The Value Engine
by Nico Hartwell
I Wasted 847 Operations on Make.com. Here's What I Learned.
About this podcast
Most business leaders are burning cash on AI tools that deliver zero ROI. They buy the hype, implement random automation, and wonder why their bottom line isn't moving. Meanwhile, a small group of companies are quietly using AI to cut costs by 40% and boost productivity by 200%.
Nico Hartwell spent years building machine learning models for healthcare startups before launching his own AI consultancy. He's seen what works and what's just expensive theater. On The Value Engine, he breaks down exactly how real companies are using artificial intelligence to generate measurable returns.
Each episode focuses on one specific AI implementation with actual numbers. You'll hear about the warehouse that cut labor costs by $2 million, the marketing team that automated 80% of their workflows, and the consultant who 10x'd her client capacity using custom AI tools. Nico explains the tech without the jargon and shows you the spreadsheets that prove ROI.
No theoretical discussions or vendor pitches. Just real automation strategies that pay for themselves within 90 days. If you're tired of AI promises and want proven playbooks, this is your show.
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Episodes
The newest 20 of 191 episodes
- I Wasted 847 Operations on Make.com. Here's What I Learned. · 17 minEver burned through 847 operations on a single Make.com workflow and wondered where you went wrong? Nico Hartwell did exactly that, and the lessons he learned could save you…
- Make.com + Slack: The Free Order System Nobody's Talking About · 20 minMost businesses throw thousands at order management software when they already have the perfect platform sitting in their Slack workspace. Make.com just hit 8 billion operations…
- Stop Manual Data Collection. Apify + Make Changed Everything. · 17 minManual data collection is killing your productivity. While you're copying and pasting information for hours, smart businesses are pulling thousands of data points automatically…
- Why Top Agencies Quit Using Cold Email (Their New Weapon) · 17 minCold email is dead. At least that's what the most successful automation agencies figured out last year when their open rates tanked to 2%. So what replaced it? A completely…
- The AI Resume Trick Costing Job Seekers Interviews · 20 minWhat if the AI resume trick everyone's raving about is actually killing your chances of landing interviews? Job seekers are flooding job boards with AI-generated applications…
- Watch Me Build A Social Media Tracker In 30 Mins (+ Community) · 15 minWhat if you could build a social media tracker in just 30 minutes? Sounds impossible, right? Well, Nico Hartwell is here to show you it’s not only doable but also a game-changer…
- The $12K Mistake: AI SEO Parasites on High-Authority Platforms · 16 minPicture this: a marketer spent $12,000 on an "AI SEO course" that promised first-page Google rankings in 30 days. The course taught one strategy: publishing AI-generated articles…
- You're Making Videos the Hard Way (Do This Instead) · 15 minYou're spending $500 per video when you could be making the same content for $5. While most creators are stuck in Premiere Pro for hours, smart marketers are using Bannerbear to…
- The Onboarding Mistake Costing You 40 Hours Monthly · 18 minYour new hire's first week doesn't have to cost you 40 hours of admin work. Most teams still create Trello boards manually, assign permissions by hand, and watch productivity…
- Why Content Teams Are Hemorrhaging $144K Yearly on WordPress · 16 minMost WordPress site owners are bleeding money on a task they don't even realize is draining their budgets. Content teams manually publishing across multiple sites waste about 20…
- The $500/Month Webflow Mistake 90% of Agencies Make (And the Make.com Fix) · 17 minYour Webflow agency is bleeding $500 every month and you don't even know it. The culprit? Manual CMS updates that eat hours of billable time while your team copy-pastes content…
- The $50K AI Toolkit Nobody's Talking About Yet · 18 minMost companies blow $50K on AI subscriptions for features they could get for free. While everyone's fighting over ChatGPT seats, there's a treasure trove of specialized models…
- Why You're Posting 4 Times When 1 Post Does It All · 16 minCreating four separate posts for LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram is the social media equivalent of manually copying files when you could just drag and drop. Most…
- The Make.com Feature Stripe Doesn't Want You to Know About · 13 minMost businesses lose thousands every month to slow invoice processing. Clients pay late, follow-ups get forgotten, and cash flow suffers while you chase down payments like a debt…
- The Make.com Feature Stripe Doesn't Want You to Know About · 13 minMost businesses lose thousands every month to slow invoice processing. Clients pay late, follow-ups get forgotten, and cash flow suffers while you chase down payments like a debt…
- Why Your Make.com Automation Fails: The Scoping Truth · 18 minYour Make.com automation just burned through your monthly operation limit in two days. Again. You thought you'd mapped out a simple customer onboarding flow, but somehow it's…
- Why Stripe's Onboarding Works (And How to Copy It) · 15 minMost developers think Stripe's seamless onboarding just happens. It doesn't. They've built one of the most sophisticated API discovery systems in tech, and you can copy their…
- Stop Losing Shuttle Bookings to Broken CRM Systems · 15 minYour shuttle service is hemorrhaging bookings because customers can't reach you, drivers don't know their routes, and half your inquiries disappear into email chaos. Sound…
- Stop Losing Shuttle Bookings to Broken CRM Systems · 15 minYour shuttle service is hemorrhaging bookings because customers can't reach you, drivers don't know their routes, and half your inquiries disappear into email chaos. Sound…
- The $50,000 Invoice Mistake Most Small Businesses Make Every Year · 14 minThat $50,000 figure isn't hyperbole. Most small businesses waste exactly that much every year on manual invoice processing, and they don't even realize it. When you calculate the…







