<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss version="2.0"><channel><title>Figaro — the guide &amp; field notes</title><description>The operating system for e-commerce founders in million-dollar hell — every function staffed by an AI seat, every decision still yours.</description><link>https://thinkfigaro.com/</link><item><title>The Day the Counter Moved: Closed Loops 0 → 2</title><link>https://thinkfigaro.com/notes/the-day-the-counter-moved/</link><guid isPermaLink="true">https://thinkfigaro.com/notes/the-day-the-counter-moved/</guid><description>For weeks our closed-loop counter sat at zero on purpose — a promise we hadn&apos;t earned yet. On one day in August it moved to two: one bet graded a miss, one graded a hit. Here is why that day mattered more than either result.</description><pubDate>Thu, 13 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><category>receipts</category><category>ledger</category><category>field-note</category></item><item><title>A guide is coming</title><link>https://thinkfigaro.com/notes/hello-figaro/</link><guid isPermaLink="true">https://thinkfigaro.com/notes/hello-figaro/</guid><description>Why we are publishing a field guide to running an e-commerce brand with AI agents — and what to expect from these field notes.</description><pubDate>Thu, 30 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><category>agents</category><category>ecommerce</category><category>announcement</category></item><item><title>The E-commerce Founder&apos;s Guide to Running Your Brand with AI Agents — Ch.2: Agents 101 for Founders: What Is an AI Agent Harness?</title><link>https://thinkfigaro.com/guide/agents-101/</link><guid isPermaLink="true">https://thinkfigaro.com/guide/agents-101/</guid><description>What an AI agent harness is, in plain terms for store owners: the loop, the harness, and the seat — and why most AI disappointment is a missing harness.</description><pubDate>Thu, 30 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><category>agents</category><category>ecommerce</category></item><item><title>The E-commerce Founder&apos;s Guide to Running Your Brand with AI Agents — Ch.6: The AI Media Buyer: Can AI Run Your Facebook Ads?</title><link>https://thinkfigaro.com/guide/ai-media-buyer/</link><guid isPermaLink="true">https://thinkfigaro.com/guide/ai-media-buyer/</guid><description>What an AI agent can and cannot do in Meta ads: audit before optimize, signal health before ROAS, and why every dollar move waits at one approval gate.</description><pubDate>Thu, 30 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><category>agents</category><category>ecommerce</category><category>advertising</category><category>meta</category></item><item><title>The E-commerce Founder&apos;s Guide to Running Your Brand with AI Agents — Ch.8: BYOK: What AI Agents Cost and Why Markups Break Trust</title><link>https://thinkfigaro.com/guide/byok-economics/</link><guid isPermaLink="true">https://thinkfigaro.com/guide/byok-economics/</guid><description>What AI agents actually cost to run per task, how to stop a runaway swarm from burning your credits, and why a vendor marking up your tokens is misaligned.</description><pubDate>Thu, 30 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><category>agents</category><category>ecommerce</category><category>byok</category><category>cost</category></item><item><title>The E-commerce Founder&apos;s Guide to Running Your Brand with AI Agents — Ch.5: The Marketplace Tedium Seat: Amazon Seller Central Automation</title><link>https://thinkfigaro.com/guide/marketplace-tedium/</link><guid isPermaLink="true">https://thinkfigaro.com/guide/marketplace-tedium/</guid><description>How to automate Amazon Seller Central with AI agents — what the Selling Partner API allows, where Amazon&apos;s rules draw the line, and what stays human.</description><pubDate>Thu, 30 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><category>agents</category><category>ecommerce</category><category>amazon</category><category>marketplaces</category></item><item><title>The E-commerce Founder&apos;s Guide to Running Your Brand with AI Agents — Ch.7: Did It Actually Work? How to Measure AI Agent ROI</title><link>https://thinkfigaro.com/guide/measuring-agents/</link><guid isPermaLink="true">https://thinkfigaro.com/guide/measuring-agents/</guid><description>How to measure AI agent ROI honestly: trust an agent on activity, never on value. Attach a metric and a deadline up front, then read the verdict from real data.</description><pubDate>Thu, 30 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><category>agents</category><category>ecommerce</category><category>measurement</category></item><item><title>The E-commerce Founder&apos;s Guide to Running Your Brand with AI Agents — Ch.1: Million-Dollar Hell: The $1M–$10M E-commerce Dead Zone</title><link>https://thinkfigaro.com/guide/million-dollar-hell/</link><guid isPermaLink="true">https://thinkfigaro.com/guide/million-dollar-hell/</guid><description>Why $1M–$10M owner-operator brands stall: real product-market fit, no margin for the specialist layer. What the dead zone costs, and what changed in 2026.</description><pubDate>Thu, 30 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><category>agents</category><category>ecommerce</category></item><item><title>The E-commerce Founder&apos;s Guide to Running Your Brand with AI Agents — Ch.10: The Conductor: What Founders Do When Agents Do the Work</title><link>https://thinkfigaro.com/guide/the-conductor/</link><guid isPermaLink="true">https://thinkfigaro.com/guide/the-conductor/</guid><description>The founder&apos;s job is moving from operator to conductor — taste, discernment, discretion. What the daily practice looks like, and why it is a promotion.</description><pubDate>Thu, 30 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><category>agents</category><category>ecommerce</category></item><item><title>The E-commerce Founder&apos;s Guide to Running Your Brand with AI Agents — Ch.3: The One Gate: Human-in-the-Loop Approval for AI Agents</title><link>https://thinkfigaro.com/guide/the-one-gate/</link><guid isPermaLink="true">https://thinkfigaro.com/guide/the-one-gate/</guid><description>How to run AI agents safely with your own logins: one approval gate for every money-or-publish action, autonomy earned rung by rung, and hard spend caps.</description><pubDate>Thu, 30 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><category>agents</category><category>ecommerce</category><category>governance</category><category>safety</category></item><item><title>The E-commerce Founder&apos;s Guide to Running Your Brand with AI Agents — Ch.9: When to Hire a Human: Will AI Agents Replace Employees?</title><link>https://thinkfigaro.com/guide/when-to-hire-a-human/</link><guid isPermaLink="true">https://thinkfigaro.com/guide/when-to-hire-a-human/</guid><description>Which jobs AI agents should never take, and how a seat&apos;s own metrics tell you when a human hire is justified — with receipts instead of guesswork.</description><pubDate>Thu, 30 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><category>agents</category><category>ecommerce</category><category>hiring</category></item><item><title>The E-commerce Founder&apos;s Guide to Running Your Brand with AI Agents — Ch.4: Your First Seat: The First AI Agent for a Shopify Store</title><link>https://thinkfigaro.com/guide/your-first-seat/</link><guid isPermaLink="true">https://thinkfigaro.com/guide/your-first-seat/</guid><description>How to pick your first AI agent for a Shopify or Amazon store: low blast radius, high tedium, read-only to start — and what an API key actually is.</description><pubDate>Thu, 30 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><category>agents</category><category>ecommerce</category></item></channel></rss>