A few months ago I started taking on freelance work focused on one thing: helping small teams and solo operators stop doing the same tasks over and over by hand.
Not the glamorous side of AI. Not chatbots that answer FAQs. Real workflow automation, the kind that actually changes how a business runs day to day.
Here's what that looks like in practice.
The typical setup I walk into
Most of the businesses I've worked with aren't huge. They're small agencies, ecommerce stores, SaaS startups with 2-10 people. And they all have some version of the same problem:
- Leads come in but nobody follows up fast enough
- Data lives in 3 different tools that don't sync
- Someone manually copies info between apps every morning
- Reports get built by hand each week
None of this requires a developer full-time. It just needs someone who knows how to connect the pieces.
What I actually build
I work mainly with n8n and custom AI agents. Here's a breakdown of what that covers:
n8n workflows handle the connective tissue, things like routing form submissions, syncing data between a CRM and a spreadsheet, triggering emails based on user behavior, or building simple internal tools without writing a full backend.
AI agents take it further. When a task needs some judgment, like qualifying a lead, summarizing a document, generating a draft response, or deciding which path a workflow should take, that's where an AI layer fits in.
The combination is powerful for small teams because it replaces hours of manual work without needing a huge infrastructure investment.
How the process works
When someone comes to me with a problem, here's how I approach it:
- We scope out what's actually happening and what the desired output is
- I map out the workflow logic and identify where AI fits vs. simple automation
- I build and test it in a staging environment
- Handoff includes documentation and a walkthrough so they can manage it themselves
That last part matters. I don't want clients dependent on me forever for something that should run on its own.
If this sounds like something you need
I've got an active Fiverr gig for exactly this kind of work. Three tiers depending on complexity, from a single workflow up to a full multi-step AI agent system.
Feel free to drop a comment here too if you have a use case you're unsure about. Happy to talk through whether it's worth automating.
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