How we run it
I run a restaurant, a construction company, a snow removal company, a creative and lead gen studio, and a gym, plus personal projects. I do it with a team of AI assistants in Grok Bot. This is how it is set up, what works, and what broke along the way.
The setup
1. Me (the owner). I talk to one assistant for almost everything.
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2. My main assistant (Assistant CEO). Sorts each request, decides or hands it off. Talks only to me and the coordinator.
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3. The coordinator (Chief of Staff bot). Gives each business bot the outcome, owner, deadline, limits and what done looks like.
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4. One CEO bot per business: restaurant, construction, snow removal, creative/lead gen studio, gym, personal projects.
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5. Department managers under each CEO bot: sales, operations, finance, marketing, hiring.
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6. One-job specialists under the managers: food cost, tips, lien waivers, receipts, route planning, review replies, lead finding, auditing.
- Reports flow up the chain. Approvals come down only from me.
- A message from a bot is information, never permission.
- Work that crosses businesses goes up through the coordinator, not bot to bot.
- This site reports straight to me instead of going through the chain.
Routines by business
I run several very different businesses: a restaurant, a construction company, a snow removal company, a creative and lead gen studio, and a gym. I also want to be there for school drop-off and pickup, and I only have a small crew. Life gets busy, so routines and assistants carry the repeat work for each business and for my personal life, and my job is mostly to approve. Here's what runs where.
Owner / HQ
| Routine | When | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Morning report | Daily, 7 AM | One report covering every business. |
| Stalled-task watch | Twice a day | Flags any task that's stuck. |
| Login health check | Daily | Checks that the bots' logins still work. |
| Working-deck update | Nightly | Updates the one working deck my partner and I review. |
| System improvement review | Weekly | Reviews what went wrong and tightens the rules. |
Personal life
| Routine | When | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Calendar | — | Everything with a time goes on Google Calendar as the single source of truth, color-coded: payments red, school purple, tasks green. |
| Drive briefing | Timed to the school pickup drive | A short briefing I can take in on the drive. |
| Devotional / quiet-time plan | Monthly | Builds my daily quiet-time plan automatically each month. |
Restaurant
| Routine | When | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Sales pull vs. break-even | Daily, mornings | Pulls yesterday's sales from the ordering system and checks them against break-even. |
| Overtime and tips math | Weekly | Works out overtime and tips for payroll. |
| Vendor price checks and food-cost flags | Weekly | Checks vendor prices and flags menu items that cost too much. |
| Job applicant email watch | — | Watches the inbox for job applicants. |
Related: Restaurant break-even workflow
Construction
| Routine | When | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Building department and property manager email watch | — | Watches for emails from the building department and property managers. |
Related: Lien waivers and draws workflow
Snow removal
| Routine | When | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| 10-day snow scan | Saturdays | Scans the 10-day forecast for snow. |
| 1-day storm check | Day before a storm | Confirms the storm and preps the plows, salt and crew. |
| Invoice build | Monthly | Builds each property's invoice from the contract for me to check and send. |
Related: Storm prep workflow · Snow invoicing workflow
Lead gen / creative studio
| Routine | When | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Inbox lead watch | — | Watches for lead replies, including bounces and opt-outs. |
| Capped outreach sends and follow-ups | Daily | Sends outreach with a hard daily cap, plus follow-ups. |
Related: Free lead gen workflow
The rules I set
- Nothing gets sent, published, signed, spent, deleted or given access without my OK. Emails get drafted first.
- Free tools and free lead gen come first.
- Verify before saying done. Label anything that isn't verified.
- Never make up numbers.
- Keep messages short and plain.
- Check memory and files before asking me anything. Never ask twice.
- Save every decision and correction right away so it sticks.
- The calendar is the single source of truth for my time.
What didn't work, and what we changed
| Problem | Fix |
|---|---|
| Too many decks and files. | One working deck per topic, updated in place. |
| Long lists of questions overwhelmed me. | Capped at about 7 questions plus 5 to-dos. Anything unanswered 3 times moves to a Sunday batch. |
| Closed items kept coming back. | Closed means closed for good. It never gets raised again. |
| Status claims weren't checked. | Every result gets verified at the source before it's called done. |
| One-off reminders stayed active. | Reminders pause after they fire, and every watch has an end date. |
| Long, text-heavy replies were hard to read. | Everything is short, plain and visual now. |
How the system grew
Dates are approximate.
- Before October 2026: It started with one assistant handling everyday asks. Problem: with everything in one place, things got lost, and nothing ran on its own.
- Early October: The restaurant and construction staff apps moved from testing to real crew use. The Chief of Staff bot started logging every handoff and open task in a task tracker. Fixed: tasks stalling without anyone noticing.
- Around October 5: A full audit of about 45 bot profiles, and tighter handoffs, especially in lead gen (finder, auditor, copywriter, reply desk). Fixed: overlapping jobs and dropped handoffs.
- Early to mid October: Routines took over repeat work: the morning report, daily sales pulls, snow scans, email watches, capped daily outreach, stalled-task checks and login health checks. Fixed: me having to remember and ask for the same things every day.
- Around October 20: A strict pyramid: me, then the Assistant CEO, then the Chief of Staff, then one CEO bot per business, then managers, then specialists. Anything that crosses businesses goes up through the Chief of Staff. Fixed: bots messaging in circles, mixed priorities, no clear owner.
- Late October: This site moved to report straight to me because work was getting stuck in the chain, and new ventures got their own research leads. Lesson: keep the structure, but cut layers that only add delay.
- Through October: Approval and honesty rules: nothing sent, spent, signed, published or deleted without my OK; drafts first; verify at the source; no invented numbers; closed stays closed. Fixed: unreviewed mistakes, wrong status claims, old items coming back.
- November 1: Version 2 of the system: questions capped at about 7 plus 5 to-dos, anything unanswered 3 times goes to a Sunday batch, one-off reminders turn off after firing, watches have end dates, and a weekly system improvement review. Fixed: overload and stale questions.
- November 2: One working deck per topic, updated nightly. The calendar became the single source of truth, color-coded, with the assistant filling open slots and a monthly quiet-time plan. Fixed: too many files and a scattered schedule.
Today: 45-plus bots and dozens of daily and weekly routines. I talk to one assistant and approve what goes out. The goal is one system of systems running every business with just me and the bots.
Ways to set it up
| Setup | Who it fits | What it takes |
|---|---|---|
| A single helper | Our general guidance: an owner with one business, or one just starting out. This is roughly how I started. | One assistant for everyday asks: emails, estimates, invoices, receipts. My lesson: once there's a lot going on, things get lost and nothing runs on its own, so add routines early. |
| One per business | Our general guidance: an owner running more than one business. | A bot for each business so priorities don't get mixed, plus one place where approvals come back to you. |
| Full team with managers | Our general guidance: an owner running several businesses with a lot of repeat work. This is what I run now. | A main assistant, a coordinator, a CEO bot per business, managers and one-job specialists, plus routines, a task tracker and clear rules. Cut any layer that only adds delay. |
Real workflows
- Snow invoicing: a full month out in one email
- Restaurant break-even: did yesterday make money?
- Storm prep: trucks ready before the snow
- Lien waivers and draws: complete packages without the paperwork hunt
- Free lead gen: steady outreach with no ad budget
Written from how we actually run our own businesses. No customer names or private numbers. Questions? [email protected]
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