Why Creative Entrepreneurs Must Automate (Or: How I Saved My Retirement Project)
I started a penguin shop to have fun in retirement, not to copy-paste tracking
I started Waddles of Joy in 2023 because I had finally retired and I wanted to do something fun.
I love penguins. Like, a lot. I had this vision of my retirement: sketching in a sunlit room, sipping tea, and “spreading joy, one waddle at a time.”
But six months in? There was very little sketching. And honestly? There wasn’t much joy, either.
Instead, I was a professional copy-paster. I was a full-time logistics manager. I was a social media intern for my own company. I spent my days renaming files “design_final_v3_REAL_FINAL.png” and frantically trying to come up with witty Instagram captions at 11 PM.
I felt like a cave person trying to start a fire with two wet sticks, except the sticks were Shopify and Instagram, and the fire was my sanity.
I knew I had to change something, or I was going to have to close the shop. That’s when I turned to automation.
The Truth About My “Tech Skills”
I want to be transparent with you: I am a coder. Or at least, I used to be.
But here’s the thing—things have changed a lot since I was routinely writing code.
When I looked at how modern businesses run—Python scripts, APIs, webhooks, connecting LLMs to local databases—it was all pretty new to me. I didn’t want to spend my retirement taking a bootcamp course just to sell t-shirts.
So, I cheated. (Sort of.)
I used AI to bridge the gap. Almost all the coding I do now, I used AI to help me write. I didn’t have to master the syntax of a new language; I just had to know what logic I wanted, and the AI helped me put it together quickly.
This is the secret weapon: You don’t need to be a computer science professor to build these systems anymore. You just need to be curious.
The 10-Hour Social Media Year
One of the biggest reasons I needed this “cheat code” was social media.
I knew social media was a “must-have.” I knew that if I wanted Waddles of Joy to be successful, I needed to be where the people are.
But I was bad at it. I could never figure out what to write or how to say it. And frankly, there is only so much of me to go around.
I looked at my time tracking for last year to see exactly how much effort I was putting in. The number shocked me.
10 hours.
That’s not 10 hours a week. That’s not even 10 hours a month. That was 10 hours in the entire year.
I was so paralyzed by the “what” and the “how” that I just... didn’t do it.
Now? My bots handle the consistency for me. They post penguin facts and product highlights three times a week across Instagram, Facebook, and BlueSky.
I don’t have to wake up and think “What do I post?” The system already decided—prioritizing my new items first, then sales, then old favorites.
I’ll be honest again: Do I have a million followers? No. Is my engagement breaking the internet? Not yet.
But the thing is, I’m out there. I’m building a target audience while I sleep. And doing something consistently—even if it’s automated—is infinitely better than the zero hours of effort I was managing before.
The Myth of the “Lazy” Creative
Fair warning: When you tell people you use AI to write product descriptions or automate your social media posts, someone will inevitably call it “lazy.”
They’ll say, “But isn’t the personal touch what makes a small business special?”
Yes. It is. But you know what’s not personal?
Manually emailing a customer to say “Your order shipped.”
Typing out the dimensions of a coffee mug for the 50th time.
Trying to remember if you posted to Facebook today (and then realizing you haven’t posted since March).
By doing all of that manually, I wasn’t being “personal.” I was being exhausted. And an exhausted business owner is a bad business owner.
How Automation Saved the Penguins
I decided to run an experiment. I stopped trying to be a “hustler” and started trying to be a systems architect.
I built a simple system—I call it the Penguin Facts Bot—that finds a cute penguin fact, finds a matching public domain image, creates a branded graphic, and posts it for me.
It runs while I sleep. It runs while I draw. It runs while I’m enjoying my retirement.
Suddenly, I had five hours of my week back. Then I automated my product descriptions. Then my customer service emails.
And the weirdest thing happened: I became more creative.
Because I wasn’t drowning in admin work, I had the brain space to design the next collection. I had the energy to write actual newsletters (like this one) instead of just posting “Buy my stuff!” out of desperation.
What We’re Doing Here
I’m starting The Automated Creative because I want to show you exactly how I did it.
Whether you’ve never written a line of code in your life, or you’re like me—someone with technical experience who just needs a little help navigating the new tools—this publication is for you.
Each week, I’m going to open up the hood of my business and show you a specific system I use. I’ll show you the messy parts, the mistakes I made (I’ve definitely accidentally emailed the wrong person before), and the exact prompts and workflows that actually worked.
We’re going to cover:
How to build a “second brain” for your content.
The exact prompts I use to write SEO-friendly listings.
How to set up “bots” that handle your social media grunt work.
Your First Assignment
If you’re ready to stop doing the robot’s job and get back to being the artist, you’re in the right place.
I’m building this plane while I fly it, and I’d love for you to come along.
Tell me in the comments: What is the one repetitive task in your business that makes you want to throw your laptop into the sea?
Let’s see if we can automate it.
Know another shop owner who is drowning in admin work? Share this post with them.