#852 I Wasted $40K on an AI Agency. Here's What I Built Instead

Aaron Anderson runs a link building agency — 8 years in, fully remote, team of 10. A year ago, his business was in negative growth. He decided to go all-in on AI and hired an agency to rebuild his systems. He paid them nearly $40,000. They delivered nothing he could use. While waiting on that agency, he started tinkering with Claude Code. Then he started building. Then he realized he was building better than they were. Today Aaron walks us through what he's actually built, what it's made and saved him, and his answer to the biggest question in our inbox right now: what do I actually do with this thing? Tactics include: automating the work you'd otherwise hire a VA for, rebuilding legacy tools without a developer, and the mindset shift from "what can I do with AI?" to "what can't I do?" Tropical MBA is a podcast for entrepreneurs building location-independent businesses.

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#852 I Wasted $40K on an AI Agency. Here's What I Built Instead is an episode from The Tropical MBA Podcast - Entrepreneurship, Travel, and Lifestyle by Dan Andrews; Ian Schoen.

This episode is 26:07 long.

This episode was published on Apr 2, 2026.

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