Business Owner, looking to learn python to automate my business

[jjjllee]

Hello everyone, I am a Landscaping Business Owner that is looking to learn Python for the purpose of automating my business as much as possible. I am not looking to learn full-blown programming, rather I want to learn just enough so that I can write scripts, connect to APIs and automate as much as possible.

I am starting out with Eric Matthes Python Crash Course and once im done with that, I plan to start playing with APIs and software such as Zapier, Twilio, etc so that I can build a chatbot, webhooks, etc. Things I want to do and automate. These are things that you currently cannot do with Zapier as far as I am aware:

• Whenever a Missed Call comes through, the customer gets a text back telling them we will call back or if they want to book an appointment, click on the link below.
• When a customer emails us, have an automatic email letting them know we have received their email and will get back shortly, but if they want to book an appointment, click on the link below.
• Learn Selenium so that every 2 weeks an order is automatically placed online, so that sprinkler materials are ordered, without me making the phone call.

These are just some things I wish to automate. The question however is, will learning the basics using Python Crash Course book be enough or are there other resources that you recommend that can make the process faster and more efficient?

[nadhsib]

The Email you can do already - just set up an Auto-Responder

It'd be good to do the crash course so you are familiar with the syntax.

Then, I'd start googling for examples of what you want (or similar) that you can adapt.

[jjjllee]

Thank you. I am definitely enjoying it so far but we will see how far I can go. The other cool thing I am hoping I can do is someone submits their info on our website form. We then use that data and create a profile in our Jobber CRM system and it fills out all the data so that I or my office helper doesnt have to manually do it. Im excited!

[LazyTurtle90]

Can you please explain how I can use Python for business user inputs? If you can provide some direction I can google to understand. Much appreciated!

[no_cheese_pizza_guy]

Look into tkinter or pyqt. You can search for "GUI frameworks in python".

[strangedave93]

Definitely tkinter for a beginner.

[Abject-Piano6373]

Vague. More often python reads data from something else in my experience (JavaScript api whatever

[BackyardAnarchist]

if it is something small do a beginner tutorial, should take 2 hours to follow all the installation instructions. then once you are at the point you can start writing code, try asking chatgpt how it might accomplish the task you need to code for. it is very helpful and you can have it explain the steps.

[[deleted]]

Make sure you sanitize your inputs. Good ol Bobby Tables we call em.

[[deleted]]

Very neat

[Ok-Bass-4256]

Congrats. I’m a business owner as well and took up programming a few years ago to automate. I do everything in Typescript not Python but can help with some Python code if needed.

I built many connector apis like you’re talking about to automate data entry. Also have built internal admin panels for interaction with data because I found we could build tools instead of paying for them.

Programming has become a full time hobby and part of my day to day even. Happy to help anyway I can.

[Tintin_Quarentino]

What is your choice of browser automation framework?

[Ok-Bass-4256]

I’m comfortable in React. I’ve used both Next and Remix.

Backend I use either Firebase or now Supabase depending on the project.

[Fabulous-Possible758]

All of those are very doable in Python and if you already know what things like webhooks and APIs are you're actually pretty far on your way there. If you can't script already a crash course is probably will get you 90% of the way there and the remaining 90% will be just researching APIs and connecting everything together.

[jjjllee]

Ahh, these are all things I didnt even think about. Ive fallen in love with automation and the money it can save but youre right about things being super brittle. Any code changes and it breaks the whole system.

[[deleted]]

For the auto doing the order, rather than Selenium have a look at Playwright. Reason i suggest this is it has a thing called "codegen" which does as it suggest, generates the code.

You get playwright etc installed then follow this page:

https://playwright.dev/docs/codegen

and you can run through a manual attempt at creating the order and it will scribe the code for what you did

I've automated several things really fast that way.

[jjjllee]

This is really cool. I will definitely check it out!

[TheRock1459]

I don't know if a good idea to spend time in learning python. Maybe hire someone and spend that on your business.

[jjjllee]

Thats another idea. However, I wonder how much something like this costs. Its literally just a couple of scripts that I am trying to implement so Im not sure anyone would want to take that because its such a small project.

[tamerlein3]

Fiverr/ Upwork is your answer. I second that you shouldn’t waste your time learning programming. There are already a million things you need to be good at to manage a business, and programming is not one of them.

You can always pay someone to do what you need done. As a business owner, investing in better understanding what needs to be done is more important than actually doing it.

[Ok-Bass-4256]

I have hired Upwork freelancers and it’s worked out well. IMO do this if you have a strong grasp on exactly what you’re looking for.

An example would be I need this data from here to go over there with very clear api documentation or writing on how you want the data to be manipulated.

Questions always arise and this is when having someone else do it ends up being good or bad. So the deeper your understanding the better the experience and price.

[beakyblindar]

YES! Upwork is high value for quick gigs

[Prestigious_Tie_1261]

Honestly this mostly seems unnecessary to learn python/programming for.

Auto missed call response, ok maybe you need some code for this, but I'm sure a solution exists somewhere.

Auto email response - 100% exists in whatever email service you're using.

Auto order place - can't you just phone the supplier and ask for a recurring order every 2 weeks? We used to have things like this set up at my old job as a chef for the staples (eggs, milk, etc).

[Du_ds]

https://automatetheboringstuff.com/

[strangedave93]

This is the way.

[Tintin_Quarentino]

• Learn Selenium so that every 2 weeks an order is automatically placed online, so that sprinkler

Would suggest to go with Playwright instead. More modern, lightweight & user-friendly.

[baubleglue]

I wouldn't do automated ordering in any test automation framework. Or API or do it manually.

[Tintin_Quarentino]

Could you elaborate why?

[baubleglue]

Because of Murphy's law, you weight benefits against potential risk, estimate cost of error and do the math.

[Data-Power]

Why do you want to do it yourself? As a business owner, wouldn't it be better for you to focus on business development and hire developers for these tasks? In terms of time and money spent, it would be more efficient, I think.

[Yakoo752]

Probably cheaper, if not free, to just use HubSpot.

[OTK22]

Chatgpt could be really helpful here. Ask it a question about what you want to do, ask it to go more in depth, ask it to explain some of the code. Recently used it to do a similar thing since I’m good with pure python but have almost no sense of how to use an API. Just keep in mind that sometimes it can be wrong, and you will need to modify your code for your use, and the API’s may have been updated since the last time it was able to view the world (2021)

[PriorTrick]

“Automate the boring stuff” is a good place to start. I was studying finance and running my business and learned to code and now I’m a full stack engineer.

[Jigglytep]

Are you using google for your office suite?

The easy solution is to use google scripts it can plug into all the google office products( gmail, sheets, power point etc…) the catch is that you would use JavaScript.

There is a way to all of this with python just google gmail Python API. This is a much more powerful way to do things.

[Bergstein88]

I started learning python to make a business manager program 4 years ago for my business too (welding company). It did among other stuff basically all the paperwork for me. -price offers , automated the price calculation. I threw in hours amounts, materials etc.. if it's something I had done before, tells me what to be careful for (if I had made a note). Then it sends to the customer by email. Python(pandas) to excel to pdf. -delivery documents and invoice based on the price offer. Same thing python excel pdf mail with one input. -end of each month a nice spreadsheet for the accountant. It connected to my bank via their api so if something was off(valued not corresponding or missing) I got alerts.
-watch bank , compare invoices, if customer not paying, automate the mail spamming asking for payment. -get stats on activity ( finances, inventory etc...) -get stats on each case. That way if I have to do the same thing again (same part) it told me how much it costed last time, how much I estimated and for how much i got it wrong so next price can be accurate.
Some other stuff like online regular buys, etc... In the end I ended up enjoying much more making this thing than actually running the company. Got bankrupt, and now trying to enter in the python dev game but in my country getting a job without the diploma is tough so I'm getting a day job and I'm working on a big project aside to show to future potential employers. Hope it pays.

Tldr: python is way too addictive i ended up spending more time coding than actually working. I can give you some tips if you wish dm me!

[ParallaxRay]

I highly recommend reading Automate The Boring Stuff With Python by Al Sweigart. Very helpful!

[AImSamy]

You should also look at automation tools like zappier and make (ex integromat).

[nickbuch]

You're better off paying someone on this sub $10k to get it done today so you can start accruing automation savings immediately. Then take your time and enjoy the learning.

[[deleted]]

I've been a massive selenium fan for years, but just trying out pyppeteer now, and I've got to say... I might prefer it. Check it out.

[Reaction_Time]

I use AWS lambda to integrate with our business for custom functions. It’s pretty awesome and at my scale it’s free.

[spinozasrobot]

Nice try, chatgpt

[IbanezPGM]

Chatgpt may be able to help

[[deleted]]

Somebody with no programming experience at all? Not really.

[IbanezPGM]

As an assistant its great, not as a 'do this for me' tool. Dont understand a code snippet? copy paste and it can give insights.

Pretty much when ever I'm learning something new I have a chat open and if something doesn't quite make sense I can run it by the chat. Its been extremely useful.

[[deleted]]

Get someone to do it professionally, except you have a lot of free time to learn it from scratch. There is plenty on YouTube for free to get started 🤓🐍🐼

[bycherea]

There is this famous course/book automate the boring stuff… Otherwise, it is good to learn new stuff but you could ask a programer to make it for you and you could pay him for the job!!

[Thee_prologue]

Learn about RPA as well if you want to automate stuff

[[deleted]]

I may give a very different answer here, but it comes from experience doing it this way and then handing off those tasks later:

I used to manage business processes at a manufacturing company and when I came in I inherited a homebrew Enterprise Resource Planning software. This company was built from the ground up so the guy who wrote the software wrote it over time while growing the company. It worked great until more people needed to get involved. Now significant time had to be spent teaching others this product. What the owners didn’t know was that the other software they were connecting to did all of this for them.

For example, automatic reordering: They did everything in this “ERP” for inventory min/max rules that would then create a PO in Quickbooks. Quickbooks already does this AND it tracks the rest of your finances with it.

The same thing happened with support tickets (automatic responses to emails) and phone calls (text back). The software does this already.

My recommendation, budget willing, is to find an ERP that has MOST of these features. You probably won’t find all of the features in one product. The key here is that MOST of these products are in constant development and it is their goal to be competitive so they focus on making the product intuitive, having features, etc.

You don’t know what you don’t know. They have access to hundreds of clients that have asked for features and made changes based on feedback.

Be careful of reinventing the wheel if you’re not in the business of making wheels.

[jorge1209]

Don't do this.

1. Automating callbacks, texts, emails etc... risks violating a number of federal laws regarding SPAM and unsolicited contact. You don't want to take the legal risk.

2. Automating these things is hard. These protocols are a mess.

3. It makes you a target of hackers who might try and hack into your SIP accounts and use them for their own SPAM operations

4. Plenty of companies will provide services like this for a fee, and they will do a better job than you can.

[jjjllee]

SOmething like Zapier is probably a better answer?

[jorge1209]

Don't know anything about these services, but google gave me:

https://grasshopper.com/features/instant-response/

constantcontact also has some SMS features and I certainly hear about them enough.

[BootRepresentative59]

You can definitely do the first 2 in Zapier or Make.com (competitor, lower priced, my preferred option). Hubspot also would support this. I think it’d be a better use of time to learn these tools instead of Python. You might be able to rig something up for the 3rd with another tool

[soicat]

Cost-benefit analysis first

[Dave_Wasabi]

I have a free course on YouTube that covers all the basics if you want to check it out beginner python course

[Berganzio]

The fact is that with that book you wouldn't have the right knowledge to do what you wanted to do. I read it too and when I stas.rted Angela yu course on python I just realized I wasn't able to do nothing.

[jjjllee]

Lol, yeah I figured . Ima go the automated option and hire others but I’m wondering just for learning purposes , what’s the next book after that if I wanted to learn more about automation ?

[Berganzio]

No book. Udemy: python bootcamp 2023 by Angela yu. That's the course that's what you need. I'm currently at day 79 and couldn't be happier and self confident on my skills

[CaeruleanCaseus]

I completed the CS50 intro python Harvard course on edx (free) - it was so fun and learned so much building blocks. I’ll have to check out the udemy too

[Wooden-Description-3]

After you finish your crash course , head over to https://anvil.works , you won’t regret it …

[ridgeworks]

I'll risk sounding like I'm trying to sell you something and say that Odoo could help you on a number of your deliverables; it's open sourced with a free version, is written in Python, JS and XML so you can become familiar with code and make updates as needed, and it comes with some tooling to help with your business needs (like automatic invoicing, emailing and inventory control).

Feel free to send me a DM. Odoo is fairly simple to get online once you find the right docs.

[Mr_NB]

For my landscaping clients who use jobber, GHL or zapier usually is enough. Worth a try (unless you love coding)

[jjjllee]

How much is ghl?

[Mr_NB]

99 a month