I wanted to use AI tools with my creation of Class IV, an IT, Cyber, and Data consulting company. I had mixed success with a number of tools I list in the table below. I discuss my experiences in-depth based on my experiences over the past few months.

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The Marketing Effort

Creating Class IV

I’ll spare you the story of how Class IV came to be — it rhymes with Daniel’s “Why”, but once I decided that I was going to go into my own consulting shop, I needed to build my services and corp dev stack and really practice what I preach – using AI everywhere and anywhere I could to maximize my time doing other things than back office work. After I went and picked out a laptop, company name and domain, below are my services and decisions I used to create the company.

I did some experimenting with a pure AI Agent tied to my OpenAI account. AI Agents will be given a task and then recursively create prompts and to-do lists and execute on them autonomously. While interesting, this technology and use of AI Agents is still very much in the first inning. The Agent running over at AgentGPT did do some interesting things and showed the beginnings of promise, but they have a long way to go.

Setting up the Company

To begin my business venture, I needed to establish an LLC. However, I had no idea where to start and didn’t want to pay for an expensive lawyer. I also recognized the importance of selecting a business name and creating a logo. So, my first step was to brainstorm ideas for the company name. With my ChatGPT Premium subscription purchased, I immediately began firing off questions and brainstorming with ChatGPT. ChatGPT was pretty essential as there were interactive queries on setting up certain components of my domain and DNS as well as general questions.

I went down a few routes, including uploading the entire PDF of Moneyball to the LLM to try to figure out ideas for names based on Baseball and the Moneyball approach taken by the Oakland A’s. I came up with my name, Class IV, after a weekend with the boys running the Browns Canyon in Colorado.

After deciding on Class IV, I needed a brand. I used Looka to determine what my brand should look like. Although not trivial or unintuitive, the interface helped generate a good number of logo ideas on the fly based on my input. This saved me thousands of dollars compared to going through a traditional branding shop and designer.

I faced some challenges with Looka, such as taking a while to figure out how to modify spacing, fonts, or make slight tweaks to a logo that I found almost perfect. Although I did check out other competitors, including Canva, I happened to use Looka first and it came up with a great logo that I liked so much that I decided to overcome its intricacies and stick with it.

After chatting with ChatGPT using a super prompt, I stumbled upon ZenBusiness. I did some research and ordered the EIN & Business Documents bundle, as well as the Pro Plan. This provided me with the necessary filings, document templates library, corporate business kit, and Operating Agreement.

However, one annoying aspect of ZenBusiness was its relentless upselling. While I understand the importance of cross-selling as an entrepreneur, their approach to pushing banking, business credit cards, small business insurance, and websites felt overwhelming. As someone who simply wanted to start an LLC, the constant barrage of offers was a bit aggressive.

After finalizing my LLC and logo, I used Looka to make small adjustments for my website, with the intention of utilizing AI to get me 60-80% of the way to the final product. 10Web suggested using AI-generated content and design tailored to fit my website, so I gave it a try. The resulting site looked great and incorporated my color scheme, with a basic consulting webpage design that satisfied me. Learning WordPress and Elementor was relatively easy, thanks to their progress in low-to-no-code web development. 10Web also provides business name generators, marketing strategy generators, and AI assistants integrated with the AI to assist with SEO. Although I used some of these services, I ultimately partnered with SpearPoint to help with SEO and launch. I am pleased with 10Web’s cost and hosting, and estimate that their product saved me at least 50 hours of struggle and/or thousands of dollars in doing it myself, re-learning WordPress, catching up on new tips and tricks, or hiring outside help.

At 10Web, I chose to use Gravity Forms for my contact page. It was a straightforward decision and it has worked well, except for the fact that the Captcha should have been enabled by default. Within just two days, I received over 3000 fraudulent submissions on my unindexed website. This situation maxed out my Zapier integration allocation. I will discuss this in more detail later.

Finally, I decided to trademark my design and name before getting into business development. After evaluating LegalZoom and other providers, I chose to go through Trademark Engine. However, I regret this decision as the process was poorly put together despite seeming intuitive. Additionally, I encountered issues with their payment processor being flagged as fraudulent by my bank and credit card company, which caused me to lose hours resolving the problem. Despite feeling the sunk cost conundrum, I decided to continue and get it done. The marks are now in the months-long process of review.

That said, this is a company in flux and small enough to do a rapid pivot if I need to.  The solutions above fit the way that I wanted to run my business and Class IV can support you in yours if you’re experiencing similar challenges in getting off the ground or evolving into a more dynamic, AI-forward business.

Ready to Transform Your Business with AI Technology?

If you have follow-up questions or are struggling in your data, IT, or just getting your company rolling, contact Class IV today to learn how we can assist your organization in navigating the digital landscape and implementing cutting-edge AI technologies. Book time with Class IV.