Danny de Vries

[Danny de Vries @kddevries]

The AI-course industry wants you to believe there's a curriculum between you and useful AI.

There isn't. The whole skill is describing what you want in plain, specific English — the same thing you already do when you train a new hire. "Take these…

[Danny de Vries @kddevries]

Your most valuable AI use case is already running. It's just not impressive enough to post about.

(So I'll post about it.)

The boring tool that does one job every single day beats the autonomous agent you're still "evaluating." Every time.

→…
https://t.co/sq494IDnii

[Danny de Vries @kddevries]

Most people freeze at "adopt AI" because it sounds like a project. It isn't.

Don't adopt AI — just fix your worst headache with one small tool, then move on. Here's the map. Match the thing that's actually annoying you to the tool that kills it:

•…
https://t.co/sq494IDnii

[Danny de Vries @kddevries]

Everyone's waiting for the AI that runs the whole company.

Meanwhile the businesses actually saving hours did something unglamorous: they wrote down one annoying task in plain English, saved it, and now it runs itself. No platform. No migration. No…

[Danny de Vries @kddevries]

Every time someone asks what my tools actually "do," the call goes exactly like this.

They're braced for a lecture on agents and orchestration. Then it turns out the useful version is boring: paste the messy thing, get back a clean draft in your…
https://t.co/sq494IDnii

[Danny de Vries @kddevries]

I've shipped 40 free AI tools for small-business operators this year. No login, no upsell — they run in your browser.

Here are the 8 I'd steal first:
● Statement Reconciler — sorts business vs personal on your card
● Vendor Rules Trainer — teaches…
https://t.co/sq494IDnii

[Danny de Vries @kddevries]

The gap between the AI we're sold and the AI that would actually help you is enormous.

One side is on a keynote stage promising to replace your whole org. The other side is a $0 tool that drafts the follow-up email you keep forgetting.

Guess which…

[Danny de Vries @kddevries]

"We need an AI strategy." I hear it every week.

Here's the whole strategy for most small businesses: save the three prompts you retype constantly, and stop rewriting the same email from scratch. That's not a cop-out — that's where the hours…
https://t.co/sq494IDnii

[Danny de Vries @kddevries]

Plenty of busy shops are busy going broke — and the owner is the last to know.

The calendar's full, the phone rings, revenue looks fine, and there's nothing left at the end of the month. It's almost always the same quiet thing: one or two offers…
https://t.co/IWC4PKq4Pc

[Danny de Vries @kddevries]

Most small businesses run marketing on a hunch and call it intuition.

It isn't intuition. It's a missing recap. You run the promo, it does... something, and next month's promo goes out on a vibe instead of on what last month actually proved. The…
https://t.co/Ah6dQfA9wZ

[Danny de Vries @kddevries]

A deposit came in three weeks ago. The unit never got ordered. Nobody noticed until the customer called asking when the crew was coming.

Every service business has a version of that call. Not because anyone forgot how to do the job — you've done it…
https://t.co/F9VeoRLdv5

[Danny de Vries @kddevries]

The economists finally stopped arguing about AI and jobs. They looked at the payroll data instead.

A Stanford and ADP study matched the paychecks of 26 million workers to the actual tasks their jobs contain. It is the clearest map yet of where AI…
https://t.co/Vg9gzN9lsf

[Danny de Vries @kddevries]

For years I left the easiest money in the business sitting on the table, and I knew I was doing it.

Every service business has that one client who loves them. Who'd hand over two names tomorrow if you asked. Who has maybe already told a neighbor…
https://t.co/7MsaCrgkou

[Danny de Vries @kddevries]

For twenty years we kept upgrading the tool and never reorganized the data underneath it.

Big data. Data mining. APIs. Machine learning. Generative AI. Now agents. Every wave got bolted onto the same disorganized pile of files no system could read…
https://t.co/pz6xpr8BFc

[Danny de Vries @kddevries]

The most expensive lie in a small business is a binder full of SOPs.

It feels like you documented the business. You spent an afternoon writing down exactly how a job gets done, handed it to the new hire, they nodded. Three weeks later you find out…
https://t.co/Yqi8nZw6Kg

[Danny de Vries @kddevries]

Microsoft shipped 622 security fixes in a single day this month. The biggest batch in its history. Two of the holes were already being used against real companies before the patch existed.

If you run a small business, that number isn't a to-do…
https://t.co/pRG0pKKYxw

[Danny de Vries @kddevries]

Two dates you probably missed.

April 24: GitHub's Copilot began training on the prompts and code of its cheaper tiers by default. August 17: Atlassian did the same with Rovo. Both carve out an exception for the top enterprise tier. Everyone below…
https://t.co/DG6xXWDF30

[Danny de Vries @kddevries]

I've watched a dozen small businesses start a customer newsletter. Almost all of them quit by the third issue.

Not because it didn't work. Because "write the newsletter" quietly means: open a blank page on the last busy day of the month and turn a…
https://t.co/Y45O4M1Hk1

[Danny de Vries @kddevries]

Your accountant doesn't dread your taxes. You do.

And not because the math is hard — they do the math. It's the week before that eats you alive: digging for the van receipt, guessing at the mileage, trying to remember what that $24,000 in March…

[Danny de Vries @kddevries]

"They went with someone cheaper."

That's the reason customers give you when they don't want to hurt your feelings. So you write it down as "price," shrug, and move on — and the thing that actually cost you the deal is still there for the next…