When Rowan Cheung started The Rundown AI, most observers assumed he had a sprawling staff of 50 to 100 employees to manage the millions of views and multi-million dollar revenue streams his media empire generates. The reality is far more lean: a core team of just 15 people. The secret to their massive output isn't working longer hours—it is the strategic deployment of AI agents for business. By delegating high-friction tasks like scheduling, lead response, and internal onboarding to autonomous agents, Cheung has effectively removed the 'management debt' that usually cripples growing startups. This playbook breaks down the exact operational systems you can use to achieve similar scale with minimal overhead.
Why AI Agents for Business are the New Operational Gold Standard
In traditional business scaling, growth is linear: if you want more output, you hire more people. However, hiring introduces complexity. A 50-person team requires managers, HR policies, and endless internal communication. This is often referred to as management debt. By utilizing OpenAI models and specialized agent platforms, founders can now bypass this hiring trap. Business process automation AI allows a small team to maintain the speed of a startup while delivering the volume of an enterprise. As Cheung explains, a 15-person team powered by agents can actually move faster than a 50-person team because there are fewer communication silos and human bottlenecks.
The ‘Ava’ Agent: A Lindy AI Agent Tutorial for Seamless Scheduling
One of the most persistent frictions in business operations is the back-and-forth of meeting scheduling. While tools like Calendly are common, they often carry a 'social tax' or a sense of impersonal friction. To solve this, Cheung built 'Ava,' a custom meeting scheduler using Lindy.ai. Ava acts as a virtual executive assistant that lives in your inbox. When a lead or partner requests a meeting, you simply CC Ava. The agent then accesses your Google Calendar, identifies your preferred deep-work blocks, and negotiates a time directly with the recipient. This isn't just a bot; it's a high-speed responder that can book meetings in under 60 seconds.
Lindy AI Agent Tutorial: Setting Up Your Scheduler
- Connect Your Workspace: Link your primary business Gmail or Outlook account to the Lindy platform.
- Define Your Windows: Unlike a standard calendar, instruct your agent to only offer specific 'meeting blocks' (e.g., 1 PM to 4 PM, Tuesday through Thursday) to protect your deep work.
- Brand Your Agent: Give the agent a name (like Ava) and a custom email signature. This makes the interaction feel like a high-touch human assistant rather than a cold software link.
- Set Rescheduling Rules: Program the agent to handle cancellations. If a client says, 'Actually, Tuesday doesn't work,' Ava can instantly wipe the old invite and propose three new slots without you ever seeing the email.
Automated Onboarding: Using AI to Reduce Management Debt
As you scale, automate employee onboarding AI becomes the only way to maintain quality without the founder spending 10 hours a week answering the same questions. The Rundown uses a custom GPT trained on every SOP (Standard Operating Procedure), Loom transcript, and HR document in the company. This agent serves as the 'Single Source of Truth.' New hires are given a simple directive: Do not ask a human a question until you have asked the GPT first.
This business process automation AI handles everything from 'How do I submit an expense report?' to 'What is our policy on using Claude for newsletter drafts?' Because the GPT is grounded in actual company data, it provides instant, accurate answers 24/7. This effectively removes the 'manager bottleneck' and allows new employees to become productive in days instead of weeks. AI for operational efficiency turns your internal documentation from a dusty folder in Google Drive into an active, conversational coach for your team.
The 24/7 Lead Responder: Filtering and Closing in Real-Time
In the world of high-ticket partnerships and sponsorships, speed to lead is the most important metric. If a CMO from a major company reaches out, waiting 24 hours for a human response is a lost opportunity. Cheung’s team utilizes Zapier Agents to monitor their support and partnership inboxes. The agent performs three critical tasks: it filters out spam and out-of-office replies, it auto-drafts a personalized response based on the lead’s query, and it pings the relevant human team member on Slack for high-value opportunities.
For businesses scaling their marketing efforts, managing these relationships becomes a full-time job. This is where tools like Stormy AI can significantly augment your operations. While your internal agents handle incoming leads, Stormy AI can act as your autonomous discovery and outreach arm. You can set up an AI agent within Stormy to find creators, vet them for fake followers, and send hyper-personalized outreach emails while you sleep. By combining internal response agents with external discovery tools like Stormy, you create a closed-loop system that generates and handles leads without human intervention.
Content Operations: Scaling the ‘Idea Guy’ with Avatars
Rowan Cheung admits he isn't a 'video guy,' yet his short-form content reaches millions. He achieved this by cloning his face and voice. Using HeyGen for the video avatar and ElevenLabs for the voice, his team can turn a written tweet or newsletter section into a viral video in minutes. The 'avatar' only appears for the first few seconds to establish authority, while the rest of the video uses high-quality B-roll and storytelling. This AI for operational efficiency allows a founder to stay in their 'Zone of Genius' (writing and strategy) while their digital twin handles the high-effort production of social media.
This same philosophy applies to managing the influencers and UGC creators who might be promoting your brand. Instead of hiring a team of 10 talent managers, using a Creator CRM like Stormy AI allows one person to track hundreds of collaborations, manage payments, and monitor post-performance. When your content and creator management are both powered by AI, you eliminate the traditional 'scaling pain' of content marketing.
Cost vs. Speed: The Economics of the 15-Person Team
When comparing the cost of 50 employees to a 15-person team using AI agents for business, the numbers are staggering. A 50-person team might cost $5 million+ per year in payroll and benefits. A 15-person team with a robust AI tech stack costs a fraction of that, yet produces higher quality work because the AI doesn't get tired, doesn't need 'sync meetings,' and never misses a lead. For small teams, the goal should be to automate the 'robotic' parts of every job. If a task is repetitive—like scheduling, summarizing YouTube videos via Perplexity, or answering HR questions—it should be handled by an agent. This leaves your humans free to do what they do best: creative strategy and high-level decision making.
Conclusion: Building Your Agentic Future
The era of the 'idea guy' is here, but ideas are only as good as the systems that execute them. Scaling your business operations in 2024 requires a shift from people-first to agent-first. Start by identifying your biggest friction point—whether it's onboarding new hires or managing creator outreach—and deploy a single agent to solve it. Whether you are using Lindy to kill the scheduling headache or leveraging Stormy AI to automate your influencer discovery and CRM, the goal is the same: maximize output, minimize management debt. Stop hiring to solve complexity; start automating to solve it.