Full Stack Founders

Do you need people, or do you need leverage? Mike's client was stuck at $3 million for five years. He reduced his team and doubled his profits.

Mike Bledsoe and Ted Phaeton walk through 8 AI plays they're actually running this week. From the Daily Operations Brief that filters out the 88% of emails that don't matter, to the Brand Architect + CMO skill that replaces a $50K marketing engagement, to the AI Operations Audit that found 45% of one client's tasks could be eliminated or automated, to the CFO skill that drafted a financial forecast a consultant would have charged $50,000 for.

No theory. No hype. The play operator-founders running $500K to $5M businesses can install this week.

Key insights from this episode:

• The single source of truth: why one daily brief replaces 6 dashboards

• The Brand Architect + CMO skill stack (and the StoryBrand reference behind it)

•The AI vetting engine: 100+ hours/month → 20 minutes/week

• The AI Operations Audit: 15% eliminated immediately + 30% automated in 6 months

• Why nobody talks about AI for operations

• The speed-to-lead math: 391% conversion lift at the 1-minute mark

• The customer-health alert system that catches churn 30–90 days early

• The CFO skill that replaced a $50,000 consultant

• Bodies vs. leverage: the question Mike asks every founder client

• GitHub for non-technical teams (and how Mike imported Gary Tan's 27-skill stack)

Chapters:

00:00 The leverage question 01:00 Welcome to Full Stack Founders

01:50 Today's roadmap: marketing, ops, finance

02:35 Play 1 — The Daily Operations Brief

06:40 Why one source of truth changes your focus

10:30 Building the Chief of Staff in pieces

14:18 Play 2 — Brand Architect + CMO skill

18:55 Finding the blue ocean (the real estate example)

22:00 StoryBrand and the CMO agent

24:18 Play 3 — AI guest and applicant vetting

26:00 The scoring framework 30:25 Why "set it and forget it" doesn't work

32:18 Play 4 — The AI Operations Audit

34:48 15% immediate + 30% in 6 months

36:46 Why no one talks about AI for operations

38:06 The atomic-task domino effect

39:30 Play 5 — Speed to lead and the conversion math

41:35 The roofer story (boots + AI)

45:30 Play 6 — Customer health and churn prediction

48:00 The Target / Atomic Habits pregnancy story

51:00 Play 7 — The CFO Skill and the $50K consultant

54:28 Bodies vs. leverage (the $3M client story)

58:30 Why a CFO skill beats a CFO hire

1:00:10 Play 8 — GitHub for non-technical teams

1:02:35 The G-stack: importing Gary Tan's 27-skill stack

1:05:55 Why your machine is now your asset

1:07:58 Ted's recap of the 8 plays

1:11:00 Outro

This episode focuses on OUTPUT (Business & Leadership). To learn how to integrate this into your daily leadership practice and reclaim your time, take our free training "See The Game" inside the Full Stack community: www.skool.com

Follow Ted:

Website: www.themodernmanpodcast.com

X: TheModernMan8

YouTube: The Modern Man Podcast

Instagram: themodernmanpodcast

Facebook: TheModernManShow

Follow Mike:

Website: bledsoe.life

YouTube: @MikeBledsoe

Instagram: @mike_bledsoe

#fullstackpodcast #fullstackfounders #aiforbusiness #operatorfounder #aiforfounders #mikebledsoe #tedphaeton #aiautomation #foundermindset #aiagents #leverage #claudecode

What is Full Stack Founders?

For operator-founders building for the AI era.

Mike Bledsoe and Ted Phaeton host. Mike's been an entrepreneur for 19 years: Navy veteran, built CrossFit gyms, Barbell Shrugged, a SaaS product for operators, and now consults operators rebuilding their businesses around AI. Ted's earlier on the path. Part of the show is Mike mentoring him through the conversation in public. The rest is keeping the audience up to speed on what AI is actually doing to the game in real time.

When there are guests, they're operators worth having in the room. When there aren't, Ted drives the questions. Usually the ones most operators won't ask out loud. They walk through the work together.

Most business podcasts are entertainment for operators pretending to build something. This one is for the ones actually building.

No guru energy. No performance. Two operators thinking out loud about what ownership actually requires now.

New episodes every Monday.