How to start an agency using AI

You can begin an agency with one person and one useful offer. The early question is whether you can find customers, deliver what they need and make the work worth your time.

AI can support parts of the process. You remain responsible for the service you sell.

1. Choose your customer and offer

Start with a customer group you can reach and a problem you understand. For example, you could investigate enquiry systems for local service businesses or simple client portals for independent professionals.

Interview potential customers before deciding what to build. Ask them to show you the process they use now. Find out what causes delays and what would make a change worthwhile.

Use the service guide to define your offer.

2. Build a small example

Create a demonstration using fictional information. Base44 can help you turn an agreed workflow into an app.

Keep the example narrow. Test the main journey and permissions, then document the limitations. If you cannot reliably deliver a requested feature, leave it outside your first offer.

3. Plan the delivery process

Write a checklist covering the brief, required materials, build, testing, customer review and handover.

Decide which steps AI can assist with and which need your judgement or the customer's approval. Check generated work before it reaches the client.

Create a simple way to track projects and next actions. A spreadsheet or a small Base44 tracker can be enough to start.

4. Work out your capacity and costs

Count all the time a project takes, including calls, messages, corrections and support. Include subscriptions and any external help.

Choose a price and payment arrangement you can explain. Put the scope, revision limits and maintenance terms in writing before work starts. Check business, tax and contractual requirements where you operate; in the UK, GOV.UK's sole trader guide is a starting point.

5. Find the first client

Contact people whose problem matches your offer. Explain the result, show a relevant example and invite a short conversation.

You do not need to promise a transformation. A clearly scoped improvement that you can test and deliver is a useful place to begin.

Follow the first customer guide.

6. Deliver, then improve the offer

After delivery, ask what the customer found useful, what was unclear and what took more work than expected. Update your checklist.

Request permission before using their name, screenshots or feedback publicly. Keep private business information out of your portfolio.

7. Grow at a pace you can support

You might keep the agency small or eventually bring in collaborators. First make sure you know how to scope, check and support the work yourself.

Growth could mean better projects or a more manageable schedule, rather than more clients. Set the business up around the life you want it to fit.

Your next step: write one offer, create a small demonstration and speak to one potential customer. You can organise the plan with the free planning tool.