Google Apps Script and Claude Cowork. Apps Script is free, and Claude Cowork utilizes your subscription fee. So costs less and clearly a better experience from every angle. At the end of the day, they did not need to be ‘autonomous’, so building them as such made no sense. Wild how much I am learning every day.

Have a couple of AI projects that have trumped the build of the other 2 agents, but I will get to them. We did some pretty cool stuff with AI this week. We had a set of only email addresses from some brands that would be great sponsors for BattlGames. We were able to create a complete lead list from only the email addresses. Think full name, title, LinkedIn URL, brand name, summary of what the brand sells, and why they would be a good fit for sponsoring BattlGames. What might have taken several days (if you were brave enough to even attempt it) only took about an hour. Next up, we continued down the lead list approach and had Claude do research on streaming services and AVODs (Advertising-based Video on Demand, think Roku). Next, it came up with key contacts at each company and supplied similar information as the previous lead list exercise. This is all so that we can potentially have conversations with them about future collaborations with BattlGames. Again, saved us hours.

Last bit of AI for today, we began reviewing the current internal process for how we handle building new Shopify listings (PDPs). Very manual process with about 8 people touching it, and nobody really owning it. Made some good progress, and automation might really make this a much better process.

Live Shopping front continues to move quickly. April is going slower than March, but that was to be expected. Next week, Cameron is coming down from Michigan for a warehouse show and to onboard 3 new hosts in person. We had dwindled down from 6 hosts to 3, with the only 3 remaining being the full-time BattlBoxers. Some major learning lessons on the right place to find part-time hosts (and the wrong place). These next 3 all have a lot of potential, and the goal is for these part-time opportunities to turn into full-time. While we are maxed out on Whatnot with the single channel (waiting on them for some tech to allow a secondary channel to connect to our same Shopify instance), TikTok and eBay are both completely open for us. We did a test last week on TikTok, and we are planning on doing a test the week after next on eBay. Exciting times.

The rest of the business is all humming along nicely. Making some amazing progress with BattlGames and BattlGames sponsorships. We are continuing to beef up membership numbers.

Next week, I am in Austin for the Commerce Roundtable. Should be a fun few days.

Let’s get into the rest.

Screw sustainable shoes, let’s sell AI

Absolutely not on anyone’s 2026 Bingo Cards… The new owners of Allbirds decided to pivot to being an AI company, and the stock shot up almost 600% on the announcement.

Chris George following me again

My good friend Chris decided he would follow me and appear on Nick Trueman’s podcast. Actually, a really good episode, regardless.

Way to go eBay

A very welcomed move from sellers with the new policy change by eBay, forcing adults to be adults.

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Team Online Queso