Twelve agents running the back office. One human running the brand.
Cronk Nutrients is a premium liquid plant fertilizer brand. DTC on Shopify, wholesale through reps, ads on Meta and Google, support through Gorgias, fulfillment through Veeqo. The founder was doing all of it. Customer service ate the mornings. Daily P&L took 90 minutes. SEO content went stale because there was no time to write. The choice was hire five people or build the team in software.
- A.01 CX director. Handles every Gorgias ticket end to end. Pulls the order from Shopify, checks shipping status in Veeqo, drafts the reply in brand voice. Founder approves before send. Cut median response time from 8 hours to under 30 minutes.
- A.02 CFO. Aggregates Shopify, Amazon, and Stripe nightly. Builds the daily P&L by 7 AM. Flags margin compression, marketing inefficiency, and cash-flow risks before they bite. No spreadsheets.
- A.03 Content director. Writes SEO articles on plant science, deficiency diagnosis, and feeding charts. Gated on factual accuracy: every dosage cited, every claim sourced. Publishes 3 to 5 articles a week.
This is my own business. I built the agent team I would want to hire. Now I run the brand instead of the back office. -- Cortland Cronk, Cronk Nutrients