Automate your workflows
Stitch your tools together so the busywork runs itself.
3 steps to get you moving, each with a resource worth your time and more waiting underneath
Think of this as a friendly starting line, not the last word. Each step gives you the gist, then a resource worth your time from founders who've actually done it. There's always more underneath, more questions and more resources, whenever you feel like digging in.
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1
Workflows & AutomationWhat's the difference between automation (Zapier, n8n, Make) and AI agents?
The gist Tools like Zapier, Make, and n8n run fixed recipes you design in advance: when X happens, do Y, then Z, the same steps every single time, which makes them cheap and reliable. An AI agent adds a language model that can read the situation, make decisions, and choose its own next steps, which makes it flexible but also slower, pricier, and less predictable. Most founders actually need a plain workflow with one smart AI step inside it (e.g. 'summarize this email' or 'draft a reply'); save true agents for tasks that genuinely require judgment.
AI Agents, Clearly Explained Jeff Su The clearest 10-minute, jargon-free walkthrough of the LLM → AI workflow → AI agent ladder, with real examples a non-technical founder can follow. -
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Finance & AccountingHow do founders use AI for bookkeeping, invoicing, runway and burn analysis?
The gist Founders now hand AI the boring parts of finance: reading supplier invoices from email, categorizing bank transactions, drafting collection emails for unpaid invoices, and reconciling accounts against QuickBooks, Xero or Zoho Books. They also paste in a bank statement or P&L export and ask the AI plain questions like "what's my monthly burn and how many months of runway do I have if revenue stays flat?" The rule that works: give the AI real source data and a narrow job, then review its output, it's a very fast junior bookkeeper, not a replacement for accurate books or a good accountant.
How to replace your bookkeeper with AI Dan Norris (7-time founder, East Coast Roast) A real founder documents delegating ~80% of his admin, invoice entry, daily bank reconciliation, order invoicing, to Claude, including what broke and what didn't. -
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ProductivityWhy let AI handle meeting notes, action items, and follow-ups (Granola, Fathom, Fireflies)?
The gist AI notetakers like Granola, Fathom, and Fireflies listen to your calls and turn them into clean notes, action items, and draft follow-up emails, so you can actually be present in the conversation instead of typing. For a founder running back-to-back investor, customer, and hiring calls, every meeting becomes a searchable record you (or an AI assistant) can query later, 'what did that customer object to last month?', instead of a memory that evaporates. Follow-ups that used to take 30 minutes go out in two.
Can Granola's AI meeting notes eat bigger apps for breakfast? Alex Konrad (Upstarts Media, ex-Forbes) Reported deep-dive on why founders became Granola's core users, with real examples like piping 25+ customer-interview notes into NotebookLM for synthesis.
