Oh &&^$^%$!!!
On October 20 Google announced a new small business hub inside Gemini.
It connects to Google Ads, Google Business Profile and Workspace plus apps like Shopify, Canva, Wix and Xero. You can upload your brand kit so the images Gemini creates stay on brand. It turns spreadsheets and receipts into financial charts and forecasting models. And it’s rolling out to Gemini app users worldwide.
The problem?
Several of the capabilities Google announced overlap with what I’ve spent the past three years building. That includes AI assistance for small businesses, persistent business information and marketing content generation.
This hurts.
I’ve been building an AI agent that finds revenue growth for established businesses. Just me. Alone. And I’m not even a coder and the thing is now over 100,000 lines of code running in n8n.
I’m working on the alpha release at Vectyn.com right now. And this is when Google shows up.
I’m not saying Google stole anything from me (or maybe they did. IDK). Two companies building similar AI tools for small businesses at the same time is completely plausible. Could be pure coincidence.
But that doesn’t make it feel any better. You spend three years on something. You’re finally about to put it in people’s hands. Then a company worth close to four trillion dollars walks into the same room. Bad timing doesn’t begin to cover it.
What I built
It’s called the Invincible AI Growth Engine™. I built it to do a lot more than write ads or spit out social posts.
It starts with three foundation steps. Avatar Group defines who the buyers are. Avatar Diary captures what those buyers experience and want. Company History teaches it the business. Everything after that builds on those three steps.
From there it works through nine growth drivers one at a time. Average transaction value. Number of transactions. Lead conversion. Leads. Profits. Referrals. Referral conversion. Customer buying lifetime. And finally structuring the business for an eventual exit.
For each one it lays out marketing strategies. Then tactics. Then it helps produce the actual deliverables. Emails. Landing pages. Sales letters. Presentations. Whatever the tactic calls for.
Every recommendation comes from the company’s own information. Google has stomped on part of that.
Where I still have an edge – maybe
From what Google announced it built a broad assistant. Brand visuals. Finance charts. App connections. Handy stuff.
Here’s the thing though. Making marketing assets was never the hard part. The real issue is most business owners don’t know which lever to pull. Is the problem too few leads? Leads that don’t convert? Customers who buy once and never come back? Guess wrong and every ad and email you make just pushes harder on the wrong lever. Way to go Google!
That’s the problem I built my engine to solve. It works through all nine growth drivers using the company’s own buyers and business. Then it points to the opportunity actually worth chasing. Only after that does it help build the deliverables.
So it diagnoses first. Then it picks a direction. Then it executes. From what I can see Google’s announcement only covers that last part.
My AI Agent can also handle more than one company at the Agency level. My Agency tier gives each client company the agency works with its own business intelligence and its own growth analysis.
That’s a lot. 100,000 lines a lot. But I’m not done. The last big piece is plugging in more than 200 APIs for real-time business intelligence and commercial-ready marketing deliverables. That’s when I’ll feel it’s truly finished.
But let’s be real
I can’t compete with Google. Not on money. Not on engineers. Not on distribution. Heck, just Google “Vectyn” and you will see they are not even indexing the company name unless you dig deep. Yeah, Google has near total control over distribution.
Google can push a feature to millions of businesses inside apps they already use. I’m still trying to get alpha users through the door.
I’m the developer. The product manager. The marketer. The salesperson. The support desk. There’s no team behind me. Just a lot of failed executions and broken integrations and fixes that led to more fixes to produce something that is now amazing. Maybe nobody will ever see any of that.
So what now?
I keep building. The alpha is still the priority. The API integrations are still the secondary plan. And if David Goggins is right. I’m not done yet. I am still breathing. I’m still in the fight.
Maybe I shouldn’t cry too much. Maybe Google just validated the market for me. Maybe business owners will get comfortable with AI growth tools because Google showed them one. Maybe the difference between a general assistant like Google’s and a dedicated revenue growth system like mine becomes obvious over time.
I don’t know.
What I do know is three years of work didn’t become worthless on October 20. I’m proud of what I built. I believe if I keep pushing, business owners will see the value I see too, if Goggle doesn’t crush me.
But right now?
I’m mostly just pissed. And frustrated. And I honestly don’t know which of the hundreds of items on my checklist I should attack next. I poured three years of myself into this. And I just watched a giant step right in front of it.
