I was talking to a contractor in Omaha a few months ago. Good company, maybe $4M in revenue, 20-something employees. He'd already paid someone for an "AI strategy." He had the deck. Forty-some pages. Looked professional. But nothing was running. His team was still doing the same work they were doing before the engagement started.
"I paid for advice and I got a PDF," he told me. That stuck with me because I've heard versions of it from a lot of business owners.
I'm Dawson Schrader. I co-founded a fractional CFO firm called 1610 Advisory. I'm head of finance at a construction company. I run a farm and a mobile coffee bar. And I build AI systems that are running in production right now, in real businesses, handling real work. When I say implementation, I mean I'll open your QuickBooks, I'll look at your project management tool, I'll sit with your team, and I'll build the thing. Not describe it. Build it.
What it looks like from your side
I learn your business
We sit down and you show me how things actually work. Not the org chart, the real version. Where time disappears, what keeps falling through the cracks, what your team complains about. I'm looking for the two or three things AI can genuinely take off someone's plate.
I show you what I'd build
Before I touch anything, I walk you through exactly what I'm going to do, what tools I'm picking, how they connect to your existing systems, and what it costs. You say yes or no. No surprises.
I build it, in your systems, with your team
This is the part that usually doesn't happen. I'm in your tools, connecting things, testing with real data, training your people as I go. When it goes live, your team already knows how to use it because they watched it get built.
I stay in the loop
Things break. Things change. AI tools update. Your business shifts. I check in monthly to make sure what we built is still doing its job, and I adjust when it isn't.
The difference between a plan and a running system
What you've probably gotten
- A slide deck about AI's potential
- A list of tools you should "consider"
- "Your team can take it from here"
- A check-in call in 90 days
- A bill for the presentation
What you get from me
- A working system in your business
- Tools picked, configured, connected
- Your team trained while I build
- Monthly sessions to keep it running
- You pay for results, not pages
Here's what I've built.
The AI CMO is a system I created that runs content strategy, SEO, analytics, and client management for multiple businesses at once. Companies depend on it for real work every day. I built it because I needed it, and I open-sourced it because I think you should be able to see how someone works before you hire them.
Every line of code is public. Every automation pattern, every integration. If you want to see what my implementation work actually looks like before we ever talk, you can.
Ready to see something actually work?
30 minutes. You show me what you're dealing with, I'll tell you what I'd build and whether it's worth building. If it's not the right time, I'll say that too.