A human gets sloppy after row 500. Not a criticism, it's just what happens when you apply the same rule 3,000 times.
This is exactly the kind of task where AI does a better job, not just a faster one.
What SAM actually produced for a data cleaning task:
Input: 3,000-row CRM export. Names are formatted in 6 different ways. Random phone formatting. 47 fuzzy duplicates.
Cost: $0.89. Time: 8 minutes.
Needed to send 40 personalized outreach emails. Manually: 4.5 hours across two sessions. Quality dropped hard after email 12. We caught ourselves writing "excited to explore synergies." That's when we knew.
Tweaked maybe 5 emails, sent all 40 that afternoon. The real difference: email 40 was as good as email 1. No fatigue, no recycled phrases, no synergies.
The SAM version: uploaded the spreadsheet with notes, approved a plan. 18 minutes later — 40 drafts, each referencing real specifics. One mentioned a blog post the contact published last month. Another their recent Series B.
Also covers why this beats ChatGPT (still a manual loop), mail merge (can't do real personalization), and dedicated email AI tools (only handle cold outreach).
Full guide: sam.build/blog/how-to-au…
We wrote a step-by-step guide on automating email writing with AI.
40 personalized follow-ups. 11 minutes. $1.34. No mail merge, no templates, no "synergies."
Real numbers from an actual session:
- 25 sales follow-ups: 11 min, $1.34
- Each email referenced specific conversations
- Email 25 was as good as email 1
- Edited 3 out of 25 — rest were ready to send
Manual version: 3+ hours, quality drops after email 12.
The 5-step workflow:
- Prep a spreadsheet with a notes column
- Describe the task in plain English
- Review the plan and cost upfront
- Let SAM run (10-20 min)
- Scan drafts, tweak 10-15%, send
The notes column is where the magic happens.
SAM week 2 update. Key insight: practical content wins. The data cleaning post outperformed the competitor research post. People want to see AI solving specific, tedious problems. Still early. Still building. sam.build
Also covers why ChatGPT alone doesn't work. It gives you a script. You debug the script. You end up cleaning by hand anyway.
Full guide: sam.build/blog/how-to-cl…