For founder-led firms in West Michigan
I help founder-led firms in West Michigan turn messy workflows into private AI operators: connected to your tools, hosted in a private managed environment, monitored, maintained, and improved every month.
Who this is for
Agencies, advisory firms, staffing and recruiting firms, insurance agencies, professional services, and real estate teams. The shape of firm where the founder still answers the door.
Flagship offer
AI Set Up becomes your fractional AI department. I identify the workflows, build the agents, connect your tools, host the infrastructure, monitor the systems, fix what breaks, and keep improving the setup every month.
Pricing
$5,000/month
Fully managed. Fixed monthly price. Built for founder-led firms, not enterprise procurement.
How to start
Usually starts with a paid workflow audit. If we continue, the audit is credited toward the first month.
Start with a fit callWhat gets installed
Most firms do not need another dashboard. They need fewer dropped follow-ups, less context hunting, faster research, cleaner handoffs, and a founder who is no longer the bottleneck for every small decision.
Example install
A proactive operational layer that watches incoming signals, retrieves context, drafts replies, tracks follow-ups, and keeps important threads from disappearing.
Example install
An AI operator that researches leads, events, companies, and contacts, then prepares useful context before outreach.
Example install
A system that keeps client context, handoffs, deliverables, and open loops organized across the tools your team already uses.
Example install
For repeatable workflows that are specific to your firm: quoting, onboarding, reporting, intake, research, internal knowledge, or tool-specific processes.
How it works
You do not need to pick from a menu of AI tools. We start with the business friction, map the useful opportunities, then install and manage the systems that are worth keeping.
A 30-minute conversation. You describe the firm, the daily friction, and what keeps slipping. I tell you whether this is a fit. If not, I'll point you somewhere better.
A 90-minute working session inside your actual tools. We map where context lives, what repeats, what gets dropped, and where AI could pay back quickly. You receive a written recommendations sheet. Typical audit: $1,000-$1,500, credited toward the first month if we continue.
If there is enough opportunity, I install and manage the AI department for $5,000/month. That includes buildout, hosting, integrations, monitoring, maintenance, and ongoing improvements. The first month is about adjusting until it sticks; the ongoing work is about keeping it useful, reliable, and out of the way.
Recent work
Real systems installed inside small teams, from founder support to sales research to shared internal knowledge.
Managed AI Department
The founders were managing client context, email drafts, tasks, networking opportunities, lead research, and follow-up reminders across scattered tools. We audited their workflows, mapped the repeatable patterns, and installed a VPS-hosted AI assistant connected through Composio. The assistant now helps draft emails, retrieve client context, research leads and events, manage task follow-through, and keep don't drop the ball items visible.
Custom Agentic Setup
The team's cold-call workflow lived across spreadsheets, lists, and tabs, and follow-ups had a habit of disappearing after the call. We built an assistant that handles the whole arc: it helps reps think through the product and the right targets, pulls a call list via Apollo, and enriches each prospect with LinkedIn, Google, and broader web research. After the call, the rep tells the assistant how it went, and it keeps a running lightweight CRM with notes, follow-up needs, and timing.
Chief of Staff (Basic)
As a fractional COO, Rachel lives in the messy middle of several businesses at the same time: email, Slack, DMs, and calendars across each client, with no single place to hold the threads. We installed an assistant that watches every signal source, separates what needs her attention from what can wait, and keeps a single source of truth for conversations and action across the firms she supports. Less mental overhead, fewer dropped threads, and reliable coordination across several operating environments at once.
Custom Agentic Setup
The team had been using ChatGPT and Claude individually, which meant every person was rediscovering the same answers. We built them an internal chat that looks like the tools they already knew but is grounded in the organization itself, with a tailored org prompt, per-user prompts, and shared context that propagates across threads so what one teammate surfaces is available to the rest. Live web access via Exa keeps responses current. The team works from shared context now instead of isolated chats.
Blog
Short writing for founders who need fewer abstractions and more working systems.
For founder-led firms, the safest first AI win is usually a back-office operator that reduces missed follow-ups, stale CRM notes, and repetitive admin work — not a public-facing chatbot.
A plain-English look at what a managed AI department includes: workflow mapping, private agents, tool connections, monitoring, maintenance, and ongoing improvement.
AI is most useful inside a founder-led firm when it helps with the boring, expensive work that keeps slipping: follow-ups, context, tasks, research, and handoffs.
The founder
I've spent years inside small service firms. The kind of places where the founder still answers the door. The pattern is almost always the same: the operating system of the business lives in one person's head, the calendar is held together with willpower, and every new tool ends up as another tab nobody opens.
AI is the first thing in a long time that could actually move the line on that. But only if it's installed by someone who has been in the room, not by a vendor and not by a tool seller.
That's why I built AI Set Up. I do the install myself. I immerse myself in each engagement: in your tools, with your team, and I stay long enough to make sure it sticks. If we're a fit, you'll know in the first call.
A full-time operations or admin hire can cost $60k-$90k/year fully loaded. Software still needs someone to configure it, maintain it, and make sure the team uses it. AI Set Up gives you a managed AI department for $5k/month: the technical setup, the agents, the workflows, the monitoring, and the monthly improvements.
This is for firms where the founder's attention is the bottleneck.
For the skeptical
Answered here so we can spend the call on the parts that actually matter to your firm.
No. The work I install runs in the background and surfaces things people still decide on. The team is the point; the system is supposed to make their work less tedious, not unnecessary.
Your accounts stay yours. We connect through normal access controls in tools like Google Workspace, Slack, Notion, and CRMs. Before anything is connected, I'll make clear what the agent can access, what it cannot access, and why. The goal is to give the system only the access it needs to do the work we agreed on. The managed agent environment is scoped to the workflows we install, and the setup is documented so you understand what is connected.
Then we find that out in the workflow audit, and I tell you. I'd rather not take a project than install something that won't last.
The workflow audit gives you a usable recommendations sheet in about a week. If we continue into the managed service, the first month is focused on installing the highest-value workflows and tuning them until they are useful in daily work.
Because most of what breaks in a small firm isn't a missing feature; it's the gap between the tool and how the firm actually works. That gap is filled by judgment, not by SaaS. I close it by hand, then leave you with something that runs.
Your accounts, data, and access stay yours. If we stop working together, the managed service stops too: hosting, monitoring, maintenance, troubleshooting, and ongoing improvements. I will not hold your tools hostage, and you will have documentation of what was connected and how the workflows were set up. If you want another technical operator to take over, we can plan a handoff.
The fully managed AI department is $5,000/month. Most firms start with a workflow audit so we can map the highest-value opportunities before installing anything. If we continue into the managed service, the audit can be credited toward the first month. Smaller one-off installs may be quoted separately, but the main offer is ongoing management because the value comes from installation, tuning, monitoring, and continuous improvement.
Workflow mapping, agent setup, integrations, VPS hosting, monitoring, maintenance, troubleshooting, documentation, and ongoing monthly improvements. The goal is that your team does not need to manage the AI stack themselves.
No. AI Set Up is built for founder-led firms that want practical AI installed quickly without enterprise procurement, committees, or months of planning.
Usually no. The point is to make your existing tools work better. The agents connect to the tools your team already uses whenever possible.
Book
If your firm is curious about AI but does not have time to figure out the stack, book a 30-minute fit call. You describe the business. I'll tell you whether a managed AI department makes sense. If it does, we'll plan a workflow audit.
Direct
Book a 30-minute fit callbrandon@aisetup.techI read every note myself. Same-day reply on weekdays.
Where
Holland, MI
Who
Founder-led firms
How
Working sessions
Model
Managed monthly
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