I still remember the bill: $3,000 in a single month. And for what? A collection of half‑working tools that I forced into existence. It started innocently – I built a “collaborative clone” of myself in ChatGPT, feeding it my business knowledge. Then I discovered Replit, and like Daniel said, it felt like crack. Like a slot machine in Vegas – pull the lever, hope for a win.
The problem? I didn’t know the right method. I kept screaming at Replit, trying to correct it, but it kept making things up. Yes, I built some useful stuff, but the cost – both financial and emotional – was insane. I was spending thousands on compute and countless hours debugging nonsense.
Looking back, I realise I was forcing AI to do something it wasn’t designed for. Replit is a great pattern‑matcher, but it doesn’t know the world. It doesn’t remember facts. It guesses. And when you’re building anything that matters – especially in finance – guessing is not good enough.
The lesson? Don’t treat AI like a magical brain. Treat it like a junior developer who needs constant supervision and a reliable source of truth. Without that, you’re just gambling. And the house always wins.
