The setup nobody believes

I run an AI consulting agency with zero employees. No contractors, no VAs, no part-time help. Just me, eight AI agents, and a voice assistant that answers the company phone 24/7.

My day job is Information System Security Manager for a DoD contractor. I hold CISSP and CISM certifications. I work from Stuttgart, Germany. Solas AI serves small and mid-size service businesses across the United States - dental offices, HVAC companies, plumbers, electricians, law firms.

Everything you see from Solas AI - the lead research, the content, the outreach, the follow-ups, the scheduling - runs on AI-powered automation that I built and maintain during evenings and weekends. Central European Time, which means I’m six to nine hours ahead of most of my clients.

This isn’t a thought experiment. It’s the actual operating model. And it’s the same model we implement for our clients.

Why I didn’t hire

The math never made sense. A part-time marketing person costs $2,000-$3,000/month. A part-time admin, another $1,500-$2,000. A virtual assistant overseas, $800-$1,200. Before you’ve done a single hour of client work, you’re carrying $4,000-$6,000/month in overhead.

For a bootstrapped agency running nights and weekends, that’s a death sentence. You’d need $8,000-$10,000/month in revenue just to break even on payroll - before rent, software, and your own compensation.

So I built agents instead.

The eight agents that run the business

Solas AI runs on the Claude Agent SDK with Supabase for data and n8n for workflow orchestration. Here’s what each agent actually does:

Lead Researcher - Scans industry directories, review sites, and public business data to find service businesses that match our ideal client profile. Prioritizes finding valid email addresses and direct contact info. Outputs a scored prospect list every week.

Content Writer - Drafts blog posts, social media content, and email sequences. I review and approve everything before it goes out, but the first draft is 80-90% there. This post started as an agent draft that I rewrote by hand - because a case study about your own company needs your actual voice.

Outreach Drafter - Takes the prospect list and writes personalized cold outreach. Not template spam. Each message references something specific about the business - their Google review count, their website gaps, their competitors’ automation.

Scheduler - Manages calendar availability, sends booking links, handles confirmations and reminders. Syncs across time zones so a plumber in Phoenix gets slot options in MST, not CET.

Monitor - Watches uptime, error rates, and pipeline health. Alerts me via Telegram if something breaks. I wake up to a status summary every morning.

Analytics - Tracks campaign performance, response rates, and funnel metrics. Generates weekly reports so I know what’s working without digging through dashboards.

Client Onboarding - When a new client signs, this agent kicks off the setup workflow: creates their project workspace, generates the initial automation audit, and schedules the kickoff call.

Sage (Voice Agent) - This is the one people remember. Sage is an ElevenLabs-powered voice AI that answers the Solas AI phone line at (307) 357-1525, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Call it right now if you want. Sage handles initial inquiries, captures caller details, and routes urgent items to me via Telegram.

No human receptionist. No voicemail. No “we’ll get back to you during business hours.” A prospective client calling at 2 AM gets a live, intelligent conversation.

What I still do myself

AI handles the volume work. I handle the judgment calls:

  • Client calls and strategy sessions - When a dental office wants to understand how AI can reduce their no-show rate, that conversation requires empathy and business context that agents can’t replicate yet.
  • Pricing decisions - Every engagement is scoped by hand. I look at the client’s tech stack, their pain points, and their budget. No cookie-cutter packages.
  • Final approval on all client-facing communication - Every outreach email, every proposal, every deliverable gets my eyes before it reaches a client. The agents draft. I decide.
  • Architecture and security - My day job is securing information systems for the Department of Defense. That same discipline goes into every client implementation. Data handling, access controls, encryption, audit trails - these aren’t afterthoughts.

This split is deliberate. Automate the repeatable. Keep human judgment on the things that build trust.

The security background as a feature, not a footnote

Most AI agencies are started by marketers or developers. Nothing wrong with that. But when you’re asking a dental office to connect their patient management system to AI workflows, someone should be thinking about HIPAA. When you’re automating a law firm’s intake process, someone should be thinking about attorney-client privilege and data residency.

I think about that stuff professionally. Eight hours a day, five days a week, I assess information systems against federal security frameworks. Then I come home and build AI automation with the same mindset.

Every Solas AI implementation includes:

  • Data flow documentation - Where client data goes, who can access it, how long it’s retained
  • Access controls - Principle of least privilege on every integration
  • Encryption in transit and at rest - No exceptions
  • Audit logging - Every agent action is traceable

This isn’t a premium add-on. It’s how we build everything. Because “move fast and break things” is not an acceptable philosophy when you’re handling someone’s customer data.

What this means for you

If you’re a service business owner reading this, here’s the point: the same automation that lets one person run an agency can let your three-person office operate like a ten-person operation.

You don’t need to hire an AI engineer. You don’t need to understand Claude or Supabase or n8n. You need someone who does - and who can build it so it works reliably, securely, and without you babysitting it.

That’s what we do. We practice it on ourselves first, then we bring it to you.

Talk to Sage

Want to see it in action? Call (307) 357-1525. Sage will pick up. It’s not a voicemail tree. It’s not a recording. It’s the AI voice agent that runs our front desk - the same technology we deploy for our clients.

Or email me directly at [email protected]. I read every message personally (the agents haven’t taken that from me yet).

Less grind. More growth. That’s not just our tagline - it’s how we operate.

Less grind. More growth.