How I use an AI agent as a solo founder

I’ve been working on my little project for over 2 years; it’s still kinda wild to say that out loud. Building something is hard. Building something with a very small team, often just me, and occasionally a few freelancers, is harder. It’s not glamorous. It’s not linear. Most days don’t look like progress from the outside. But I’ve learned that I genuinely love the challenge of figuring things out, especially when there’s no obvious playbook.

I used to think time was fully on my side. Now I think it’s yes and no. And when I told myself I needed a break, I usually opened Figma and started designing something for the blog or editing a video instead. Oddly enough, that relaxed me. But I know I need to find a way to save more time, and naturally, I turned to AI. Well, I was skeptical - because I didn’t think it’d help me on a massive scale, but I was willing to use a little bit of my time to try to see if it’d work for me. And it wasn’t. I saw the launch of OpenClaw earlier this year, and I sat down for about 15 minutes to try to set up my first “agentic employees.” Failed, and lack of patience; “I’d rather use my 15 minutes to craft something without AI.” I closed that thing off. But I kept my mind open.

A couple of weeks ago, a friend asked me to try Clawdi because I was exactly the target user: solo founder, long hours, too many moving parts, plus two cats who run important household operations.

So this time, I gave it a try.

My friend helped me set up Clawdi, and it went much more smoothly than my first attempt. We started with OpenClaw via Clawdi, got the agent running, connected the workflows I actually use, and skipped all the “automate your entire life” fantasy stuff.

Here’s what the setup looked like for me:

1. Install OpenClaw and run the initial setup
2. Add the skills I needed for content and workflow tasks
3. Connect it to the tools I already use
4. Start with one repeatable task, then expand

That last part made all the difference. The first time, I failed because I treated it like a big transformation project, and the UI overwhelmed me a bit. Again, I’m not that technical. The second time worked because I treated it like onboarding a new teammate: give it one job, see if it performs, then give it another.

Once it was running, I started with a simple task. So, I use Clawdi for daily briefings so I don’t start the day by doom-scrolling at least 3 apps and multiple websites. I use it to help with social media workflow, especially turning one idea into multiple usable drafts without rewriting everything from scratch. It also helps me keep track of recurring tasks that often get pushed into “I’ll do it later” territory.

The biggest value is not that it does everything for me. It doesn’t. The value is that it removes the repetitive mental drag. Less context switching, and less “wait, what was I doing again?” And it does help me save a little bit of time, I’m very happy about it. And as someone running a small project with limited hours, that matters more than any shiny AI demo.

I’m also going to test Clawdi for cold outreach support - I do run outreach daily to animal content creators, mostly for researching and gathering information, structuring ideas, drafting variants, and tightening messaging before I send anything. Still early, but it is interesting. I do think AI tools and agents like Clawdi could be good and pretty useful, as long as you feed them enough good data.

At this point, I’m trying to protect my time and attention so I can keep building with consistency. And that alone has been worth it.

Now my work stack is pretty simple: Cursor for coding, Figma and Canva for design, and Apple Notes plus a paper notebook for planning (I still like writing things down on an actual calendar). I’m no longer using Notion because I wanted less complexity, not more. I use Clawdi for daily briefings and social media support, and next I’m testing it for cold email outreach.

I saw someone say, “The best time to start with AI was yesterday.” I’m not fully sold on that. But I do believe this is a very good time to start.