From Defusing Bombs to Building AI: Lysander Cuevas Jr.’s Journey into Entrepreneurship

Lysander: be comfortable and the uncomfortable. Don't be afraid to shoot your shot. The worst thing you're gonna do is just end up in the same place you are today.

Ryan Bulpitt: Hey everyone, thanks for joining us again on another episode of Behind the Founders. I'm Ryan Bulbert from Cherry Assistant. And today I'm joined by our special guest, Lysander. So if you don't mind, Lysander, just introducing yourself, you know, what you're doing, where you at, and we'll just take it from there.

Lysander: Yeah, no, I appreciate you having me here the show here. let's see here. So what am I doing? you know, it's around it's it's everywhere right now, you know. currently I I have a full time I'm a pro account manager in a SaaS company.

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm.

Lysander: And what I do is I manage a book of like a hundred and seventy eight clients or so, you know. My background varies throughout the software world, being with startups, being with publicly traded companies, med tech, telcom. now selling to the trades, you know. However, there's always been this inkling in my mind after getting out of the military of maybe I could do more, right? So I started this, you know, I guess thing on the side where I was just helping some friends out, in this case doctors that were spending a ton of money on agencies and just not necessarily getting their money's worth. Took the time to, you know, learn these systems like SEM SEO, marketing, et cetera, and just kind of realized that there was kind of a gap in the market as far as, you know, education. A lot of these companies don't know what they don't know. So I've created Bot Fanatics and Bot Fanatics is a digital consulting company, now leaning more so

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm.

Lysander: on the AI side and solutions. So started out building bespoke AI and it's grown from there into a whole picture AI visibility, websites, conversion infrastructure, AI lead capture and follow-up, voice agents, custom CRMs, the whole shebang. And the whole idea is we want to take a transparent approach and helping customers understand what they're getting today, giving them a full free audit, and where we could potentially come in and you know, take some of that workload off their shoulders and them knowing this is a different experience from the agencies experience they've had in the past. So this is a side hustle that's starting to now grow and

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm.

Lysander: starting to take a little bit more serious.

Ryan Bulpitt: Okay. Awesome. And is it something you wanna turn into your main hustle? Is it something you wanna expand?

Lysander: Yeah, you know, I really enjoy being the consultant and actually being able to go in there and not have to worry that, hey, this call has to happen because I gotta hit X quota, right? Like I have to have this type of conversation with the client.

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm. I have to hit this KPI.

Lysander: Yeah. So when I'm in my side host emotor, when I'm building the bot fanatics brand, I'm truly trying to understand, you know, what's going on with their business, what their goals are, and it's exciting to know that I have a skill set where I could come in and actually help them. So I would like

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm.

Lysander: it to be my full time because I'm generally able to see what I'm doing for the business in the long run. Whereas when you're with software companies, you make the sale, it gets handed off to customer success. You don't really necessarily know what happens post sale, you know?

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm. Yeah. Like that's where your piece ends.

Lysander: Exactly.

Ryan Bulpitt: Okay. And you wanna be more involved, you wanna see the the relationship grow, you wanna see the the impact on the business that you're helping.

Lysander: Yeah, you know, the fruits of the labor. Like, hey, you know, I've helped them do X and then it's

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah, yeah.

Lysander: especially more exciting when they're introducing you to other people because you do you done good work for them.

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's like, I saw I helped this company do that. They show their friends now. I can help their friends do this, see them on the stock market selling at a crazy price in two, three years time, that kind of stuff.

Lysander: Yeah, you know, in this case here, 'cause that's more so like local businesses, kind of sometimes mid

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm.

Lysander: market, it's like, they expanded into a new market. They expanded another location. They were they were able to cut overhead. Yeah.

Ryan Bulpitt: Hm. Yeah. They opened up another chain or something. That's awesome. That's awesome. I just want to touch on some things you mentioned. first of all, the the free audit. What made you wanna do that? 'Cause I mean, obviously that's not something that takes like ten seconds, that's a lot of effort. So what made you wanna give your potential clients that much effort, you know, that much work without any kind of investment or anything like that, you know what I mean? Like any kind of return immediately. 'Cause that is quite a lot

Lysander: Yes.

Ryan Bulpitt: of work. So what made you wanna go with that model? It obviously shows trust and

Lysander: No, I think it's just

Ryan Bulpitt: eagerness, but you know, what made you want to do that?

Lysander: I think it just kind of just started out all the way from my time in the military,

Ryan Bulpitt: Okay.

Lysander: right? Being in the bomb squad, you're always having to double check things before you execute, right? And so when I got out of

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm.

Lysander: the military and got into like telecom and I was doing door to door and selling internet, I would say, Hey, you know what? Before even telling you our prices, let's do a Wi-Fi audit. Let's make sure that your Wi-Fi is even up to par. Is this even gonna make sense? And then when I moved into medical sales and I was selling Martech. a lot of these times I'm selling against an agency that's already working with the person I'm going after. And so

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm.

Lysander: a lot of times these agencies are able to close these deals because what they're doing is just basically talking talking crap about what they currently have and saying this is what we do different. But the problem

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah.

Lysander: that I kept running into time and time again is that the customers that I would work with would always tell me all they get is a PDF sent to them every two weeks or at the end of the month of as far as how they're doing. So

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm.

Lysander: I said, you know what? Every time I audited a doctor's website or someone's website, I always found things that were wrong. And it didn't take me much time to audit, but I built a lot of trust with the customer. And so just going forward, I'd like to keep it as a here's an audit of what you're currently getting today, what you could be doing better. And then it builds that trust from that

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm.

Lysander: customer to me and that relationship starts building. Like, here's a guy that's not just trying to sell me. Here's a guy showing me what's wrong. I can take this information to my current agency, or I can see what it looks like for Lysander and his team to come in and help. And so I feel like it

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm.

Lysander: builds that trust and allows them to know that I'm very transparent and how I do business.

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah, no, a hundred percent. it definitely shows, like you said, it's building that trust, building that relationship like immediately. And it shows a level of like passion and integrity on your side, you know? like you say, you're not just trying to sell them this thing, you're actually trying to get them a solution, you're trying to help them, you're trying to improve things on their side, because you mentioned you always found something wrong when you do these audits. So it does show like a level of I actually want to help this person, not I just want to make a sale or hit that quota. So that's really amazing. and then one other thing you mentioned when you started off was more in marketing, like SEO, SEM, that kind of stuff. How did you do the shift then into your entire bespoke situation right now where you're doing like basically full business analysis from what it sounds like? So how did you make that switch? Because that's also quite a big jump, you know? So like what made you want to make

Lysander: Yeah, so I'll say

Ryan Bulpitt: that switch and then how did you actually like go into it?

Lysander: If if you could repeat that, I was getting a phone call at that time and it completely cut off

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah, no worries.

Lysander: my sound.

Ryan Bulpitt: No, no worries. should I just repeat like the whole question?

Lysander: Yes, if you could.

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah, yeah, no worries at all. So you mentioned you started off in the marketing sector almost, like when you were doing SEM, SEO audits, and then you've now switched over into this whole bespoke AI situation. so that's almost like full business anal analysis for your clients. So one, how did you Go into that. How did you do that entire shift? And two, what made you want to do that shift from, this is a marketing audit to I'm going to now figure out the processes of your business and how we can help? What made you do that big jump?

Lysander: Yeah, no, great question. So I got into SEO because of the move I made from California to Texas. I was in the process of interviewing for this company that was selling basically an all in one marketing solution to doctors. And they were like, Hey, you can move to Texas in two weeks, the job is yours. So I just put everything in my car and did a full send. What I didn't realize

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm. Full road trip.

Lysander: is that I wasn't yeah. I I re I didn't realize that I was just like leaving Hellcom and going into medical, but I was teaching myself a whole new skill set. I had to because My job is to go after doctors and essentially give them an all-in-one tech solution. But if I didn't even understand what I was selling them, how could I,

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm.

Lysander: you know, be confident with it? So I started taking classes and I realized like I started building a passion on SEO. It's like a whole big puzzle, just like, you know, in the military, right? You're having to figure out how you need to execute certain operations. And so it's the same thing with SEO, especially the technical piece. So I got really good at understanding how to break down a website. not just from looking at, it's a pretty website, but how is it ranking? Why is these people paying XYZ and and pay per click costs when they don't need to? And so

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm.

Lysander: what I started doing is I started, you know, talking to the doctors I was working with selling these solutions and said, Hey, you know what? Would you like to be a guinea pig? I'd like to build something for you. And so I started trying to figure out how can I get them a good experience away from what they're doing today with website. But then Things started building building with AI. ChatGPT 3.5 came out. And I was like, wow, if we have an AI, maybe there's a way to automate conversation from the volume coming to these websites. So then I

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm.

Lysander: started working with this plastic surgeon and I was getting great results with automating her direct messages she was getting in from her website and her social media. But the problem was that at the time the tools that existed were just pre-made messaging, automated messages.

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm.

Lysander: And me being an autodidact, someone that just enjoys to learn new skills, especially especially things I'm passionate about, in this case technology, I took the time to join forms and chatbot forms and things like that that were blowing up. And that's how I started finding communities and then realizing like, wow, there's so much more coming to AI. And so

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah.

Lysander: then it went from SEO, chatbot, to now there's all these agencies selling go high level. You know, and it's just the same white label solution. What if I can build a custom white label solution for my client so they're not stuck paying for a whole different type of product? So then

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm.

Lysander: I started building custom CRMs and dashboards, and then lovable came out, and then we were able to build custom front-end solutions. And then it was just really exciting to see how exciting the customer was taking onto it. But then It went from custom CRM. So how can I automate this redundant workflow? shoot, now AI is becoming a big thing. Like, how do I show up on that? And it's just compounded from there as far as like more problems that can be fixed and more exciting

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm.

Lysander: things that can be learned as far as like how to fix them. And so I think we're in an amazing time right now where there's really no excuse to not have a side hustle or build something that can benefit others. And it's like it's crazy how much it's came from SEO to now. We can build whatever you need to lower down your redundant workflow overhead or just build something custom for you or help you stand up against other people in the local market with AI visibility, you know?

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah. No, that's that's amazing. So it's almost like with the advent of more AI tools, you started taking on more, you started learning more. Like the more tick that came in, the more solutions you were able to learn about and provide. That's what it sounds like.

Lysander: Yeah. And then being a futurist, meaning like I I like to invest in a lot of future stocks. So I've been getting into semiconductors, you know, quantum computing, understanding

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm.

Lysander: how all this power triage is now coming and trickling down now into the softwares we're using today. ChatGPT is essentially like the new Google, right? People don't know how advanced we are getting right now. And so it's really exciting to be able to use these tools, but then understand what is coming. For example, now we're building AI clones to help automate marketing. You know?

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm. Yeah, no, that's it's really it's a crazy time. I mean, like five years ago, this was all I think when people first thought of AI, they thought what the Will Smith spaghetti thing. I don't know if you remember that from when AI first

Lysander: Yeah, I remember that.

Ryan Bulpitt: like that was the first thing that came to mind, but now it's I've seen like yeah, as you said, it's the new Google. People don't even go to the Google anymore. They just have a chat GPT shortcut on their phone and then everyone's just getting photos taken of them when they're on the train or anything like that. Just The first thing they do is they're on chat GPT just having a conversation. Like, hey, what should I do for what supper tonight? Or, you know, what groceries do I need to buy? So it really is just impacting everyone. so like you say, you gotta gotta jump on the trend, gotta start using it for what's coming next. Because we even getting those video video creations now, like Sora, like those are getting really strong. So a lot's happening in that in that front. so yeah, like a lot.

Lysander: yeah. Sorry still a thing, huh? I've been using Higgsfield and Higgs field's great. Yeah.

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah, well you not maybe not specifically sore, but like the the sore likes, you know, like the the video creators and stuff.

Lysander: No the Soren likes, yes. It's becoming more easier now to push content and now converting

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah, yeah.

Lysander: that content is even more exciting now that we can put in AI agents to respond conversationally omnichannel, you know?

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm. I actually just want to pick your brain. I know because you know, you were in the the marketing and the SEO and stuff. have you guys been leveraging that? Like the AI content creation, if that's something you do use, have you leveraged that for your clients? Have you guys been pushing that into any kind of solutions?

Lysander: Yeah, so it's funny. originally when I started doing the SEO, the company was battle plan SEO, and to even to this day, I never did any marketing for myself. I didn't do any ads, even if my website, yeah, I I cleaned up some of the front end, but I haven't even really focused on the SEO or even back end infrastructure of my own site because I didn't realize it was gonna get to this point where I'm even here today on a dang podcast. Right. So what I have been doing is taking, if anything, more of the time and teachings that I'm teaching others and putting it into their business. My business had just been growing purely from just word of mouth at this point. But

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm.

Lysander: for example, right now we recently signed on a lawyer in Houston and we're we're working on ranking him against all these competition. But what's most people don't understand is that it has changed. We've done a 180 as far as like SEO and GEO, generative engine optimization. How do I show up on AI searches and citations? Back in the day, it's like whoever had the prettiest website, the right headers, maybe the right on page content. I had blogs and backlinks. Whereas now it's like who's the most credible? Who has the most freshest content? So

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm.

Lysander: from a standpoint of working with businesses, it's great because we can give them results pretty fast. Usually what I do is not only give them a free audit, but I say, look, work with me for at least three months. I'm not gonna put you in a contract. This is gonna be a month to month. This is gonna be a straight up agreement. Right. But give me three months. And I'm going to earn your trust in three months. By one one month, it's going to be fixing all the technical structure on your site and your back end as far as different media channels that you're on. Second month is we're going to go ahead and now automate your content. How can we automate your content, bring it fresh, and get you citations? And then third, we're going to now include an engine to these channels to not only convert the traffic you're getting now. But make sure we're up to date with the content and giving you a competitor analysis. And then usually people, once they see what we've done, because this is what we say we're gonna do, they stick with

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm.

Lysander: us, not just for the thing they originally hired us for, but they want that on call consultant to keep them up with the times, to teach them what is coming, how can they pivot their strategy, right? So

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah, how can they like adapt to the new times?

Lysander: exactly. So like the lawyer. Helping the plastic surgeon, the med spa in Miami, it's great because a lot of their current competition today is using agencies that are just focusing on traditional SEO standards, charging these people 2,000 plus a month. And then I'm coming in and saying, Hey, I'm not even going to charge you anywhere near that. I'm only going to work with you for three months. And this is how we're going to pivot differently. And so it's easy for us to show results and build that trust because not many people know how to rank in today's world with all this technology moving.

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm. Yeah. We just

Lysander: Mm mm.

Ryan Bulpitt: assume it's the same kind of I'll get a marketing agency to do some content for me. But that's not the case at all, you're saying.

Lysander: Exactly. If anything, the nerds are taking over now. Now it's like we used to have the designers, the copywriters, but now the nerds that understand the code, the back end. Now it's like who has the fastest infrastructure? People are using WordPress. Great, let's pivot to Webflow or Astro. Faster engines on the vehicle, faster indexing. So now the people that really take advantage of learning the technology are the ones that are now succeeding instead of the ones

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm.

Lysander: that are just outside hiring agencies from different countries that are just focusing on making you pretty websites.

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah, just sticking to

Lysander: Mm mm.

Ryan Bulpitt: like the quote unquote traditional way of ranking and, you know, putting yourself out there. Almost it's almost like

Lysander: Exactly.

Ryan Bulpitt: using the yellow books, you know, like the phone pages. It feels like it's kind of like pushing us back, you know, like that's outdated almost.

Lysander: Yeah. So it's just keeping people with the times. And then as people are learning about AI, it's not just even the ranking. We do bespoke AI. So we have time and time again people saying, Hey, I built the CRM on lovable or Claude. And then they try to build it themselves, but we're still not at time yet where you can go ahead not only just deploy a great front end, but now how can you connect all the moving pieces in the back end so it actually works like a like a working product? And so we

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm.

Lysander: can take it to that last mile. So there's just a lot of interesting ways that we can help as a consulting business besides just let's help you rank up on AI. And that's what's really exciting about this time, is just there's just so much opportunity right now.

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah. So it's almost like you guys are almost like on call fully business analytics, like not just giving you a solution but sticking with you, improving your processes nonstop. That's kind of like what you're focusing on, it seems.

Lysander: Yeah. Being a but one stop consulting shop to help you with anything, not just trying to sell you a one product solution. It's like, well, what is you what are you trying to accomplish? Let's see if we can automate that

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm.

Lysander: or let's see what we can do to to build your your dream CRM or your dream software product. Right. So it's like a broad it's pretty broad right now, you know?

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And obviously with you know, a broader operation, it got gets challenging to run like a one man show. So is it just you, you know, doing your side house at the moment? Do you have like team members or any kind of support? because obviously this is a lot of work for just one person. Especially now that you mentioned, you know, you're

Lysander: Yes, I know that

Ryan Bulpitt: getting new clients, you're getting more growth.

Lysander: Mm-hmm. Great question. So yeah, when I went onto those chat forms, I was looking for like-minded people to to grow with. The problem was is that there was a lot of smart individuals, but they didn't have you know, an idea on how to get sales. And now me being in sales for the last seven years, selling

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah, like not a business mindset.

Lysander: yeah, that that's been tough. It's a business mindset. I've been having to like turn my thinking around like how do I now think about delegating, right? Instead of just like building, because I not only like to do the sale, but I like to be the builder as well. But now that we've been expanding with their friends talking about their friends, it's like of course I had to bring in some people. So I'm I'm glad that there's networks like Upwork and Fiverr. The way

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm.

Lysander: I do things differently though, that I think people can take a good idea from is that instead of just like going in there and creating a proposal like, hey, I'm looking for so and so, right. And then interviewing those people, I purposely just find people, I look at their background, I look at their upwork profile, and I tell them, hey, I just want to spend this amount of time, like I just want to see a job that you're currently working on. I won't say anything, I'll just jump in. You just tell me maybe your process. But I am essentially shadowing this person, wanting to learn as much as I can. And if I can learn a lot from them in a certain amount of time, then I'm just like, okay, that's a person I might want on my team. So

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm.

Lysander: I'm actually paying purposely like. you know, 30 to 50 so an hour, not even giving them a project. I just want to see what they're doing day to day and like learn what they know.

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah, see their thought process.

Lysander: Yeah. Either I learn from them and I can take that for me or realize like this is the person I like on my team. So right now I currently have my partner, Jean. He's a full stack engineer. He's built voice agents for Boost Mobile. And it's great because I'm I'm very technical myself, but he can take it to that

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm.

Lysander: last mile as needed when he gets very technical. So that's how we've been able to work

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah, like the next next level.

Lysander: with Yeah, the next, next level. And that's how we've been able to work with, you know, bigger like manufacturing companies, med tech companies, and build purely bespoke solutions where there's like API integration. So I think finding the right people that are smarter than you and not having that ego. And also too important to make sure everybody eats. I'm not the type that likes to work, get people from outside and then charge them less just because they're coming from the Philippines or something, right?

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm.

Lysander: I like to charge them exactly what a US worker would get. keep them excited, but also know that we're really benefiting them, you know? So

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm.

Lysander: I treat as in this case John is like my brother. I call him br my brother from Mexico. You know?

Ryan Bulpitt: So like you say, as if they based in the U is what they should be earning.

Lysander: Exactly. Exactly. So I feel like I've been a I build a solid a team, you know, I got a a team member that helps me, you know, build bespoke AI solutions. I'm the building the framework, the structure, doing the delegating, the sales, the demos, things like that. And then I got another team member I'm currently training on how I do AI visibility because that's my meat and potatoes. But now I need to copy paste

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm.

Lysander: a person for myself. But really Now that we have Obsidian and Hermes and all these different AI agents, I've been able to copy paste myself in a way into AI agents. So now I have 20 agents working for me doing customer success, helping, doing the onboarding. So it really just helps with those processes and workflows.

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah, just keeps everything running smoothly.

Lysander: Yes.

Ryan Bulpitt: Okay. And just circling back to what you mentioned earlier about you guys are really just growing with word of mouth, was there like a particular event or time period or specific thing that happened where you just noticed the growth spiked? Like things just exploded? Or has it been kind of just gradually just building up?

Lysander: You know, it's it's it's very interesting. so I I I think it's one of those one of those the universe works in mysterious ways type of thing. because

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm.

Lysander: so the way it first started was I went to back in the day in early ChatGPT three point five days, there were all these events running, right? You pay a ticket to go in and it was just of someone that was much, much older running the same slide. This is what ChatGPT is, this is what he can do, and it was just like eight slides. And then people would wait in a line to talk to this person because apparently they're the expert. But this guy never had a tangible product. Like what what's a product today? Right. And at that time, that's actually when I started meeting different developers of Medan. And we were able to create something tangible. Like here's an AI that works right now, answers all your DMs, answer all your comments, right? It's like a many chat 2.0, if you know what many chat is, right? We created a way to automate DMs on all channels. And we were able to just go in line. We were just tapping on people's shoulders and saying, Hey, you're probably looking for something for your business, right? To help with X. Like, let me show you something that's ready and available. And I just started taking people away from that line and just selling them right there and then. And so I think having something tangible at the right time helped a lot. And then on top of that, is just not being afraid to just talk to anybody. I put myself purposely

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm.

Lysander: in a situation where I'm living in a place where I'm always networking. I go up to people and just say, Hey, my name is so and so. I mean, my name is Lysander. Like, you know, we live in the same area. Curious, what do you do for a living? Just straight up getting into it. And you'll you'll

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah, just talking to people.

Lysander: yeah, and you'll be amazed like how fast your network grows and how fast that word of mouth grows when you're not afraid to just

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm.

Lysander: have that first like hello. Right. So I've purely just been building from just word of mouth and just building the right network, you know.

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah. I mean, I think that's almost a lost art, the the actual human connection. Like people are very scared to just strike up a conversation nowadays and maybe not even just that, but the the art of small talk. Like people don't really know how to chit chat anymore. So that definitely plays into your favor there because that that leaves an impression in someone. You know, like, hey, this guy just came up to me while I was at the coffee shop and we just chatted for ten minutes. So that's definitely a unique thing in today's age, specifically with how people don't really in like enjoy that social face to face interaction anymore like, you know, the olden days. So that's that's really unique.

Lysander: Yeah, I think that comes from my time doing door to door sales, you know, just having that conversation and just like actually

Ryan Bulpitt: Makes sense.

Lysander: trying to figure out what what what's something you might be able to help with or can you guys help each other in a network, you know?

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm. Okay, now that makes sense. Because a lot of people are very like shy about those kind of interactions. So I I get I get it now. It was your job, so you just got used to it. and I know you're growing now. So what's the next step, aside from like making this your full time hustle, what do you think is like the next big step for you guys, for your team, for where do you want go next? Like is there a clear point?

Lysander: Well recently we just Yeah, so it's it's funny. So recently we started adding in some certain workflows. So we have this new software we've just added to give everybody like a custom dashboard, have a full transparent view of exactly what is going on. so that's one of the big things I wanted to like make sure that this agency was do was you know, have more transparency. Anybody that works from us from day one knows exactly what's being worked on, how they're ranking, what their current site is like. So there's just full transparency, no need to wonder

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah.

Lysander: like when am I gonna have my meeting every two weeks to get understanding what's going on. Yeah. So

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm. Just like constant live information, basically.

Lysander: we've been expanding ways for customers to see that. And then we've been expanding our our workflows and better QA. So now that we've gotten that structure down. Now we're trying to figure out how we can also like be different from the market. Now you're seeing a ton of AI consulting businesses open. The things that we're focusing on now is like, okay, well, let's look at AI clones. We have a lot of customers that are spending X on marketing, right? What if we can lower that overhead? also, I'm now turning those people that were my partners into like, you know, hey, let's go ahead and copy paste you and try to find that next person to also help us on X. So

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah.

Lysander: just kind of expanding and recopying what was working already, you know. And the cool thing about it is when you build like this is that you can be very picky on who you work with. In the beginning, I only was working with two people just because I wanted to help them, right? And then they would introduce me to someone, but then we started getting in clients that were just not the type of clients you would want. But as you're building, you're like, okay, you know what? If we can make this person happy and we can provide these type of results. Then in the future we can do the same. And and usually when you think like that, you're just thinking, like, okay, it's gonna make everybody happy. But when you start growing, you can start being picky of who you want to work with, and that's very beneficial because then that lowers your stress levels and helps everybody on the team be excited about working.

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's not like I need every single person.

Lysander: Yeah. So we've just been very like hand selected now. Now we're very particular in who we want to work with. It's not based off

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm.

Lysander: budget or anything like that. It's based off of like how can we work together as partners? And is

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah.

Lysander: what you're looking to get done, is it exciting for us too? Because we've done

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm.

Lysander: this because this is our passion, you know?

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah. Is it gonna like motivate and drive my team? Is it like is there longevity for both of you guys, you know? Not just can I make a quick buck yeah?

Lysander: Yeah. Is there something really could come in here? Exactly. Yeah. So I think the next step

Ryan Bulpitt: Okay.

Lysander: is just we're expanding on what's working today. we're building solid case studies. I'm gonna start actually putting a Google My Business page up and maybe start actually

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm.

Lysander: thinking about, hey, if someone goes on my site, I want them to see that there is nothing wrong. Like they will not be able to find nothing wrong. So now I guess I'm gonna make myself my own client. Right? Been helping X, but now it's expanding and now I just let's let's build a better front door now that we have The proper workflows,

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm.

Lysander: the proper people and the proper infrastructure to to expand, you know.

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah, so now the internals are sorted out, now it's time for people to see from the outside in, like this is what we are. All right.

Lysander: Yeah. Yeah. Especially since it's our passion. Me and my partner have been just creating pretty insane type of products where we want to take to market, not just AI visibility, but when it comes to bespoke AI, we've been building like custom

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm.

Lysander: agents that can help you through a sales cycle from an e-commerce store or real estate. Like there's just exciting things. So now we're trying to figure out how do we push that message out and look for those type of clients, you know?

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah. How do we take this to the market basically?

Lysander: Exactly.

Ryan Bulpitt: Okay. And obviously with growth, not only it's exciting, but there's probably also challenges as well. have you noticed anything that's like been maybe difficult for you guys to adapt to or something that's a blocker or anything like that where you notice, we're not getting through this as smoothly, or this is a bit more time consuming than we thought. Is there even anything like that in your guys' current space? Like that's giving you some pushback.

Lysander: I think it's the expectations of some of the people we work with, right? Like it's it's different from when you

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm.

Lysander: actually know how the technology works to what you see today, right? Like for example, people today use Chat GPT, like write my emails, search up this, do that. Whereas me and my partners, we're using clawed code, we're using CLI,

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm.

Lysander: we're using cursor, we're using more back-end infrastructure things, we're building agents with Hermes. A of people have no idea what we're talking about. Even when we were talking about open claw, maybe a part of the market knew what that was, but now we've we've we've gone from that. Maybe now we're using nanoclaw or things like that. The point is, I think it's understanding that technology is moving fast in our world. We understand it, but when we're working with clients, they don't really know much besides, I think it's called chat GT or something. We're like, What?

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah, yeah.

Lysander: So so the first thing we had to figure out what was one of the biggest barriers was like understanding how to break things down, I guess, Barney style, right? How can we explain like, hey, this is all our knowledge.

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm, like layman's terms kind of stuff.

Lysander: Exactly. Cause me and my me and my partner we're we're executors, right? So

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm.

Lysander: it was always just like give us your problem and then we'll just execute. A lot of times when I was doing my calls, we weren't even going into the business. They were asking how much it is And I'd be and I would just be coming up with a number, but in my mind it's like, I know I can do this fast, right? So it was trying to figure out like how much really is our time worth. And also like, I know we know all this and to us it's easy, but for the client, like, you know, are we actually, you know, benefiting them by sharing this knowledge or should we just execute? So it was trying to figure out how do we Yeah,

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm. Or are we just like overburdening them?

Lysander: we were just feature dumping and just nerding out and they had no idea what we were talking about. So

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah. And they just sitting there like they just sitting there like, A AI good. A I good. Yeah.

Lysander: Yeah, yeah. So we had to realize like how do we Barney style things? How do we break it down for anybody to understand? That was the first hurdle. And then then the second is as you're expanding and everybody's understanding that this is like the new gold rush, you're gonna have those people that are looking for people like you. So for example, we've had instances where businesses were coming in and they were saying, Hey, you can be our AI arm or you can do this and we'll send work to you. But then they were starting to send agreements to us and in the clause. It's like, man, they're trying to keep IP rights. They're trying to do this. So then we had

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm.

Lysander: to realize like their sharks are out there trying to take our products or trying to take our knowledge, resell it as their own, and make sure that they keep everything, even though they're not providing anything. Right. So it was also being

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah. They trying to like white label your products basically.

Lysander: Exactly. So then you gotta understand too, like once you're doing great work and the word starts spreading of your knowledge, people are gonna there's sharks out there, right? So that was another barrier.

Ryan Bulpitt: People want it. People want it.

Lysander: Yeah. So that was a second barrier. And then I think the third one, and this is the one that pretty happy about that, is like it's it's understanding like the processes, like how can we get someone live like ASAP. So for example, right now we're able to get a site up and launch it within four or five days, a really solid website. have the AI visibility, the whole dashboard up and running. But to get to that level, we had to go a lot of trials and tribulations. And one of those biggest

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm. A lot of trial and error.

Lysander: Yeah. And that the biggest error I think was trying to find a client that truly understood that they were a guinea pig, right? Like there's going to be problems and we're building this alongside you. And then

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah, we're testing this out.

Lysander: Yeah. And then you have to have that confidence in yourself as a founder to be like, okay, cool. You know what? We've got X results. There's no more guinea pigs anymore. This is the price. And being able to stick at that level and be confident in yourself to know that, like, hey, we're not bringing any more guinea pigs here. We're gonna be selective on our clients and we're not gonna have to wonder of like, we wanna do everything we can to keep this client. It's like, no, like this is our job, this is what we provide. If you don't understand that, don't see the value, then now we can say, Hey, we're not gonna work with you. So now that we've gotten to that level, those are some of

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm.

Lysander: the biggest obstacles. We've had it turn into a business mindset where we were just nerd focused. We were just

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah. Just wanna pull, just wanna execute. Yeah, yeah. Now

Lysander: Builders. We want business people. Yeah.

Ryan Bulpitt: now you gotta think this is an this is an enterprise, there's a company now, basically.

Lysander: Yeah, like shoot, I had to get an L L C like the business card,

Ryan Bulpitt: I got a register.

Lysander: the business banking, all this stuff. Like shoot, I thought I could just do this on Zell. Yeah,

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah. Now it's like official official.

Lysander: it's official official. So

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah. And just last question, like on that. how's that been for you? How's the transition from busy part-time hustle that you love doing for like, you know, it's it's work but that you have fun doing, transitioning now into something that's stamped. This is official, this is a business that we're trying to make. How's that transition been like for you? Has that been intimidating? Has it been exciting? Because obviously that's a big shift as well. Like it's no longer just, this is a fun project I've been doing with my friend. now it's a company, you know? How's that been for you?

Lysander: It's the universe works in mysterious ways. You know, I always thought I was just gonna be a sales rep. Actually after the military, I thought I was gonna be in homeland and do bomb squad there. then COVID hit and that re that changed everything. And so when

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm.

Lysander: it was done with COVID, it's like, well, I was doing sales, so then I'll stay in sales. But then I started just this is why I make it a a mission to learn at least two skills a year, no matter what it is. And those skills just happen to be things that I'm starting to get passionate about. So now that it's turning into this business, it's I'm starting to understand what people mean by like you're not working if you enjoy what you do. Right. it's just funny because I have a full time that's completely different from what I'm doing today, but

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm.

Lysander: I'm still with it because I enjoy being consultative. I'm generally helping these businesses that don't know any

Ryan Bulpitt: You enjoy the problem solving.

Lysander: better. I enjoy the problem solving, but if I want to make sure that I'm gonna be a man of my word and make sure I'm giving the right value as my side business is now turning into more. Like I have a number that if I hit this number, that's it. I'm going on LinkedIn saying, hey, you know what? Thanks for everything. I'm going all in. but right

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm.

Lysander: now, because of the processes and the right things that I've been doing, I've been able to do the two at at a high level at the same time. But I am seeing this turning into something where I'll go to trade shows, maybe even start getting banners up. Go back to door knocking. I love door knocking. I hate cold calling. I'd rather go to your business. Here's an audit. Let me give you a free audit.

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm.

Lysander: Let me show you what we can do. And that's exciting, the idea of going out in the field again and and shaking hands again. Whereas right now my full time just keeps me at the computer all day. So you know, those are exciting things to look forward to.

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah. And then this part time doesn't exactly help with that too.

Lysander: Yeah. So you know, this business, it's it's it's going. We just recently onboarded like eight new clients. in like a week and a half and it's like, whoa, what just happened? And it for some some

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah.

Lysander: reason, I don't know where this friend told that friend, that friend told this friend. This friend has three locations. So it's like, what is happening? And so things have just been moving.

Ryan Bulpitt: So it's just like it's constantly piling up.

Lysander: Yeah, even this podcast, you guys hitting me up, this is all happened

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah.

Lysander: within this like month to month and a half time. It's like

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah.

Lysander: something just shifted in the market, you know?

Ryan Bulpitt: When when it rains it pours, I guess, you know, in good ways too. But okay, that awesome.

Lysander: Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Ryan Bulpitt: I really think that's pretty much what I wanted to just chat about, Lysander. So thank you so much for your insights today. just to sign off a little a little bit different here, would there be is there anything you could maybe say to the nerds and the executors out there who are so focused on the back end, so focused on the buildings? is there any piece of advice you could give them? to maybe get the the skills that you guys are trying to get now, the business skills that change up. Cause like you said is important for a lot of these people if they are trying to be consultants or trying to do their own thing. Is there any piece of advice you could give to those back end focused guys on how they could adapt and how they could change it up?

Lysander: Coming from someone that used to be very introverted. I'm talking about very introverted. You know what I mean? I didn't even go to prom in high school. The only reason why I'm at my a at my character

Ryan Bulpitt: Same.

Lysander: today is because the military. I think that really changed things into me. But really you gotta be comfortable in the uncomfortable, right? so for example, you could know all these technology and skills, but at the end of the day, it's like you need to learn the skill set of talking to people and breaking it down. Right. A lot of people that I speak with, right? I had to learn how to not over nerd a situation or over over feature dump.

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah, how to like chop it down to

Lysander: Yeah. But I would say, you know, be comfortable in the uncomfortable. I mean, my my flame was I I was diffusing bombs, you know. So if I mess up, I'm gone. I'm dust. I'm nothing. So

Ryan Bulpitt: Yes.

Lysander: I had to learn that like I gotta live in no regret. So to me, I purposely put myself out there and talk to people. I don't have fun just tapping someone's shoulder or saying, hey. So and so, like sometimes I need some lick or courage, but at the end of the day, like as I keep doing it more and more and more, I've been able to expand my network. So I would say, you know, one, just be uncomfortable and the and the I mean, be comfortable and the uncomfortable. Don't be afraid to shoot your shot. The worst thing you're gonna do is just end up in the same place you are today. the second would most likely be understanding that there's a lot of people that are introverted today. Everybody's growing up on tablets, computers, people are learning that human interaction. So immediately

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm.

Lysander: if you just have I I guess the confidence to just come up someone, you're already a step against the next person. That's why, like on my LinkedIn, I created a whole how-to guide on how to get a job in three months. And all you had

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm.

Lysander: to do was just shoot a video over to the hiring manager and you'd be surprised of how often someone will hit you back up. So it's the same way when I'm going after

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah.

Lysander: clients. And I do my research, I'm sending a video straight to them or I'm saying, Hey, let's meet for lunch. Right? Get in front of them. And

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm.

Lysander: I would say too, is just understand that you know, there's just so much opportunity right now to build, sure, but you have to build something tangible, something that the customer can actually use. I see a ton on Instagram where there's like people building Jarvises and they're talking to their computers, and that's so cool. You know, I know what you're doing, you're using Raspberry Pi and things like that, but the the point is it's like you have to figure out how to make a tangible product that's ready to market today, right? Otherwise you're gonna keep looking at Instagram

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm. How to make it practical.

Lysander: reels that are like, why didn't I think of that? And it's like you can do it, you just gotta figure out how to execute it and have that message for the person so they understand what it is, you know?

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah. Like how the how the average person is gonna understand it and you know, consume that kind of stuff.

Lysander: Yeah. Even I have a trouble right now. When people ask me what bot fanatics is, it's like I wanna tell them a specific product, but now it's like I'm I'm

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah.

Lysander: jumping in, like, look, it's it's literally whatever you want it to be. If you need help with technology, it's a consulting business. Like let's talk with you and we'll understand how we can help you. And so we just treat it like a conversation, you know?

Ryan Bulpitt: Mm-hmm.

Lysander: Mm-mm.

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah. No, I hear that. yeah, that's amazing. Thank you so much for those points. yeah, that's really all for today. So thank you so much for your time, Lysander. It's been really lovely having you on. really appreciate you chatting with us today.

Lysander: Yeah, of course. Thank you for your time and I appreciate the the questions and giving me the chance here to to talk about biophonetics.

Ryan Bulpitt: Yeah, it's been an absolute pleasure, man. Thank you so much for your time.