Jamie Staffed Her Business with a Team of AI Agents

My wife Jamie runs a small business. The Original Stretchlace, elastic shoelaces, sold across many different channels. Like most founders, she already had the software: Shopify, QBO, the marketplaces, inventory tools, email, etc. The tools were never the hard part. Keeping them honest was. The reconciling, the upkeep, the blind spots that hide even when every system is on. All of it landed on her.

This year she hired a staff to carry it. Every one of them is an AI agent. She has a finance chief that pulls all channels into one place and tells her what actually makes money after the fees. A development team that runs her storefronts and keeps her laces turning up when someone asks Google or an AI assistant for no-tie shoelaces, and when something breaks, the fix ships that day, not next quarter. A right hand that turns scattered dashboards into plain answers about what to stock and reorder. A brand voice that keeps her content consistent. A chief of staff that holds the threads so nothing slips.

None of them sleep. None of them cost a salary she couldn’t afford. She spends less than a week’s worth of groceries a month to run the whole team.

Jamie still makes every call. She just stopped being the bottleneck for all of them.

Now, she had an advantage. She’s married to me, and using AI for positive ROI is what I do. Not every founder has one of those lying around.

But you don’t need one. A year ago, a staff like this was much more difficult and costly. Today it takes one task you’re tired of doing and a willingness to hand it to AI. The first hire is easier than it looks.

And if a small business can run this way, imagine what it can unlock in midsize and large companies. The principles don’t change. Only the scale does.

Jamie still runs her company. She’s just not doing it alone anymore.

I love helping people. DM me if it sparks any curiosity about what’s possible. I read and respond to every authentic message.