As a Y Combinator-backed founder, I’ve lived and breathed the grind of a growing startup. Every day, the calendar is jam-packed and “business hours” quickly lose their meaning.
Each member of the team wears what feels like a hundred different hats for each of their roles, and every decision, every line of code, every customer interaction feels like it could make or break your dream.
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It’s hard to imagine how founders balanced it all when signatures had to be sought in-person versus over DocuSign or its equivalent.
Mahyar Raissi
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Co-Founder and CEO of Quo.
Now, the gamechanger is obviously AI – transformative at most, if not all, levels of the business. Founders and businesses who aren’t shifting strategy and spend to benefit from AI innovation aren’t going to stay competitive.
That said, most founders don’t have the time or in many cases the skill, to engineer prompts for or code – even in the most general sense – the solutions required for the various functions best aided by AI.
And for early stage and scaling companies, there isn’t a separate team on-call to source and sort among the emerging players to ensure the return will justify the investment of not only dollars, but of the most precious resource of all: time.
Big budget companies
With big budgets and plenty of resources, large companies can afford to explore new technology and take the time to integrate it smoothly. McKinsey reported that 90 percent of Fortune 500 companies are incorporating AI.
From intelligent chatbots that can personally handle customer questions to sophisticated code completion tools, hyperscalers like Amazon, Google and Microsoft are accelerating and optimizing their business capabilities with AI.
But what about the small and growing businesses closely tracking burn rate and runway? Just over half of small businesses take advantage of the new technology, according to American Express’ Trendex report. These businesses will have headcounts in the 100s, if not 10s, and need to be resource-effective while building to scale.
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This struggle – figuring out how to scale growth without exceeding finite resources in time and money – has always been part of the entrepreneurial journey. My co-founder and I both grew up with parents who ran small businesses – in my case both parents.
We knew what the entrepreneurial lifestyle meant in terms of work/life balance and the tension between wanting to execute on every idea and capture every business opportunity as it arose without overspending on growth or burning out in its pursuit.
And while the tools available to me at the start of my venture removed huge weights and costs that were once required to build a business, today’s innovations go so far beyond support and can actually take on essential tasks, functionally both expanding the team and extending the working hours available every day.
It’s no longer an enterprise-only game
AI agents are becoming more accessible, in both cost and functionality. Already, AI agents can handle administrative overhead: automatically filling out forms, generating invoices, or sorting incoming documents.
Agents can draft follow-up emails based on call summaries or CRM activity, tag and categorize customer feedback, or even track contract deadlines and the status of payment across multiple platforms.
Customer support teams can deploy AI tools to resolve basic tickets autonomously, escalate complex ones appropriately, and maintain SLAs around the clock.
Imagine an AI agent capable of not just picking up calls but understanding context, answering complex questions, routing calls intelligently, and even taking messages with detailed summaries. These agents can handle a surge in call volume without breaking a sweat, ensuring that no customer is left unheard or unattended.
They can pre-qualify leads, answer frequently asked questions, schedule appointments, and even process basic transactions, freeing up human staff to focus on more complex, high-value interactions.
Meanwhile, marketing teams can use AI agents to personalize campaigns based on behavior, recommend the right content, or even A/B test subject lines and visuals without requiring creatives to write one line of code.
Some AI tools can even generate social media posts, review analytics, and suggest the best time to publish. In finance and operations, agents can help reconcile bank transactions, draft budget forecasts, and even flag anomalies in spend or inventory.
Opportunities for growing business
What was once reserved for big businesses with big budgets has become increasingly startup-friendly. In fact, they’ve come so far, even small mom-and-pops can benefit.
For local services from dentists to contractors, AI schedulers and reminder tools can reduce no-shows, boost appointment volume, and give back time to busy teams.
By automating the initial touchpoints and routine work across every department, AI agents allow a lean team to manage a significantly larger volume of operations without sacrificing quality or personal touch.
And entrepreneurs’ kids can see mom and dad at dinner with much less worry that a call will interrupt the meal.
The true power of AI agents lies in their ability to unlock scaling capabilities that were previously out of reach for small and growing businesses.
This marks a fundamental shift in how small businesses can operate, compete, and ultimately thrive in an increasingly demanding marketplace.
The development of AI agents like ours is giving every founder, every small team, the power to grow their dream without overly straining finite resources like time and money.
These small teams can be as accessible and available as global enterprises with around-the-clock call centers, maintain the high-touch service they’ve built their reputation on, and still unplug for the visionary work that got them started on their own.
AI agents are leveling the playing field. They’re not just a tool for efficiency, they’re a vehicle for growth, resilience, and reinvention.
This is more than a technical evolution. It’s a revolution in how we do business.
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