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My guest today is Simo D. After nearly 20 years in renovation, a season on HGTV's Marriage Under Construction and an award-finalist book for homeowners, he left Canada for Belize in 2022 and rebuilt his career from scratch: first as a writer, and now as an AI systems developer running BottBott Business Systems.
Simo D is a Canadian-born writer and AI systems developer based in Belize. After nearly 20 years in residential renovation, he moved abroad in 2022, became a content writer, and now builds AI-powered workflow and automation systems for owner-operated businesses at BottBott Business Systems. He is the author of Home In Good Hands, a finalist in the 2023 Readers' Favorite International Book Awards, and writes the Unfiltered Abroad and BottBott newsletters on Substack.
Simo D is a Canadian-born writer and AI systems developer based in Belize. Before moving abroad, he spent nearly 20 years in residential construction and renovation, including 15 years running his own business. His work landed him a spot on season 4 of HGTV's Marriage Under Construction. Decades on job sites taught him how to run projects, deal with clients, and deliver on a promise; lessons that still shape how he works today. In 2022, Simo left the trade and moved his life to Belize. Abroad, he reinvented himself. A degree in International History gave him a storytelling instinct, which he turned into a second career as a content writer, just before large language models became commercially available. Leveraging this new technology, he worked heavily with LLMs to hone his writing, then moved from prompt engineering to assisted software development, and now runs BottBott Business Systems, where he builds AI-powered workflow and automation systems for founders and owner-operated businesses. He writes about his passions, life abroad and AI, in two Substack publications, Unfiltered Abroad and BottBott. Simo also writes for trade industry magazines, with bylines in Mechanical Perspective, Piling Canada, and SnowOps. Simo's perspective comes from having rebuilt a career and a life from scratch in a new country, and from the practical side of what it takes to make that leap work.
Topics I can talk about
- T-01Leaving it all behind
What it actually took to leave Canada, family and a 20-year career for Belize, and what nobody tells you beforehand.
- T-02When the honeymoon phase ends
The hidden challenges of moving abroad, and how to get through the hard months.
- T-03From tool belt to AI
Rebuilding a career from scratch: renovation contractor to writer to AI systems developer.
- T-04AI for owner-operated businesses
Practical AI agents and automation for small businesses, minus the hype.
- T-05Adding human-level nuance to AI
Why AI output still reads like AI, and how to build the judgment layer that gives AI systems human-level nuance.
- T-06Real life in Belize
Cost of living, community and day-to-day life as an expat in Belize.