The engineering behind YourBOT: How I built a UK first AI platform

CREATED BY STEFFI LEWIS Published: 27/11/2025 @ 09:00AM #YourBOT #SaaSFounders #UKTech #MadeInTheUK #AIEngineering #DevStory

Every SaaS has a story, but YourBOT's begins in a place most people wouldn't expect: a Classic ASP codebase, an SQL Server back-end, and a developer with more than three decades of experience building web platforms long before 'SaaS' was even a thing ...

AI chatbot platform UK, Technology connects us, Unleashing our minds

While Silicon Valley likes to brag about frameworks that didn't exist five minutes ago, YourBOT was built the old-school way - by someone who knows their tools inside out.It grew from the simple idea that UK small businesses deserved an AI chatbot solution that didn't require a computer science degree just to get started.

Building it meant rethinking what an AI
chatbot platform could look like!

The priority has to be usability, stability, and speed rather than shiny complexity. It also meant weaving modern AI capabilities into a familiar, rock-solid foundation that has powered business systems for years.

At the core sits Classic ASP and SQL Server - a pairing that's battle-tested, fast, and endlessly flexible. While newer frameworks might trend on Twitter for five minutes, ASP still offers something invaluable: total control. Every line of logic, every CRON task, every query, every data-handling routine has been designed, handwritten, tested, and refined.

The database structure powering YourBOT has grown into a smart, lean engine with tables for bots, chats, leads, conversations, FAQs, queues, charts, URLs, RSS feeds, triggers, nudges, and everything in between. Behind the scenes, each botlet - the term for individual bots - sits as a fully isolated entity that can be trained, configured, and deployed in minutes.

One of the biggest engineering challenges was getting
the Stripe integration just right!

It needed to be seamless, secure, predictable, and flexible enough to power the subscription model for hundreds (and eventually thousands) of bots. Handling subscriptions, upgrades, downgrades, prorations, limits, and Stripe Climate contributions required a custom billing logic that plays nicely with the YourBOT system at every step. The result is a billing engine that feels effortless to users, but took an architect's precision to build.

Then came the metrics engine: a full analytics system that captures every question, every reply, every lead, every page host, and every country. It runs through CRON tasks on a dedicated subdomain, processing chats overnight and preparing the charts users see on their dashboards. These tasks handle queue processing, daily summaries, lead delivery, and conversation structuring, all while keeping the central YourBOT platform running at full speed.

Another key engineering component is the automatic JSON generator that produces structured data for websites. This isn't a plugin or a borrowed library - it's a custom-built generator that reads each bot's FAQs, URLs and RSS feed items then builds JSON-LD, and injects it safely into the client's page. It gives websites a genuine SEO bump without any extra work, and it's one of the most quietly powerful features of the whole platform.

But the real magic is the botlets!

The concept was simple: give every website its own tiny AI brain that can be trained, customised, and deployed independently. No shared confusion, no tangled datasets, no content crossover. Just clean, self-contained AI instances that learn what their owners teach them. This architecture is why YourBOT feels so fast, so predictable, and so easy to use.

Building YourBOT has been both an engineering challenge and a deeply personal achievement. It's the culmination of a 32-year coding career, tied together with modern AI integrations, careful design choices, and a determination to build something genuinely useful for UK businesses.

It proves that innovation isn't about chasing the newest tech stack - it's about knowing how to use the tools that work and bending them into something fresh.

The engineering is ongoing, the platform is expanding, and the story isn't finished yet. But one thing is certain: YourBOT was made in the UK, built with heart, powered by experience, and designed to help small businesses thrive.

Until next time ...

STEFFI LEWIS
A.K.A The SaaSy Coder
Creator of sBlogIt! YourPCM & YourBOT

Join our mailing list! Click here and be one of the first to know when we publish a new blog post!

Share the blog love ...

Buffer Facebook Twitter Linkedin Pinterest WhatsApp #YourBOT #SaaSFounders #UKTech #MadeInTheUK #AIEngineering #DevStory

About Steffi Lewis ...
I bring over 30 years of experience in web development. From creating my first website for the Open University in 1993, through being part of the dot com boom, to my explorations in SaaS and AI over the last few years, my journey has been a rich tapestry of web projects, big and small, both funded and bootstrapped. My head is in the cloud, my heart belongs to the web, and my soul is filled with such beautiful code 💗

More blog posts for you to enjoy ...
		Why smart AI chatbots create better customer engagement Many business websites still behave like digital brochures. They display information, list services, add a contact form somewhere near the bottom of the page, and then quietly wait for visitors to figure everything out on the...
		How to launch your first YourBOT smart AI chatbot this week Launching a smart AI chatbot used to seem like a project that needed a developer, lots of documentation, and strong coffee. Fortunately, platforms like YourBOT now make it simple, even for small businesses with limited time a...
		Why most AI chatbots are overcomplicated and how YourBOT is smarter than that AI chatbots are everywhere at the moment, but many businesses quickly discover the same frustrating problem once they start exploring them properly: they are often far too complicated ......
		How to turn your website into a 24/7 sales assistant For many small businesses, a website is little more than a digital brochure. It sits there, looking professional, doing its best, and then quietly ignoring visitors. But with the addition of a smart AI chatbot, that same webs...
		Bad chatbots vs good chatbots: what your potential customers actually notice Many businesses like the idea of having a chatbot on their website. It feels modern, helpful, and a bit 'AI-powered'. But there is a world of difference between a chatbot that quietly helps convert visitors and one that drive...
		What should your smart AI chatbot say? A simple guide to training our bots When people first look at adding a smart AI chatbot to their website, there's often a quiet assumption sitting in the background: that it somehow just 'knows' what to say. A bit of setup, a sprinkle of artificial intelligence...
		How web designers can turn our AI chatbots into monthly recurring revenue If you're a web designer, you've probably noticed the same pattern over the years. You build a website, deliver it, get paid once, and then ... nothing. Maybe a small tweak here and there, but largely, you're back to chasing ...
		7 ways a smart AI chatbot works for you while you sleep Imagine waking up in the morning to new leads waiting in your inbox, warmed-up prospects, and questions already answered. That's not wishful thinking, that's exactly what a smart AI chatbot does when it quietly works for you ...

Other bloggers you may like ...
		Balancing a service business with building investments Posted by Sarah Hannaford on https://blog.sarahpasolutions.co.uk Starting to build a property portfolio while running an Online PA business has been both exciting and eye-opening for me. After buying my first invest ...
		Why the middle-income trap matters in the salary sacrifice cap Posted by Helen Beaumont on https://blog.essendontax.co.uk The salary sacrifice cap sounds as though it is aimed at high earners, but the detail creates a middle-income trap for everyday savers and SMEs. Below ...
		Introducing YourPING: Because someone should notice if you don't check in Posted by Steffi Lewis on https://www.yourping.uk There are moments in life that most people never really think about until they happen to someone else. A missed message. An unanswered phone call. Cur ...
		Being rewarded for helping people save money Posted by Davina Farrer on https://blog.joindavina.co.uk One of the things I love most about what I do is helping people save money on everyday household costs while also building additional income streams f ...