AI Sidekick Playbooks: 7 Automations Any Solo Founder Can Ship in a Weekend
By Zyvarin Team
Why ship these seven?
You get compound leverage from three things: faster response (support + sales), tighter feedback loops (qualify leads, route issues), and consistent publishing. Each play can be built with off-the-shelf AI + no-code, then refined later with your own data.
The Weekend Plan
- Friday night: pick tools, set up APIs, write prompt bones.
- Saturday: ship Plays 1–4 (support, onboarding, lead triage, follow-ups).
- Sunday: ship Plays 5–7 (content repurposing, churn saves, ops digests), add logging, test, and turn on alerts.
Stack to keep it simple
- LLM: OpenAI or Anthropic.
- Memory/KB: Notion or a vector DB (Pinecone/Supabase) if you have lots of docs.
- Automation: Zapier/Make/n8n.
- CRM/helpdesk: HubSpot/Close/Pipedrive + Zendesk/Intercom/HelpScout.
- Storage/logs: Airtable/Sheets + Slack alerts.
Play 1 — AI Support Frontline
- Trigger: New ticket in Intercom/Zendesk.
- Action: Summarize user intent + sentiment; propose a draft reply from your docs/FAQ.
- Human-in-the-loop: Auto-draft, human sends; ship an “only answer if >80% confident” guardrail.
- Win: Faster first response, lower handle time.
Play 2 — Guided Onboarding Concierge
- Trigger: New signup or workspace created.
- Action: Generate a 3-step personalized onboarding plan using their role, use case, and imported data.
- Delivery: Email + in-app checklist; include one “magic moment” to reach in <24h.
- Win: Activation rate lift; fewer aimless users.
Play 3 — Lead Qualifier & Router
- Trigger: New lead form or demo request.
- Action: Score fit (industry, size, intent text), summarize needs, route to the right owner.
- Guardrails: Only book if calendar free within 72h; otherwise send a 2-slot fallback.
- Win: Faster speed-to-lead; better meetings.
Play 4 — Sales Follow-Up Drafter
- Trigger: Call/meeting notes added to CRM.
- Action: Generate a recap email with next steps, objections heard, and tailored proof points.
- Personalization: Pull 2–3 case snippets that match their industry/size.
- Win: Higher reply and progression rates.
Play 5 — Content Repurposer
- Trigger: New blog/podcast/video.
- Action: Produce LinkedIn carousel outline, 2 tweets/threads, and a 60-second reel script.
- Constraint: Enforce voice/tone guide; keep to one CTA.
- Win: More surface area from each asset without extra hours.
Play 6 — Churn Save & Win-Back
- Trigger: Cancel request or downgrade event.
- Action: Classify reason, generate tailored save offer or win-back sequence (email/SMS).
- Branching: If “missing feature,” capture it in a backlog table; if “pricing,” propose a usage-based or limited-time credit.
- Win: Reduce voluntary churn; capture product feedback.
Play 7 — Ops & Signal Digest
- Trigger: Daily/weekly scheduled job.
- Action: Summarize top user complaints, top-requested features, top tickets by effort, and notable power-user behaviors.
- Delivery: Slack/Email digest with links to source records.
- Win: Leadership clarity; faster prioritization.
How to ship safely in a weekend
- Prompts: Keep them short, state the allowed data sources, and define refusal rules.
- Evaluation: For each play, test with 10–20 real examples; log model output, confidence, and whether a human edited it.
- Data handling: Strip PII where not needed; use role-based access to docs and CRMs.
- Observability: Log inputs/outputs; send failures to Slack; keep a rollback toggle.
Metrics to watch
- Support: First-response time, % AI drafts accepted, CSAT delta.
- Sales: Speed-to-lead, meeting set rate, opp progression.
- Content: CTR on repurposed posts, saves/shares, follower growth velocity.
- Churn: Save rate, reasons distribution, follow-up response rate.
- Ops: Time-to-decision on top issues, alignment in weekly standups.
48-hour checklist
- ✅ Connect APIs (LLM, CRM, helpdesk, calendar, storage).
- ✅ Ship Plays 1–4 with human approval.
- ✅ Ship Plays 5–7 with clear tone/brand guardrails.
- ✅ Add logging + Slack alerts; set a kill switch per play.
- ✅ Review Monday with data; keep the winners, iterate on the rest.
Close
These seven sidekicks give you faster responses, richer context, and consistent publishing with minimal code. Start with human-in-the-loop, measure, then gradually trust the automations that earn it.