Build your first AI agent before lunch ends (seriously)

Welcome,

So there I was, scrolling Reddit at 1 AM (again, don't judge), when I stumbled across this post that made me spit out my coffee:

"I've Built 100+ AI Agents. Here's What Everyone Gets Wrong"

My first thought? "Oh great, another AI bro flexing."

My second thought? "Wait... this guy's actually making sense."

Turns out, while everyone's obsessing over building the next Jarvis from Iron Man.

The real money is in solving problems so boring that people forgot they were problems in the first place.

And honestly? That's the most Silicon Valley thing I've heard all week.

Let me break down what this guy discovered after a year and a half of building agents for actual paying clients...

Spoiler: The agents making bank aren't impressive. They're embarrassingly simple. And that's exactly why they work.

I’m about to share a truth bomb that most of us miss..

Nobody wants your autonomous superintelligence.

They just want their Tuesday afternoon back.

Think about it. When was the last time you thought, "Man, I really wish I had a sentient AI companion to revolutionise my workflow"?

Never. That's when.

But you know what you DID think last Tuesday at 3 PM when you were manually sorting through 147 support tickets for the fifth time this month?

"There's gotta be a better way to do this."

Congrats. You just identified a $100K problem.

💰 The Agents That Actually Print Money

Look, our Reddit friend goes into detail about the exact agents he's built, support ticket assassins, industry gossip collectors, real estate wordsmiths, and honestly?

They're making ridiculous money.

If you want the play-by-play on what his clients are paying for.

But here's the thing...

I'm not here to just regurgitate his advice and send you on your merry way.

Nope.

Today, I'm actually gonna show you how to build one of these money-printing agents yourself. In 30 minutes. With zero coding.

Because talking about AI agents is cool and all, but you know what's cooler?

Actually, having one working for you by the time you finish your lunch break.

So let's skip the motivational speech about "solving ignored problems" (you get it, everyone gets it), and let's BUILD something.

Specifically: An email inbox organiser that'll save you 10+ hours per week.

Ready? Let's go.

But first, a quick reality check.

Here's where it gets interesting (and slightly painful).

You know how much of the work is actually building the agent?

20%.

The other 80%?

You're basically playing whack-a-mole with shit that breaks randomly.

Last week, Gmail changed its API without warning. My agent stopped working. Client panicked. I spent 3 hours on a Saturday fixing it.

The week before that, a client reorganised their Slack channels. The agent was posting to channels that didn't exist anymore.

More panicked messages. More emergency fixes.

And my personal favourite: The output format just... drifts. The AI starts getting creative. Suddenly, your JSON responses have extra fields. Your code breaks. You're debugging at 11 PM again.

Fun times. (Okay, not actually fun. But definitely character-building.)

Here's what that Reddit guy said that really stuck with me: "You're not in the AI business. You're in the outcome business."

Which means: Nobody cares about your tech stack.

They care about going home at 5 PM instead of 8 PM.

Keep that in mind as we build this thing...

💡 Why Simple Agents Win Every Time

Let me hit you with some real talk:

The code isn't your moat anymore.

AI coding tools like Cursor, Bolt, and Replit Agent are levelling the playing field so fast it's actually scary. Anyone can build decent code now.

Your real edge? Pattern recognition.

You need to spot the task that:

• Wastes everyone's time

• Seems too small to fix officially

• Causes daily frustration

• Nobody's prioritising

That's the white space. That's where the money lives.

🎯 Build Your First AI Agent: The 30-Minute Email Organiser

Alright, enough philosophy. Time to get our hands dirty.

We're building an email inbox organiser.

The simplest, most universally useful agent you can build. Here's what it'll do:

The Problem It Solves: Your inbox is a warzone. Important emails are buried under promotions. Work mixed with personal. You spend 20 minutes every morning just sorting through the chaos.

Here's what your agent is gonna do:

First, it reads every email that hits your inbox. All of them.

Then it sorts them into folders automatically: Work, Personal, Receipts, those newsletters you forgot you signed up for, all of it.

It also figures out which ones actually matter.

High priority? You get a Slack notification. Medium? It just files it away. Low priority? You'll never even see it.

And here's my favourite part: For the important emails, it actually DRAFTS a reply for you.

You just open it, tweak a sentence if you want, and hit send. Done. Ten seconds instead of ten minutes.

Time to Build: 30 minutes, I promise.

Time You'll Save: 10-15 hours per week. For real.

So here's my question: Are you going to build this?

Or are you going to keep spending 2 hours a day sorting emails manually?

Your Step-by-Step Build Guide

What You Need:

• n8n account (free version works fine—sign up at n8n.io)

• Gmail account

• 30 minutes of uninterrupted time

• Coffee (optional but recommended)

Step 1: Set Up Your n8n Workflow (5 minutes)

Alright, log in to n8n. You'll see a blank canvas staring back at you.

Name your workflow. I called mine "Email Overlord 3000" because I'm a child.

You can call it "Email Organiser" if you're boring. Your choice.

(Honestly, though, naming it something fun makes you more likely to actually use it. Psychology is weird like that.)

Now you're looking at this empty canvas thinking, "Okay... what now?"

Don't panic. It's drag-and-drop. If you can use Canva, you can do this. Let's add your first node...

Step 2: Connect Your Gmail (5 minutes)

1. Add a Gmail Trigger node

   • This watches your inbox for new emails

   • Click "Sign in with Google"

   • Grant permissions (yes, it's safe)

2. Set it to trigger on "New Email"

   • You can filter by labels if you want (like only unread emails)

   • For now, just keep it simple: all new emails

What just happened: Your agent is now listening to your inbox 24/7.

Creepy? Maybe. Useful? Definitely.

Step 3: Add the AI Brain (10 minutes)

Here's where it gets interesting.

1. Add an OpenAI node (or Claude, or any AI you prefer)

   • You'll need an API key (OpenAI gives you $5 free credit to start)

   • Don't worry, each email costs like $0.0001 to process

2. Write your classification prompt:

You are an email classification assistant. Read this email and determine:

1. Category: Work, Personal, Promotions, Receipts, Newsletters, Spam
2. Priority: High, Medium, Low
3. Suggested action: Reply needed, File for reference, Delete, Read later

Email subject: {{$json["subject"]}}
Email body: {{$json["body"]}}
Email sender: {{$json["from"]}}

Respond in JSON format:
{
  "category": "...",
  "priority": "...",
  "action": "...",
  "reason": "..."
}

Why this works: You're giving the AI clear instructions and asking for structured output. Simple, but effective.

Step 4: Auto-Organise Based on AI Response (7 minutes)

Now we make the agent actually DO something with that classification.

1. Add a Switch node

   • This routes emails to different actions based on the AI's category

2. For each category, add a Gmail node that:

   • Adds a label (Work/Personal/etc.)

   • Mark’s priority with a star (for High priority)

   • Moves to the appropriate folder

3. For high-priority emails, add a Slack node:

   • Sends you a notification: "🚨 Important email from [sender]: [subject]"

   • Include a direct link to the email

Boom. Now you're only notified about emails that actually matter.

Step 5: Auto-Draft Replies (Bonus Level 3 minutes)

This is where it gets a chef's kiss.

For high-priority work emails, add another OpenAI node that drafts a reply:

Draft a professional reply to this email. Keep it concise, friendly, and helpful.

Original email: {{$json["body"]}}

Generate a reply that:
- Acknowledges their message
- Addresses their main point
- Provides next steps if needed

Then add a Gmail node that saves it as a draft.

The result: You open Gmail, see a perfectly drafted reply, tweak it if needed, hit send. 10 seconds instead of 10 minutes.

Step 6: Test & Deploy (5 minutes)

1. Click "Execute Workflow" to test it

2. Send yourself a test email

3. Watch the magic happen

4. Fix any issues (there will be issues, that's normal)

5. Once it works, activate the workflow

Congrats. You just built an AI agent that'll work for you 24/7.

🚀 What You Just Did (And Why It Matters)

In 30 minutes, you:

• Built a functional AI agent

• Automated a task that wastes hours every week

• Learned the basics of workflow automation

• Created something you can charge clients for (seriously, people pay $500-$2,500/month for this)

You proved to yourself that building AI agents isn't some mythical skill reserved for Stanford grads.

It's just:

1. Identify a repetitive task

2. Connect some APIs

3. Add an AI prompt

4. Let it run

That's it. That's the whole game.

One Last Thing….

I want to see what you build.

Seriously. Take a screenshot when your agent processes its first email.

Reply and show me. I'm making a compilation of "first agent" moments for next week.

Bonus points if you named it something ridiculous.

And hey, if you get stuck on Step 3, reply with your error message. I debug these things in my sleep at this point. I'll help you fix it.

P.S. - The Reddit post I mentioned?

Read it after you build your agent, not before. You'll appreciate it way more once you've actually done it.

P.P.S. - If this saves you even 5 hours this week, forward it to one person drowning in their inbox. You'll be their hero.