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#67 · Who Sets Up Software Accounts In An AI Automation Agency?

youtube ↗Agency Operations

Can you explain your agency structure and how many employees you have for running a $2 million business?

I run the agency with zero employees. I prefer contractors over employees because with contractors I just give them the work and a deadline, without managing their hours or schedule. Employees require a set schedule, clock‑in/out, and more regulations. Contractors have more flexibility, fewer legal constraints, and I can hire fantastic people who have their own systems. I give them a deliverable request, like “I need this done in two days, I’ll pay X amount,” and they deliver. Currently I have a YouTube editor, a strategist, a community manager, an agency partner who gets a percentage of projects, and previously a VA. This lean contractor model lets me move faster and focus on high‑margin direct work rather than scaling the agency.

agency-structureemployeescontractors

Related answers

youtube ↗Hiring & Team

How should I bring on my first employee? Should I pay a salary, use increments or profit‑share bonuses? How many hours do people work in your business? When should you hire the first hire and what should you expect?

After hiring around 40-50 people for my agency, I've realized I prefer to hire last. The common advice to delegate everything comes from a time when technology couldn't handle much of the work, but today technology gives us leverage, so you can realistically wait until you're making around $50k/month before your first hire instead of $15-20k. Hiring early is often just a band-aid for deeper problems—if you're under $25k/month the issue is usually your systems, not a lack of manpower. Focus on building systems that reduce the work needed to fulfill: automate repetitive tasks like onboarding emails, scheduling calls, and problem-solving via email; design productized offers that take half the effort to deliver (e.g., a form that auto-generates a campaign, scrapes leads, and follows up); create scalable sales flows (a discovery/closing call batched together, a proposal, and automated follow-ups that stop when a deal isn't worth the effort). Make client management discrete—set a daily 8 a.m. five-minute template update instead of letting clients interrupt you on WhatsApp all day. Hiring early means giving up a large share of profit (e.g., a $5k salary is half of your profit at 50% margins) plus management costs and risk; it's better to wait until revenue is higher so the hire is a smaller fraction of margin. I pay a flat salary plus a clear, trackable bonus—staff log it themselves and add it to their invoice—avoiding profit-share or rev-share because they misalign incentives and add overhead. Finally, I only care about deliverables: if someone is intelligent and ambitious they can build their own systems to finish work in fewer hours, and as long as the output is good I don't track hours.

hiringfirst employeesalaryprofit share
youtube ↗Agency Operations

How do you manage a $170,000 a month business?

I’ve built a strong team and leveraged systems. I started as a solo‑entrepreneur, scaling up to about $120K on my own, then realized a one‑person model was unsustainable. I shifted to a hybrid approach: about 80% of my time on agency work and 20% on R&D, personal branding, and YouTube. By delegating video outlines, editing, and other tasks to a community manager and a virtual assistant, I’ve reduced the daily workload from 3‑4 hours to roughly one hour while still growing revenue across agency retainer work, referrals, and info products.

agencyscalingteamsystems
youtube ↗Agency Operations

How can I scale an agency beyond ten clients?

It depends on what you’re delivering. If your retainer work is low‑time, like 30 minutes of website maintenance per month, you could have many clients. To scale beyond ten, focus on retainer deliverables that have little internal production cost—e.g., monthly reports, Loom video breakdowns, or limited Slack availability a few hours a day. This creates leverage and arbitrage between the time you put in and the perceived value, keeping you profitable.

agencyscalingretainersleverage
youtube ↗Agency Operations

How can I shift the way my business operates to increase the total ceiling revenue I can achieve as a solo freelancer?

Instead of selling custom builds or one‑off projects, switch to productized services. Create a simple, repeatable deliverable—like a basic CRM setup—so you don’t have to go through a lengthy scoping phase, learn new platforms, or do extensive revisions. You can price it lower (e.g., $2,000) and deliver more of them each month. Five $2,000 projects equal $10,000, which is double what you’d make from a single $5,000 project. The trade‑off is higher leverage: you either keep the old model and grow slowly, or you redesign your business to run on repeatable, smaller projects. That’s how many freelancers and solo agencies now hit $20‑$40k months.

productizedsolo agencyscaling