[Special Edition] I started a company. Get AI into your biz.
Hourglass AI - May 2026 Update
Hi team,
A slightly different type of email from me this time around:
I started Hourglass AI.
THIS is our Monthly Update :)
You won’t receive this again.
👉 If you DO want to receive our monthly updates - subscribe here.
Hourglass AI - May 2026 Monthly Update
We’ll be super transparent about Hourglass - how we’re building Australia’s best application layer AI company.
We don’t have investors, so we’ll be sending this update out to you to keep ourselves accountable.
THE ONLY ASK:
Because we don’t have investors.
We have you.
So please help us with our ASKs
>> each month, there are a few things I’d love you to take 60 seconds to think about and help your favourite AI implementers out!
Vision: Accelerate companies’ transition into the AI era.
North ⭐️: Active Retainer Clients: 1
= shows our clients are getting value every month
Asks
Customers - know a business that wants AI?
pls intro me, this is the single best thing you could do to help us <3
AI Course - cohort 2 waitlist is open already - Top 9 spots get 75%-25% discounts
Business insurance - any recommendations? This is a lot harder than it should be!
What we learned
AI Audits - unreal, 30 mins and you can go deep on problems to find AI opportunities >> surprising how much you get so quickly
AI Brain - honestly, every organisation needs it, if you have one, you can either have us keep building or build all your own AI on top >> this is our foundational build
Startups - not our customer segment, they want (and should) build their own AI stuff
Money
Cash-in report.
Cash is king.
So I made this report just based on what has already hit our bank account.
Customer Stories
“I like to think of myself as relatively techy, but I never could have set up FounderClaw by myself without spending far too much time on it.
Hourglass were fantastic in getting it set up for me, listening to exactly what I want and then making it a reality.
I work in recruitment, so having an assistant that works 24/7 - finding hiring signals, high-potential candidates, and booking in calendar invites via voice instructions - is invaluable. In less than a month it would’ve saved me days of worktime. I’m certain that FounderClaw will make me more effective, more productive, and make more money. 💰”
- Tom Hunter, Story Recruitment
Our first end-to-end customer.
He started recommending us so much we built him his own page and case study - here.
He loved the AI implementation so much we productised FounderClaw (your 24/7 assistant) - here.
Our First Full day Workshop
Ideal Customer Profile
We’re still very much in the experimentation phase.
Our current customers range from Recruitment, Accounting, VC, Family Office, Ecomm, Real Estate, Startup to Lifestyle businesses.
What I’ll start validating next month:
Recruiters - off the back of Tom’s case study we’ve got lots of interest
Accountants - lots of repeatable workflows we can automate
Financial Services - lots of admin, data and reporting we can automate
Ask: so if a business in the category comes to mind >> intro me pls! :)
Offerings
The core offering is our Audit + Build.
We interview your team, ask about all the problems, create an AI roadmap, you choose, we build and maintain it for you.
BUT we don’t want to stay a service business forever.
Everything we build we turn into products.
Products
FounderClaw - 24/7 AI assistant on your phone
SEO/GEO - we get you ranking on Google and AI
Education
AI Course - 4 week AI course from beginner to AI builder
Workshop - we run a whole day AI workshop for your team
Good
2x Hires - hired two absolute legends - Anna - AI all-rounder - Jeremy - AI builder.
7x Audits - delivered countless audit interviews and completed 7 AI reports
Smooth Launch - launch went smoothly covered on StartupDaily, fun fact: Fin and I met IRL on that day for the first time going straight into the photoshoot
First Workshop - got a call on Thursday to deliver a full company workshop in Kingscliff for Tuesday - Anna - the legend - delivered
First AI Course - we kicked off with 44 people to upgrade them into AI builders, crazy builder energy, so good to see
Internal tools taking shape - we’re building out own internal tools and it’s so fun to do
Audit portal - we don’t do PDF reports, you get your own custom, interactive portal and report
Glassy - AI slack coworker (want one? hit me up)
Dashboards - suck in our emails, financials, meetings - always live
Course platform - no teachable, no kajabi - fully build for AI builders from first principles
First product - FounderClaw struck a cord with at least one person and real customer love, now already implemented as an almost self-serve product
Bad
Lost deals - I’ve had 4 discovery calls which didn’t lead to an audit
Lesson 1: SMB with no tech system is not our client
Lesson 2: startups are not our clients, they will first try building it themselves
Who is our core customer - unsure, still exploring
GTM - we don’t know yet, atm leaning in on my network for introductions
Insurance - like what the hell? How is this process so archaic and hard? Who are the best providers? How much is insurance roughly? Indemnity, cyber, AI insurance?
Opening a bank account - Airwallex was easy to start, but then took 4 weeks to approve the account 🫠
Ugly
Hiring approach - got 62 applications for our AI builder role, we had everyone create an agent and submit a video, BUT we got the process wrong, interviewed the wrong people for the wrong reasons (polish over technical depth), so had to go back again through everyone, but it all worked out in the end
Emails down - I messed up. I set up our new work emails to get forwarded to my personal email. Did something wrong. For the first two weeks during and post launch, we couldn’t send or receive emails - they just silently failed 😅
Thanks so much for following along till the very end!
If you want to help » think about one person in your life whose company is desperately asking for AI :)
» link me up!