Welcome back to The Agent GTM Newsletter where we share actionable tips, free AI tools, and market insights every Friday. |
Hey there,
You know that feeling when you've prepared everything perfectly...
That was me this week at Nomad Week in Cape Town.
I was hosting a workshop on building AI agents. I was set on everyone walking out with hands-on experience building their own agent. I had it all planned out:
- ✅ Ensured people brought laptops
- ✅ Got there early to test the wifi
- ✅ Limited myself to 15 minutes of slides before diving into building
- ✅ Broke everyone into small groups
The moment everyone logged onto the wifi network... it crashed.
Everyone got kicked off. Including me.
So I had to pivot on the fly (and I didn't plan for this)
Instead of a hands-on workshop, it became an open Q&A session where people shared their use cases and I talked through what's actually possible with AI and gave recommendations on platforms to use.
People asked great questions, were super engaged, and in hindsight, maybe Q&A was a better use of time for everyone.
What I Learned:
- Assume everything will go wrong. Have a backup plan. Then a backup for your backup.
- Use cases > tools. I spent too much time on "how to build" and not enough on "here are real examples of agents people have built" Next time, I'm walking through 5 clear use cases first so people can pattern-match to their own situation.
- The real barrier isn't technical. It's knowing which problems AI can actually solve right now and what tools to start with.
What's Next:
I still want to help people build their own agents. And most people are still in town for a bit longer.
So next week I'm hosting an IRL coworking session for anyone from Nomad Week who wants to build something with AI. We'll spend an hour working on our own projects and helping each other out.
No slides. No wifi crashes (I hope). Just building together.
And, hopefully, a few people will build cool stuff that I can feature in future newsletters.
Sometimes the best workshops are the ones that go completely off the rails. I learned more from the questions people asked than I would have in my original plan.
Murphy's Law always wins. But that's where the good stuff happens.
More soon,
Shaalin