Flow chart created! Risk Taker's System: Twilio, VAPI, & The Power of Progress

Hey Folks, Rick here again! It's 3:30 AM, and I'm still up working on my AI startup.

My Twilio VOIP A2P Campaign Registration has finally been approved by all the carriers! Now I can use my business phone number for SMS lead generation and make it interact with VAPI, my future Voice AI agent, and BREVO, my Email CRM platform. Woof! It's all technical, but I love rolling with it.

A Dinosaur with Tricks 🦖

As I mentioned before, I'm 52 years old—a dinosaur with a few tricks up my sleeve. I studied Architecture 28 years ago, built $20–30-million-dollar high-rises in Chicago, and have been a Project Manager on and off. For half of my life, I've been an entrepreneur with partial success and many failures.

I've started three companies, owned Real Estate, and then lost close to a million dollars when the Real Estate market crashed. I filed for bankruptcy once. That’s just the life of an entrepreneur and risk-taker. Why? That’s just how I'm built. I love launching and starting small companies with simple operations.

No, I never want to be like Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, or Elon Musk. I just want to be creative, use my Architectural background, and have fun with what I do and how I run my startups.

Focusing on the System ⚙️

So here I am again, launching the fourth business in my lifespan, and it won't be my last before my last breath! On my last post, I spoke about the importance of creating a system for your AI operations and not being so focused on your product development yet. Keep in mind there is no exact way to build a company.

However, in Architecture and Design, we do have a system that goes from conceptual phase, schematic design, design development to construction completion. IT software Ops developers call it iteration, if that sounds correct! As some of you know, I don't have the IT background a few of you might have. My technical expertise comes from Architecture, Engineering, and Design. Those are my strengths, along with some sales in that space.

Tonight, I was grinding on my flow chart and brainstorming with Tommi, my AI. I designed a system that's a mini-CRM to work inside of VAPI and BREVO, setting up Groups, Attributes, and Segmentation for all my future subscribers on my landing pages, where they call my Voice AI agent. I’ve never done this EVER in my life, and I can't wait to see it operate, work, and captures leads in a high-tech format without me being involved at all. Remember I said focus on Progress over Perfection—just get things done and roll with it. Not kidding about that!

BREVO & Lead Capture 🎯

Make sure you set up and master your email CRM platform. It's vital to your success and lead capture. Without building that asset, you have nothing. Focus on how you will capture the leads and where they will come from. Segregation is key. For me, they will come from YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, my favorite, TikTok, and my landing pages. I used to manipulate Salesforce, which is really powerful, so I have a year or two understanding the importance of using such a powerful CRM tool to grow your customer or client base. Metrics is key. Knowing what leads drive the most money and most clients.

My package plan with BREVO is for 1,500 subscribers for the year, and my goal is to get 100–125 subscribers a month starting now and I'm already falling behind with that goal! Scaling is important to me, so having the wrong platform will cost you a lot of money—sometimes $500 to $1,000 a month or more—because most email platforms limit your basic plan to 500 subscribers, and the costs skyrocket from there when you have 1,000 subscribers or more. I paid close to $300 for my plan for a whole year. Not bad for the capabilities of Brevo. The difference is that Brevo includes SMS and has AI built in, making it stronger than other platforms.

Attached and below you will see my flow chart so you can get an idea of how to design systems, which is the key. My products are in progress and will follow later but it's not my priority. My systems are more important to me right now as develop and work through my conceptual phase of this new business using AI llms and voice agents. My websites are up, my drip campaigns are being created, and I'm doing 20 different things all at once. It can get crazy at times, but I follow one key slogan. " Just Do It" Nike

My Custom Segmentation Codes are as follows. My AI created these codes based on my direction and vision. Remember: You are the mastermind and architect of your company and creation. Provide strong input to your AI and collaborate with it to achieve your short- and long-term goals. Artificial Intelligence is not a substitute for your creativity. You are the key that will open that door to your future castle!

These are the codes I came up with after brainstorming and having a dialogue with Tommi, my AI.

Until my next post, see ya!

Experience Level (EL) codes: