LinkedIn Post
I analyzed 47 failed automation projects last quarter. One pattern showed up in 43 of them.
The founders didn't fail at picking tools. They failed at mapping their actual process first.
They jumped straight to Zapier/Make/n8n and tried to automate what they thought they were doing. Not what they were actually doing.
The 4 that succeeded? They spent 2 weeks documenting every manual step before writing a single automation.
LinkedIn Post
Me at 2 AM: "I'll just manually update these 200 SKUs real quick."
Me at 4 AM: still updating SKUs, questioning every life decision that led here.
Me at 9 AM: discovers the CSV import button that's been there since 2019.
This is roughly what happens when e-commerce operators try to scale without automation. You don't need more coffee. You need fewer manual steps.