_{Day 114/100}

Hey—It's Tim.

Last night I tried to schedule a “quick” LinkedIn post.

Five Zapier steps later, the API looped, the webhook panicked, and my Samsung smart-fridge rebooted itself like “yo, did someone just tag me in a carousel?”
Automation horror story #43. Add it to the pile.

I used to think automation was the answer.
To what, I wasn’t sure. But definitely something.

So I automated everything I could get my hands on.
Calendar.
CRM.
Cold emails.
Blog writing.
My personality.
(Still debugging that last one.)

Some of it worked.
Some of it didn’t.

Automation That Actually Earns Its Electricity

The Win.

Brain-dump → UseMotion → Done

I treat Motion like a ruthless concierge:

• I fling half-baked to-dos at it at 1 a.m.

• It shuffles meetings, predicts how distractible Thursday-Tim will be, and quietly books focus slots.

• No dopamine-draining Kanban boards. Just “Do this next.”

Result: I ship daily emails and remember dentist appointments.
(Miracle, frankly.)

Not gonna lie, it’s expensive for a calendar ($29/month), but it keeps me on track with almost everything. I just spend 15-20 mins in the morning throwing my to-do list at it, and then follow the output.

Zero code. Zero fridge reboots.

Story Mining

• Every evening Penny pings me:
  “What surprised you today?”

• I vent for 90 seconds.

• She tags, timestamps, and dumps the gold nuggets into Coda.

That raw chatter fuels:
• this newsletter,
• half my LinkedIn posts,
• and the product pages that convert best.

Automation that sounds like me? Chef’s kiss.

The Losers.

Rebooted My Fridge Trying to Automate LinkedIn

(Horror story #1)

Goal: auto-cross-post my LinkedIn carousels to Twitter and Threads, resized, hashtagged, scheduled.

Reality:

1. n8n loop mis-fired → posted the same carousel 37 times.

2. Smart plug thought “n8n” was “Nest” → power-cycled the kitchen.

3. Wi-Fi fridge died, resurrected, demanded a firmware update and a selfie.

I now manually post. Takes 60 seconds. Cheaper than warm beer.

Lead-Gen Frankenstein

(Horror story #2)

Stack: Clay + PhantomBuster + some reborn RB2B zombie + Coda glue.

Supposed to turn “site visitor” → “email in my CRM”.

• $0.63 per scraped human (before the email even sends)

• 11 hours of debugging regex on a Friday night

• Open rate: 4 %.

• ROI: negative espresso.

Lesson: If the CAC calc makes you open a new tab, it’s too high.

TL;DR

• Automate the mundane, not the mission-critical.

• Build safety nets before slick loops.

• If an automation smells expensive at idle… it will set your kitchen on fire.

✌️ Tim "Why does my fridge need a selfie camera" Hanson
CMO @Penfriend.ai

Same brain, different platforms: X, Threads, LinkedIn.

P.S. If your appliances have ever gone rogue too—drop me a 🧊 emoji. First person to confess a toaster-related mishap gets a shout-out in tomorrow’s email.

Penfriend.ai
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