The Real Cost So Far

When I started MyBidPilot on June 8, I knew the idea was too big for one non-technical person.

That did not stop me, of course.

The idea is simple to say and not simple to build: a system for construction suppliers, steel building dealers, and subcontractors that can take in a quote request, pull out the important details, build a bill of materials, create a proposal, follow up, and turn the whole thing into a project.

In my head, that sounds clean.

On the screen, it costs something.

Not just money. Though yes, money is part of it. AI tools run on credits, and those credits get used faster when you are asking the system to read documents, pull out details, rewrite proposal language, fix mistakes, and try again. Every “can you make this better?” has a little meter running somewhere.

I do not say that as a complaint. It is still amazing to me that I can sit at my desk, with no coding background, and build anything close to this. But the cost is real.

The first cost is AI credits.

When the app is doing something simple, the cost feels small. But MyBidPilot is not a simple to-do list. It is trying to understand messy construction information. Quotes. Line items. Materials. Scope. Proposal wording. Follow-ups. That means the AI is not just decorating the page. It is doing work.

And every time I test the quote upload, extraction, bill of materials, proposal, and project flow, I am using some amount of AI. Sometimes the result is useful. Sometimes it is almost useful. Sometimes it makes me stare at the screen and wonder if I have been too optimistic.

The second cost is time.

I had this fantasy that AI would make everything fast. It does make some things fast. But it also makes it very easy to keep going in circles.

You fix one part, and another part needs attention. The upload works, but the extracted data needs cleaning. The proposal looks decent, but the flow into the project needs adjusting. The happy path works in theory, but then you realize “happy path” means you still have to decide what happens at every step.

For this first version, I chose “MVP happy path only.” In normal language, that means I am trying to build the simplest working version where everything goes right. Not every edge case. Not every possible customer situation. Just the main road.

Even that main road is longer than I expected.

The third cost is attention.

This may be the sneakiest one.

At 50, I do not have unlimited mental tabs available. If I spend the morning thinking about proposal generation, my brain is still chewing on it while I am doing something else. If the AI gives me an answer that sounds confident but does not quite fit the construction workflow, I have to slow down and question it.

That is tiring.

There are days where the app moves forward, and I feel like I am watching the future arrive early. There are other days where I feel like I am paying in focus, not dollars.

The big temptation is to keep expanding the dream. Autonomous revenue platform. End-to-end lifecycle. Construction AI. Enterprise potential. Those words are exciting, and they are also dangerous. They can make a solo builder forget that the next real task might simply be: can a quote upload turn into a usable proposal without falling apart?

So I am trying to be more honest about cost.

AI lowers the barrier, but it does not make building free. It shifts the price. Less typing code by hand. More judgment. Less waiting for a team. More deciding what matters. Less mystery about whether something is possible. More discipline about whether it is worth doing right now.

I still think this project is worth it. The steel and construction world has plenty of repetitive quoting and follow-up work that could be handled better. But I am learning that ambition has a carrying cost.

And if I am going to build in public, I should say that part out loud too.

Small takeaway: AI can make building possible, but it still charges you in credits, time, and attention.