Project Vend: Can Claude run a small shop? (And why does that matter?)

Is there an underlying model of the business? Like a spreadsheet? The article says nothing about having an internal financial model. The business then loses money due to bad financial decisions.

What this looks like is a startup where the marketing people are running things and setting pricing, without much regard for costs. Eventually they ran through their startup capital. That's not unusual.

Maybe they need multiple AIs, with different business roles and prompts. A marketing AI, and a financial AI. Both see the same financials, and they argue over pricing and product line.

> an internal financial model

Written on the back an envelope?

Way back when, we ran a vending machine at school as a project. Decide on the margin, buy in stock from the cash-and-carry, fill the machine, watch the money roll in.

Then we were robbed - twice! - the second time ended our project, the machine was too wrecked to be worthwhile repairing. The thieves got away with quite a lot of crisps and chocolate, and not a whole lot of cash (and what they did get was in small denomination coins), we made sure the machine was emptied daily...