Thank you for this - yes you're right, this is a hard lesson and luckily the stakes are fairly low for me. Had my startup been bigger though there would be pain and panic.
Thank you for pointing me toward the azure 3.5 - I will definitely check that out and that is the kind of solution I am looking for.
I just typed a super long reply and then my browser ate it... damn. I'll summarize what I said:
Provide value by building products that solve customer problems.
The majority of people aren't prompt engineers or coders, and many can't even simply visualize things or know where to start on complex projects.
Use your knowledge to create subject specific products that cater to workflows and formats that need to be specific and include insider knowledge that would take many many prompts to get close to achieving a good outcome.
I've now signed up for an Azure endpoint - let's see if it gets approved. It looks like the process to get a key is going to be a bit of a PITA.