Why Bots Fail (Part 1 of 5)

A few months back I was discussing my bot business with an overly pessimistic friend of mine.  During the course of the conversation, we discussed a lot of the technical details of what is done.  Last week, he asked me an interesting question: Why do bots fail? 

As I started looking seriously into this issue, I’ve come up with ten (10) things which I’ll put in no particular order:

[1] Run your bot 24-7.

This may be stating the obvious, but your bot will not make any profits if the bot is closed for business.

You may have noticed a trend where fast food restaurants are now heavily advertising their breakfast menus.  It’s a simple reality.  If these places are open for six extra hours, then there is the opportunity for six extra hours of profits.  Same with your bots: a closed bot will never make any profits whereas an open bot has a chance for profits.

[2] Be patient.

While on a vacation with my wife, we took the opportunity to eat dinner at a national chain restaurant where we enjoy the food but the chain itself was not in our home stomping grounds.  As fate would have it, we had a chance encounter with the regional manager with the chain in question.  So I asked him if there were plans on expanding into my neck of the woods.  His answer stunned me.

We are looking into your area, however when we run the projections, we can’t turn a profit in three (3) years.

Say what?!?  The old business models were that business would be successful if it was breaking even after five (5) years.  Now they are thinking of making a profit on the initial investment within three?  My how times have changed.

My geriatric views aside, you need to be patient with your bot.  You simply can not turn on your bot, let it run overnight and expect 50 tickets of profits.  The reality is that a bot needs to be running full time about a year before consistent profits can be had.

More next time.