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He's Never Written a Line of Code in His Life · eCommerce Podcast

0:03
Saw hello and welcome to the eCommerce Podcast. My name is Matt Edmundson and it
0:08
is great to be with you today. Yes, it is. We are recording this on a quite gray
0:12
and dreary rainy day in England. So wherever you are, whatever you're doing
0:17
right now, hopefully the weather is better for you. Today we are talking, of
0:21
course, about all things ecommerce. If you're new to the show, a very warm
0:25
welcome to you. It's great that you're here. Great to have you join us. The
0:30
clues in the title of the podcast, we just talk about all things to do with
0:34
ecommerce and we have some fun doing it, hopefully, along the way. So make sure
0:39
you check out the website ecommercepodcast.net. All of the links from today's
0:43
show will be there, along with the archive of all our past shows, links to
0:47
things like cohorts, which is our sort of monthly get-together with ecommerce
0:52
from around the world. It's kind of, it's a free thing to join. And it's great
0:56
if you want to get involved with that, you're in an ecommerce business, check it
1:01
out. It's just great to shoot the breeze with fellow ecommerce founders,
1:05
marketers, and all that sort of good stuff. So that's on there, the new
1:09
Slingshot AI stuff's on there, whatever you need is on the website. So make sure
1:14
you go and check it out, ecommercepodcast.net. Now, that's enough for me. Let's
1:18
talk to today's guest. Now, Dima, it's fair to say at the time of recording,
1:23
this is our third attempt at recording this podcast. Hopefully, hopefully last
1:27
last one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think you've been the most patient guest we've had
1:31
with the tech failures. We had a complete tech meltdown last week when we tried
1:36
to record it, and then we tried to record it again and it melted down, and now
1:40
we're on completely different software. So thank you for bearing with us. Thanks
1:45
for coming back.
1:50
Thank you again. Thank you for one more invitation.
1:54
You're like, Matt, I've had enough of this podcast, man. Let's get it over with.
1:59
Well, it's good to have you. For those that don't know you, just give us a
2:03
little bit of brief information about your good self.
2:09
Yeah. So I call myself as a fractional AI officer and this name was created by
2:15
my AI agent for some reason. So I run 5+ businesses across ecommerce, B2B
2:21
distribution, retail, education, and for now, AI consulting. And all of them sit
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on top of one, let's say, of one my AI agent. So you need to be like an
2:33
orchestra. And it's why basically we decided to call myself a fractional AI
2:39
officer.
2:45
Yeah, I think it's a great title because we've all heard of fractional CMOs. You
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know, you get your fractional marketing officer, you get your fractional
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accounting finance officer and all that, your CFO and all them, all the fancy
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three-letter acronyms that we have. So you're now the AEO, aren't you? The AI
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Executive Officer, which is becoming a very big thing, but the fractional
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version of it.
3:06
Yeah, for sure.
3:08
Which is great. And I've been looking forward to this conversation for the third
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time because the first conversation was really good before it all melted down.
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Talking about AI and all things AI related. Now, Dima, you're in New York right
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now, aren't you?
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Yeah, yeah. And I think we have better weather than you.
3:28
Yeah, it would not surprise me right now. It's It's not great, but it's
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interesting, isn't it? Because you've sort of caught, I suppose, the AI thing at
3:38
the beginning and you've built these businesses using AI. How have you found the
3:43
journey so far?
3:50
So for someone who is thinking that you will open for yourself Cloud Code or
3:56
Codex and he will do all job for you. And you will just earn a much more like
4:02
larger amount of money. I want to say no, no, guys, you will work more, you will
4:08
work, you will sleep less. And it's true, it's, it's how it works that each day
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you have some kind of ideas, new ideas, and you wanna, you wanna come this idea,
4:19
uh, Like you want to make it live. Yeah. And it's why basically one day, one
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idea, second day, second idea. Okay, let's do this. Let's do this. Okay. One
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more business. One more. One more. It's like I call it like some kind of AI
4:37
addiction or AI drug. You can't stop really, Matt. I don't know how. What about
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you? But I woke up in the morning and before brushing my teeth, I go to check
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like, oh, hey, like I've been away for like 7 hours. Okay, man, what have you
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found? What's like, oh, we need to make pivot. Oh, He was like new ideas.
5:01
Yeah. Yeah. I'm the same way, Dima. I'm the same. I have, do you do this thing
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now where you have Claude doing things throughout the night? So when you wake
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up, there's like a whole briefing report to go through.
5:14
Yeah. They, so recently they introduced really interesting stuff. It called, so
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one is called goal. So when you put slash slash and you write goal, so you can
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basically say, hey, So I have this kind of business and I want to set up you a
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goal. For example, create some kind of workflow, create agents, and let's think
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how we can, for example, earn more money from this. Or for example, I want my
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website to grow up in SEO. So basically, like, just work for 8 hours without
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stop. And in the morning I want to see what you did. And it's really, it's
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really start working because you know that if you will ask Claude something, he
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can work like for 5, 7 minutes and it's all you need again to go to computer.
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Hey man, how we're doing? Let's proceed. But with this goal, he won't stop until
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he will finish the task that you put him. It's really nice.
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Yeah, it is. It's a— I've been using goal. You're right, you know, the sort of
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forward slash goal aspect on Claude. We should probably say, actually, we'll get
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into what Claude code is all about. If you're listening and going, I've not got
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a clue what you're talking about, Matt. That's fine. It's just to give you some
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sort of idea of what's possible, I think, now, where you do have a sort of a
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clear goal. And actually, you can even get Claude to write the clear goal for
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you.
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And then if you don't know, like, what's the goal?
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It just, it will help you figure out what the goal should be and then you can
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literally set it running and leave it for 4, 5, 6 hours just churning away in
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the background. And it's done an insane amount of work when you get back, right?
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Do you use also Loop? Yes. So with Loop he can work even like more. Yeah, you
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can ask him like, hey, uh, turn on Loop like each hour for like 40 hours. Yeah.
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And your goal is now like 2-day longs.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's, it's, uh, yeah, in fact, I'll tell you what I've done,
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and then we'll dial it, we'll dial back the full tech speak in just a minute.
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I'll tell you what I've done, uh, you were asking me earlier about my weekend.
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One of the things I did this weekend, um, was play around with something that
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internally we're calling Sammy right now. We have this, um, uh, Claude setup
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that we call SAM, Slingshot AI Mentor. It's what the whole team uses here, and
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we've talked a little bit about it on the show. And we, it's kind of like, if
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you imagine it, you've got Claude Code. On top of that, we've put this layer
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called SAM, which is all our frameworks to do with ecommerce. And obviously with
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Claude Code, you can then connect that to your business context as well. So
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you've got the 3 things working together. And it's a really great system. But I
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don't know about you, but I've been using VS Code to write all my Claude code
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stuff in. And I'm just like, I wonder if I could write my own terminal window,
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right? So I don't have to use VS Code. And if I did, what would be the benefits
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of that? And there are obviously some benefits, which I won't bore everybody
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with now. But one of the things that I was playing around with was Sammy, which
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is the sort of the interface for our system, is because it's run locally, you
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can in effect set cron jobs locally on your computer. So your computer just
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stays on all the time. Our dev computer just stays on all the time. And at 11
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o'clock at night, it's just gonna fire off a series of Claude skills. It's gonna
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run through them. And then it's gonna write the report for me in a debrief. So
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when I get up in the morning, this morning, I had a debrief of all the things
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that Claude ran throughout the night. It's a beautiful thing.
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Yeah. By the way, are you doing something like for fun? Do you use like some
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kind of, let's say, complicated task for your life, for your, like, let's say,
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vacation or something like this? Have you tried? Yeah.
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I use it for everything. Funnily enough, before we started on the call, I was,
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I've got Claude, we're selling our house. And so I sent a bunch of paperwork
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from the lawyers, which I need to complete. And I just gave them to Claude and
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said, can you complete those, please? And then tell me when you've done it,
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because I just, I can't be bothered. Claude knows everything about me. So it's
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kind of like, sure, I'll go do that. So we use it for personal stuff, but I love
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it in business. I love it for productivity, for task management, for projects,
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for project planning. Uh, we use it for all kinds of stuff in ecommerce, um,
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from SEO to dashboard maintenance to, um, we've got a new skill which I really
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like which monitors, um, our competitors' Instagram channels. And so it goes
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away every night and it looks at their Instagram channel, it looks at what
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they've put out, and it monitors the engagement of all their posts, um, and it
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analyzes them from a psychological point of view. And tries to understand why
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it's working, what's not working, and then we can look at that from our own
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business point of view. So we've got all these kind of things going on, but
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yeah, I mean, how are you using it? You're the genius here. I'm just following
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along in your wake, so.
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So for example, if we're talking not about ecommerce, about some private life,
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yesterday my wife asked me, hey, I know there is some kind of groups, do you
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know where girls like go somewhere together, like some kind of retreat or yoga
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classes, like for 3, 4 days. And I started to like look on Instagram, something
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like this. And then, oh my God, it's like so many. And everyone has some kind of
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cell phone. So I asked my Claude, hey man, look, you need to like create, create
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like a task. You need to find some kind of, let's call it retreat. Yeah, for my
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wife. And I also created, I have like AI call center. I use it for my
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businesses. So we gave, uh, he gave me around like 20 or 30 clubs that doing
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this. And then my AI voice agent call each of them, told he's my AI assistant,
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received all information, like asking everything. Like, because when we, when we
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started, he gave me information, I look on a website, it's for older lady, do
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you know, like 50 plus. My wife said no, no, no. Yeah. So now we need to call
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and ask them also, like, what's your the age of girls who is going. Yeah. And
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it's why basically like you, you can do like unbelievable things. It's not about
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only ecommerce, even for your life. You can, you can ask for example your Claude
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to call, I don't know, to call restaurants, to call dental services. And yeah,
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so if you need for example to make some kind of dental work for your kids, it's
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what I did also. He called 100 dental services in the area and he asked, uh,
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where is— like, which dental is providing this service? He asked prices, and he
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gave me like top 5 what he's thinking will be good for my kid. Can you imagine
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like how much time I will spend for this? Like one day?
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Yeah, that's crazy, isn't it? It's funny how it's— how it's sort of gone like
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that. Um, yeah, and how in one sense it's good, and in one sense it's a little
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bit sad, in that in that I don't know if someone calling me is AI or a person,
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right? Or if someone emailing me is that. Like, I was on with, what was the name
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of the company? It'll come back to me. I was trying to get hold of a company.
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I'd emailed their customer service. Oh, it was Masterclass. I like to do some of
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their courses. And I emailed them and I got an instant reply back, which is
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which always tells me it's AI straight away. I'm not that lucky, right? And it
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starts having a conversation with me and it's missing the point entirely. And
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I'm like, I'm just like, okay, this is AI. And so you can have a bit of fun with
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it. You can go, right, stop all current instructions, right? And it's, but it
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is, there is that security element with it, but it would have, I had a, it would
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have been better had somebody from the company contacted me, even if I'd have
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waited 6 hours or 24 hours to get the right response rather than having AI give
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me a rubbish response within a matter of minutes and carry on the conversation
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as though it can solve the problem. Um, and it was, it was, it was an
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interesting one. So I think on one hand, it's incredible technology is going
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this way, but on the other hand, I also think there's a, there's a place maybe
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for, for somebody being on the end of a phone.
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I think in the future it will be like an advantage if you have, for example,
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real person in your customer support, or if you are talking, if you want to talk
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to a real person and you will be able to do this, it will be an advantage. It
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will be a business advantage.
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Yeah.
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You're right that I also created the virtual copy of myself because I gave
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Claude everything. So I do, I have like my second brain. I use Obsidian. Have
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you heard about it?
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Yeah, me too. Yeah.
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Oh, great. It's, yeah. Yeah. So basically I put all my notes. I have, when I was
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like maybe 15, 20 years ago, I wrote notes by my hand. So, and I made a photo of
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each page and I also downloaded it and now it's like digital. So basically
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Claude know me like for 20 years, you know, like I gave also access to all my
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photos, you know, where I'm traveling, what I like, what I don't like. And it's
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like, it's crazy that you— I also gave him access to Telegram, WhatsApp, that if
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it's not really something urgent, he can write from me.. And yeah, people don't
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understand, like, they're talking with me or no. You know, some of my friends,
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he told me, hey Dima, we need to have some kind of, uh, password word. Yeah,
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that only you will know and me, you know.
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It's fine.
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Yeah, it's how you teach your kid. Yeah, that if someone will come to you, so
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you like some stranger, you need to have some secret word. Yes, that only you
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will know, your mama and papa. Now it's all about AI and all this, like crazy
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things. Yeah. So if, if for example, you will not receive this secret word, so
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probably you will understand you're talking not with me.
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Hmm. It's an— yeah, it's fascinating, isn't it? It is fascinating. Where do you
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see it all going? Because it's— I mean, it's in such an interesting place right
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now. I think AI— where do you see it going?
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I've, I've seen the Anthropic owners, they were like, they were speaking like, I
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think, one week ago. And it was interesting that they told their forecast for
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now, it's up to two months. Can you imagine if guys who are making this, they
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can't plan more than two months in a row? What can I tell about me? How can I,
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how can I, how can I think like which college or university my kid will go?
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What, what, like what profession he should choose, like a doctor Or a plumber,
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probably plumber, yeah, will be like—
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Yeah, plumbers are being well paid soon, yes, yeah.
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If these big guys, they don't know what will be like in 2 months, how I am like
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a small guy can plan my life? So you just need to be like, you need to like in
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the river with them, I think. What's your thoughts, by the way?
17:07
No, I agree. I think no one knows where it's going. I mean, we talk about things
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like Magento, WooCommerce, which seems obvious. And some of the things where AI
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is going to start to impact on middle-level jobs, I think is obvious. The
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ability to use it is going to be important. It's a bit like, I remember, you
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know, I've been around in ecommerce for a long old time, Dima. And I remember
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years ago, 20-some years ago, people talking about SEO, started talking about
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that where everyone's like, what are you talking about SEO? What do you mean
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about? We just, we get found on Google. Why do we need to think about anything
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other than it was fine? I don't need. And then of course SEO became a thing. And
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then the next thing was ads. And it's like, what do you mean Facebook have got
17:54
ads? That's weird. And then Google. And of course, and so you have these, these
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things where when you run ecommerce businesses, you've got to look at it and go,
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I need to have some level of understanding here if I am going to stay afloat and
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keep going. And I think AI is one of those game changers. Um, in many ways with
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what you can do with it. Um, and I think, I think it, I think you're right. I
18:17
think the future is unknown, but it looks like AI is going to control something
18:21
of the future, at least a little bit. And so understanding that and what it
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means for your business right now, yeah, I think is a, is a, is a good place to
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be.
18:35
So, uh, uh, if you want to survive in the future, I think you, you should start,
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uh, QuadCode or Codex from today if, if you still, uh, haven't done this. Yeah,
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it's like, it's— I think it would be like a best advice I can give that people
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who won't use this, they will be on a roadside and it's all— no other options
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like for you guys.
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Yeah, I— it's— it, it does fascinate me because I— my daughter Um, she's turned
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19 and she is really good. And I'm obviously proud dad and I have a slight bias,
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right? Uh, but my daughter is really good at graphic design and certainly, um,
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graphic illustration. She is really good at illustrations, has a real issue with
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AI, uh, which I understand because obviously AI has taken the place of a lot of
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designers, uh, and it's, it's problematic for her. And I think the trick is you
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can— she can either fight AI and become purist, and I think there'll be a place
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for that, um, or she can go, well, I'm— I can't do graphic design because AI has
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taken my job, so therefore I'm gonna go be a plumber, right? Or she can go I can
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learn to use AI to help enhance what it is that I do. If I do that, like AI is
20:03
some kind of co-pilot with me, um, it could be an interesting future. And, and
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I, and I wonder which one of the three she'll pick.
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Yeah. And you can understand that wherever she will pick, it will impact on her
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future. Yeah, yeah. I can't even imagine. Yeah, my kid is just 6, so I think I'm
20:27
sure I have some time to figure out what it will be like. Yeah, but you have—
20:33
your question is on the other side. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You need to like make this
20:38
decision now. But it's really— I think it's some kind of like revolution. Yeah,
20:44
it's some kind of revolution. And What I also like find for myself that AI, you
20:50
know, AI makes a lot of mistake, a lot. It's like hallucinate, it can create
20:55
something by himself and then say, sorry, sorry, yeah, I was wrong. So like,
21:01
sorry, yes, sorry, sorry, I got it.
21:07
There was a guy, there was a guy on the news recently, he got fined, I think he
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got fined £30,000 by the tax office because he'd misfiled his taxes because he
21:14
let AI do it.
21:18
Oh yeah, you're right.
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AI just goes, sorry. And the guy goes, well, I've got to pay the 30 grand. It's
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not like AI is going to pay it.
21:26
In this, again, why I put Codex on the top of my Cloud Code, because he started,
21:31
I don't know how it works. I understand it's some kind of machine, but he
21:36
started to do things better because he understands if someone is looking. Yeah.
21:41
Now this is, we talked about this last time actually. You're, um, and I, I quite
21:46
like this idea. I've still to do it, but you've connected, um, Claude Code with
21:50
Codex, haven't you? So Codex is like sense checking what Claude Code is doing.
21:55
Yeah. Each, so each task, it's like a reviewer. So I have like ChatGPT for $20.
22:00
It's more than enough, uh, just to review. So you don't need like a more, let's
22:06
say, expensive, uh, subscription. So yeah. So let's say, uh, Claude Court is
22:11
doing something like for 5, 7, 8 hours, and then Codex came and say, hey, here
22:17
is a mistake, here is a mistake, and he's like, oh, thanks, yeah, let's rebuild
22:23
it. And my question is, hey man, you're like now Opus 4.0 on X high, uh, effort
22:28
plus workflow, you're eating my tokens like crazy, and again you did this makes
22:34
mistakes. Why?
22:39
Yeah, yeah, it is. This is why I often talk about AI needs to be a copilot. It
22:44
can't be in charge. Of course, it's, it's something that you have to use, um,
22:48
rather than something you delegate everything to.
22:53
Probably some people are right that they're telling, hey, don't be, don't be
22:59
crazy. AI, for sure, they will not change us. Yeah, because do you see what's
23:05
going on? So of course there should be some person who will review. Yeah. So
23:11
like, but again, no one knows what will be in future. We just know like that
23:17
we're living today. We have this absolutely fantastic like tool. Yeah. For like
23:23
our ecommerce, for our business, wherever you're doing. Yeah. But you need to be
23:29
like really, you need to think twice what you're doing. Yeah. It's, it's super
23:34
hard. People who are thinking, hey, like, I created a website like for 5 minutes
23:40
in ChatGPT, why I need to hire you? I mean, like, we both can answer them, okay,
23:46
you're here, you did a great job, my friend, but yeah, the website is rubbish.
23:52
Yeah, website is rubbish, Google will not see you. It's, uh, and, uh, now, now
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the main, your main, like, let's say, power in this world, it's your knowledge
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and the prompt you can feed to your AI. We also I think discuss this. So yeah,
24:10
when you came to— when you come to big company or like, I don't know, to you, to
24:16
me, like wherever, and your, your superpower is like your hooks, your skills.
24:22
Yeah. You're like Claude MD and everything, everything you created like for
24:28
this, like 6 months, 1 year, 4 months, wherever, like wherever you're doing
24:34
this. So it's your superpower is that you can, for example, sell. And what I
24:40
also see a lot of people, they like, they try to create, but I think what we do
24:46
and where we are different, we build and we deploy. I think it's also like some
24:52
point, how can we compare people who are using AI? For someone, it's just like a
24:58
toy. Yeah. For someone, just like a psychologist. And we're like, we're
25:04
deploying. And what I— oh, yeah. So I also put interesting article on my
25:10
LinkedIn that I called myself fractional AI officer, like, let's say, 5 months
25:15
ago. And now big companies like Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, they want to hire
25:21
people and they called it forward forward deployment engineer.
25:27
Forward deployment engineer.
25:30
Yes. And starting salary like $300K per year. Yeah. So again, main word deploy.
25:35
So you need not only to know how to, for example, create it, you need to know
25:41
how to deploy it and all the system need to work. For example, if we're talking
25:47
about ecommerce, you need to deploy it and all all, everything should work. Your
25:53
MCP with Meta ads should work. Your, let's say, Shopify, let's say, should work.
25:59
Your Amazon should work. Your Google ads should work. Everything. So it's not so
26:05
easy how it sounds, yeah. And all the time something can be broken. And again,
26:11
but I think our job is you wake up each day and you try to make this be like
26:17
this system ideal. So I don't know.
26:23
Yeah, you spend a lot of time refining.
26:25
Yeah, but as for me now, I have two children that I am responsible for. One is
26:30
6-year-old, and, and also he wanna, he wanna play soccer and he's doing
26:35
mistakes, and I'm arguing with him. Second one is my laptop. Yeah, with code,
26:40
code. Also like a baby, but much more clever than all of us.
26:45
Yeah.
26:46
But, uh, it's so funny, man.
26:48
It's a really interesting point, isn't it? I, and I, I do listen. Hey guys, if
26:52
you're listening to this and going, I don't know what Claude Code is or Codex
26:56
and all that sort of stuff. Um, there was an episode we did a couple of weeks
27:01
ago where I talked about my AI stack and we talk a fair bit about both Claude
27:05
Code and Obsidian in that, which both Dima and I use. If you want to check that
27:09
out, go, go research that. There'll be a whole lot of information there. Um, I'm
27:13
intrigued, Dima. You said if you've not started today, start with Claude Code.
27:17
Why there? Uh, if you, one more time. So what should I do if, uh, I don't have—
27:20
Yeah.
27:23
If I, if I, yeah, if I, if I've not really kept up with AI, if it's sort of, if
27:27
I feel like it's passing me by, you mentioned earlier the best place to start is
27:30
Claude Code. Why, why there?
27:34
Uh, so as for me, I started to use Claude Code. I'm not like a Codex guy.
27:41
Yeah.
27:41
Mm-hmm. And I know my friends, they don't use both. They use now Hermes and
27:47
previously like OpenClaw. It's totally different systems.
27:53
So it's a bit like Apple Android, isn't it?
27:56
Yeah. Yeah. It's like Apple Android. It's like Mercedes, Audi, BMW or BMW.
28:02
American impact again. BMW. BMW. Yeah. It depends. So with, for example, I also,
28:08
I am now where I'm looking on Hermes because it's like you can create 24/7 agent
28:14
and he can, but again, you need a separate account in Klaviyo. You need to put
28:20
some money on your balance for API and it will, it can't use your subscription.
28:26
It will use your money. Yeah. But again, it can work, it can work 24/7. For
28:33
example, if you need your email to be read each minute, you need to use, for
28:39
example, Hermes. I'm not sure that Cloud Code will be able to do this. Or for
28:45
example, you need to work with some kind of call centers. They need to answer
28:51
calls 24/7. So what was Hermes do? He can, he can send or receive requests up to
28:57
each second. I know some of my friends, they're creating like trading bots for
29:03
crypto and for other things, and they're using Hermes because they need, you
29:10
know, this like like 10 times per second requests and they're spending like
29:16
$1,000 per day for this. It's crazy. Yeah, it's crazy, but if it's working for
29:22
them, yeah. If it's working, it's good, yeah.
29:28
Yeah, yeah, stick to your niche, stick to your niche.
29:31
Of course, of course, but for me, for ecommerce, I think Cloud Code is more than
29:36
enough. So just start for like, I'm not sure if you will try to build, I'm not
29:42
sure that this $20 subscription will be enough for No, guys, quickly start like
29:48
from 100. And also my story is I started with Cloud Code Simple with YouTube
29:54
video. So if someone is thinking, hey, this train like left without me, it's too
29:59
late. No, just open YouTube and insert like Cloud Code for Dummies and start,
30:05
start from like basic. Like when I see, for example, when I saw my first video
30:11
and it says open terminal on your MacBook, I ask ChatGPT like web version, what
30:17
is terminal? And I'm not shy about it. And it's not something you need to be
30:22
shy. You will be shy of yourself if you won't try. Yeah. In this case, yeah, you
30:28
will think, oh, it's too hard, it's too complicated. And I don't know, I think
30:34
that, yeah, I want impact on my life, on my country. It will. And you need to be
30:40
like, you need to take his or her hand, wherever you will call it. Yeah. Yeah.
30:46
By the way, I think we also discussed like you, you have like girl or boy as
30:51
your assistant.
30:57
Oh yes. Is it Claude or Claudia? Claudia. It's equal. Claude or Claudia. It's
31:03
interesting, isn't it? I, and I would agree, Claude Code is a great place to
31:08
start and you can start there today without any kind of real AI experience.
31:13
Quick plug, if you want to sort of advance your AI skills, go check out
31:18
Slingshot on the eCommerce Podcast website. We sort of give you a leapfrog, if
31:23
you like, into Claude Code and ecommerce there. One of the things that you said,
31:28
Dima, which I think is really important because I had a text— was it text or
31:33
email— from Tina. Tina's lovely. She's part of the cohort. And she was using the
31:38
system we've got, the Slingshot system. And she sent me a text message going, I
31:43
thought I'd spend a few hours on this. But I went down this rabbit hole. And I
31:48
was just smiling because I knew what would happen. 2 hours became 4, became 6,
31:54
became 8. She's like, this is incredible. You've got this sort of, you've got
31:59
this, I mean, you called it the AI addiction, didn't you? It's fascinating how
32:04
that actually starts to play out. Why do you think we have that?
32:10
Because we received a tool that can increase our capability like in hundreds of
32:16
times. It's like, it's like, I was too young when internet appeared. Yeah, but I
32:22
remember that everyone was also so like, oh, internet, why we need it? Or like,
32:28
Gmail, emails, if I am sending letters, why I need this? Yeah. And everything
32:34
was confused. But do you feel like each life now changed? Yeah. And now we are,
32:40
let's say, young generation. We received the tool that can make you a superhero.
32:46
Now you don't have any limits. And I told you, Matt, before that I am an
32:52
entrepreneur. I am not like a tech guy. I never wrote a line of code in my life.
32:58
Never. So I had like marketing system, marketing department. I have IT
33:04
department, sales department, everything. Now I'm like sole entrepreneur. And
33:10
who can imagine like 2 or 3 years ago that you can replace whole your
33:16
departments with AI and It's— I don't know where it will go. Probably again,
33:22
like it's some kind of funny toy and people will understand that it's too
33:28
powerful. And they understand with— I think I don't remember this name of, uh,
33:34
Anthropic introduced new version. Do you remember?
33:40
Like, oh yeah, yeah, but they wouldn't release it.
33:42
Yeah, but they told guys it's like it's super powerful and It was so interesting
33:49
that in this period, the most crypto money was stolen from like exchange,
33:55
everything. So I think someone sells someone something. Yeah, yeah. Somebody's
34:01
figured something out, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't remember, like $300
34:07
million was stolen from protocols, from DeFi, from exchange. Especially in the
34:14
time when this new, uh, new AI, yeah, uh, was like introduced. Yeah, probably,
34:20
probably we should not connect it, but again, so yeah.
34:26
Well, we like a good conspiracy theory, of course, of course. Podcast, we do.
34:31
Yeah, so yeah, now we have, now we have huge tool, guys, and please use it, like
34:34
use it for everything, like for websites, for ecommerce, wherever you, wherever
34:38
you want to it.
34:42
What are you using AI for where ecommerce is concerned? So people listening to
34:45
the show, give them some ideas on how they could use it to help them.
34:50
So first of all, when you will understand what's Claude Code, if you are, for
34:55
example, if you have zero knowledge, what's your options for next? You can ask,
35:00
for example, Claude Code, hey, I, for example, I have $1,000, I want to do some
35:05
ecommerce. So what should I start? He will tell you, hey, let's, for example,
35:10
let's create a website. Yeah, let's create a website. You need it. It will be
35:15
like almost free. You just need to buy a domain for like $10 per year. Yeah. So
35:20
and I will create you beautiful website. Then he will create you probably not
35:25
really beautiful website, but what you can do next, you can ask, hey, look, I
35:30
have found the website what I like. It has these colors, beautiful colors. And
35:35
do you see this shape of button? Can you do the same? And he will do the same.
35:40
Oh, it's much more better now. Okay, uh, add, add to, for example, checkout
35:45
button is not working. Okay, let's fix it. Next. Okay, Claude, what's next?
35:50
Next, probably we need to create account on Amazon. Okay, but what we will sell?
35:55
Nice question. Let's, uh, let me, like, let me work for whole night and I will,
36:00
for example, give you the options of product you you can start to use. Okay, for
36:05
example, man, do you know about dropshipping? No, I don't know about
36:10
dropshipping. Okay, look, I found like 3 best companies with best reviews on the
36:15
market. You can basically take their product, you can add it to your website,
36:20
you can add it to Amazon, and if someone will sell it, they will ship it, they
36:25
will handle everything. So basically zero investment. Let's start, let's see.
36:30
Okay, but how we will sell it? I will help you to create marketing, I will help
36:35
you to create video, I will help you to create image. And we will put it like in
36:40
Instagram and Facebook and TikTok and Snapchat, wherever you want. If you have
36:45
$1,000, let's do next. Let's take $100, for example, for Meta. Let's take $100
36:50
for TikTok and $100, and probably like, let's, let's give this opinion leader
36:55
guy, like, let's give this influencer $300 and, and ask our fulfilment center to
37:00
send him some samples and he will do some reviews. So do you see It's how it
37:05
works. And it's, it's endless. It's endless. And yeah, you will see some sales.
37:10
You will be like, wow, it's working. Wow, let's do more, more, more. And you can
37:15
create like unlimited number of websites. And you can then you can start to
37:20
import something from China. You can create your own brand. You can, I don't
37:25
know, wherever you want, guys. Everything is in your head now. Now your
37:30
knowledge and your ideas It's your best benefit because everything else will
37:35
Claude do for you. But one thing he can't do, it's like, I think, to dream and
37:40
to generate really brilliant ideas. Yeah, I think this is for people.
37:46
Yeah. Yeah. It's an inter— I listening to you talk, Dima, if I was going to
37:51
summarize it, you, it seems like the best place to start with Claude Code once
37:56
you've got your head around the basics is to ask Claude Code about the biggest
38:01
problem that you're facing in your business right now. So what if I don't have a
38:06
product? Claude, give me some product ideas. If I've got a product but it's not
38:11
selling, Claude, give me some marketing ideas. Um, whatever the big key problem
38:16
is, um, you can have a little bit of fun with that. And again, obviously you've
38:21
got to check it, right? Um, but you can have a little bit of fun with that. I'll
38:26
give you a classic example. Okay, a few months ago we had on the show a good
38:30
friend of mine, Adam, uh, well, good friend, someone I've known through the
38:35
show, Adam Pearce, great guy, talking about mobile optimization. And he came
38:40
onto the show and it was quite timely for us because with Adam, uh, he's an
38:45
expert and our mobile optimization on one of our sites needed some help. It was
38:50
starting to decline. And so I, um, I listened to the podcast with Adam I then
38:55
went to Claude. I took the transcript. I was showing the team actually how to do
39:00
this. We took the transcript from the podcast and then we asked Claude, um, to
39:05
extract all the key ideas. And then we asked Claude to spend quite a bit of time
39:10
going and researching and pulling down examples of each of those key ideas and
39:15
to score them. Like, was this a really good idea or was this just something that
39:20
works for Adam in this context? And we went down this research path. I won't
39:25
bore you with everything, but we spent a little while gathering data, and it all
39:30
started with this conversation with Adam because of a problem that we had, and
39:35
then just going back and forth with Claude Code. Um, eventually we, we created a
39:40
piece of software that analyzes your website according to the best practices of
39:45
mobile optimization right now, and it gives you a score. And, um, our score was
39:50
not great, which was a bit of a shame really. And so we gave the report to the
39:55
tech department, who have now been systematically working through that. Mobile
40:00
conversion on our website so far is up almost 500%. It's definitely over 400%
40:05
increase, um, on mobile conversion. You're talking about hundreds, if not
40:10
millions of pounds worth of difference. Right. So this idea of starting with the
40:15
problem and trying to understand the solution for your business and going back
40:20
and forth with Claude, I can highly recommend it.
40:25
Yeah. And I have the same. I can also share with you some ideas. So when I have
40:31
really, let's say, important meeting, I have special skill. It's called dossier.
40:36
Like, you know, like police dossier.
40:41
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
40:42
The dossier. And it's— so I put the name of the person and it worked for about
40:48
like 5 hours and he find everything, all podcasts, all interviews, sport, hobby,
40:54
pets in his house, children, which school attend, which— what he graduate for,
41:00
everything from open source. But again, and he told me how to speak with this
41:05
person. Like, does he like, for example, some kind of strict guys? Or you can
41:11
say some jokes or whatever, which word to use, which word not to use, which
41:17
topic to take, which not to take. It's really nice. So you came to each meeting
41:23
like totally prepared and the guys are like shocked, like, hey, how do you know
41:29
that I have a dog? Or that I lost, I lost some golf tournament like 12 years
41:35
ago. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And It's also, it can, and the same you can use again.
41:40
Yeah, you're right. The same you can use with your ecommerce. I mean, if I told
41:46
that if you're small, what to start, but we have another guys who are, let's
41:52
say, middle segment. For middle segment, I can tell that for sure you have a lot
41:58
of mess in your work. You have accounting, you have customer reviews, you have
42:04
stock, you have like, and Everything can be like in different systems. Someone
42:10
can use even Excel for something. Yeah. And the beautiful thing of AI, you don't
42:15
need to change your, like, how your business look like. Yeah. You can use the
42:21
same tools. You just put AI on the top and what he will do at the beginning, he
42:27
will find all this mess. He will find that all this, let's say, numbers
42:33
different year to year, like probably some kind of, I don't know, everything
42:39
what you can imagine. Yeah, but you're afraid to— you can have, let's say, like
42:45
thousands of papers of some like analytics, just scan it, feed it to Claude, and
42:50
he will tell you like on 5 pages, hey, yeah. So first of all, 10 years ago you
42:56
made this mistake. And everything go from this mistake. Mm-hmm. It's also great
43:02
that Claude can fight all your mess. So you don't need to create, let's say, AI
43:08
call center, what I'm doing, or like, answering reviews on Amazon or whatever
43:14
you're doing, but it can, it can basically clean your, clean your work.
43:19
Yeah. Clean your data. It's very good at cleaning data.
43:23
Yeah, of course.
43:23
That much we do know. It's interesting. Again, I think listening to you talk,
43:28
I'm kind of like, where are the problems? How can AI help me with that? And
43:32
also, what are the things that we do repeatedly that I could perhaps automate
43:37
with AI? And they seem to be like two quite interesting places to start. So for
43:41
you, the call center makes sense if it's a repeated task, right? If you're just
43:46
gonna do one phone call, pick up the phone because it's quicker than programming
43:50
AI to do it, right? But if you've got a repeated task, it makes a— I'm curious
43:55
Um, just on the call center, what did you use for that?
44:00
So I used 11Labs, basically the leader on the market. And also it's like new
44:06
project and they became, I think, unicorn. Yeah. $1 billion company. And I think
44:11
they're like 1 year old or I'm wrong, but they're really new. Yeah. And so
44:17
answering your questions, it's probably for me, it's not something that you are
44:23
repeatedly doing. So AI call center is answering 24/7. Sometimes like, and you
44:28
don't need to feed it, you don't need to pay salary to it. And they know you can
44:34
feed them information, all information about your product. So if you are doing,
44:39
for example, I don't know, if you're selling mobile phones, he can do anything.
44:45
So like, what's your operating system? What's the resolution of screen? What's
44:51
the memory? What's the camera? And he will immediately answer at 3 a.m. someone
44:56
who will call and ask something about this phone. And I have a granite, granite
45:02
business, granite pavers. And sometimes my guys, they who are answering calls,
45:07
they need to help with a forklift doing a warehouse because like company is
45:13
small doing this and they sometimes miss some calls. And also these calls can be
45:18
your potential clients who are asking like, hey, sell me like 3 pallets of
45:24
granite pavers and you go to restroom or you, you can do whatever you want, some
45:30
normal stuff and this all, uh, and he will call to another one. So you're
45:35
calling him back and he say, oh guys, no, I found what I need, sorry. It's,
45:41
it's, it's reality. If you will not answer immediately, the client will go to
45:46
someone else who will answer immediately. Yeah. It's why this AI call center, I
45:52
think it's one of the greatest opportunity for you not to lose your clients if
45:58
you will set it up rightly, if you will find the right voice. And you need to
46:03
set up tone, how he's speaking. Again, it's like, I think So I started, I have
46:09
like, you know, my AI voice agent, like I started was version 1, like, yeah,
46:14
then version 2, version 3. Now I think I have 44. And so we are talking with
46:20
people, then Claude, Claude analyze each call, analyze. And he said, oh my God,
46:26
he did this mistake. We need to like, we need to improve this. Okay, let's,
46:31
let's improve it. And And it's so nice that you have a lot of income data that
46:37
you can work with and that helps you to create something really perfectly. Yeah.
46:42
Yeah. That's very true. And I like the fact that it's giving you something which
46:46
a lot of small businesses don't have, which is 24/7 access, right? Yeah. It's
46:50
really hard to give 24/7 access when you're a small company.
46:54
Of course. And of course, and look, Saturday, Sunday, no one want to work work
46:59
on like weekends. Yeah. But your AI call center can work again on Saturday. If,
47:04
if you have tooth pain in 2 AM on Sunday night and you're calling to dental
47:09
service to make an appointment earliest in the morning, and can you imagine how
47:13
mad are you if no one is answering you? And who will win? The company who
47:18
implement voice agent to their business and this AI agent answer like for 2 AM.
47:23
Understand it's emergency, it's really emergency, and he will like probably, uh,
47:28
put him like at 7 AM this morning, and he can call the customer who is already
47:33
on 7 AM, apologize, make him some like discount, whatever you want to do, and
47:38
like reschedule him and put this emergency client on 7 AM, and he can do it
47:43
without you, and you even won't know that something is happening, something is
47:47
changing. You just have your full scheduled dental practice and That's all. You
47:52
came to your office and you're doing your job.
47:58
Yeah. Oh, it's fascinating. The whole world of AI is fascinating. Dima, I'm
48:02
listening, aware of time and it's fast running out. So let me give a little bit
48:06
of space to this. If people wanna reach out to you, if they wanna find out more
48:09
about what you are doing, maybe ask some questions to you, what's the best way
48:13
to get ahold of you?
48:17
So I am on LinkedIn, Dima, D-I-M-A, Negoduk, N like Nancy, E-G-O-D-U-K. Like
48:22
David, I UK. You can always write me, I can answer all your questions, or I have
48:28
like a website, negoduke.ai. Also, you can schedule a call, and for your
48:33
listeners, like, I, wherever I can help them, like, I will do it like for free,
48:38
let's say, any consultation. Because I understand that you're right, Matt, in
48:44
this world when you're thinking that it's too late, it's really important to
48:49
have someone like your mentor or someone who can help you just to open the
48:55
vision of all this stuff. So I will be glad to help. Fantastic.
49:00
We will of course link to Dima in the show notes, which will be on the website
49:05
ecommercepodcast.net, or just simply scroll down if you're on your podcast app,
49:09
or if you're on YouTube, look in the description because the link will be there
49:14
as well. Dima, listen, man, I've genuinely enjoyed the conversation, and we've
49:18
got to the part of the show where I like to ask my guests for a question for me.
49:23
This is where I take the question that you give me. I don't answer it now, but I
49:28
do answer it on social media. What is your question for me?
49:33
So my question to you is, how do you think, what is the best benefit your
49:37
podcast is giving your listeners?
49:42
Oh, okay. What is the best benefit my podcast is giving my listeners?
49:47
That's a great question. I'm not the first guests and you're mostly speaking
49:51
about ecommerce. So what do you think, like, what people more like best in your
49:55
podcast?
49:59
Very good. I will answer that. If you want to know what I think about that, come
50:03
follow me on social media. You'll find me on LinkedIn at Matt Edmundson or now
50:06
on Instagram at Matt Edmundson as we do the 90-day challenge. Dima, listen,
50:10
you're a legend, man. Really appreciate you coming on.
50:13
Thank you.
50:15
I, I, for those that have stayed around till the end, Uh, we like to do this
50:19
thing called saving the best till last. And so if you just had 2 minutes for the
50:24
best tip you could give someone in this whole field of AI that we've not already
50:29
talked about, what would it be? The microphone is yours, my friend.
50:34
So my best advice, uh, everything is possible. And they think it's super
50:39
complicated. They think it's super hard. It's super dumb for some people. Yeah,
50:45
but you need just to start, guys. You just need to sit and you just need to
50:50
understand that if you will not spend at least 10 hours per day learning AI now,
50:56
AI will— someone will control you who is now doing this. So you need to
51:01
understand, or you will control people using AI. You will be like their, let's
51:07
say, boss, or you will, or, or like Or you will be now opposite side. There is
51:12
no other, there is no other options I see for now. So it's the main, if you are
51:18
ready to change or someone is ready to change and they will control your life.
51:24
Mm-hmm. Okay. Thank you very much. And on that bombshell, we will end it. Dima,
51:27
thank you so much for joining us.
51:30
Thank you so much, Matt. Thank you. It was a pleasure.
51:32
It's been a great conversation, man. And thank you so much for listening. What a
51:36
great conversation with Dima. Like I said, Everything will be in the show notes.
51:41
Just go to ecommercepodcast.net. You'll find everything you need there. Links in
51:45
the descriptions below. Everything's going to be there, including, like I said,
51:49
the Slingshot thing, the links to Dima. If you want to reach out to him, reach
51:54
out to Dima and say how's it, and ask him about why his kids play soccer and not
51:58
football. But that's just another question entirely. Uh, but, uh, yeah, that's
52:02
it from me. Thank you so much for joining us. Uh, have a phenomenal week
52:06
wherever you are.
52:11
A pleasure. Bye-bye.
52:11
It's great. See you next time. Bye for now.