Vol.011 — 6 Subscriptions. $200/Month. Less Done.
Date: 2026-04-23 | Newsletter
Key Summary
A Reddit post captures a familiar pain: “I subscribed to 6 AI tools this quarter and I’m actually getting less done.” A reply echoes it: “$200 a month, and the worst part isn’t the money — it’s that I spend more time managing tools than doing actual work.” Zenta has been there. Over two years he personally tried at least 50 AI tools; roughly 10 survive in his daily workflow today. The pattern he identifies from real business owner conversations: the AI delivering genuine ROI is being used for the most boring tasks imaginable — summarizing calls, drafting first-pass emails, updating CRM entries, sorting support tickets. Nothing sexy. Hours saved weekly. The AI that fails is the shiny subscription bought last week and configured never. The fix is fewer tools, more depth. But Zenta reframes the wasted subscriptions not as cost but as tuition: every cancelled trial built the judgment to know what fits and what doesn’t. That filter can’t be bought in a course. It only develops through hands-on trial. Managing people took the same process. AI management is no different — the frustration is the training. Do it simple. The frustration is the training.