We are at a strange moment. For the first time, the kind of strategic depth that used to belong to large companies — the research, the operations, the analysis, the watchful compliance — is suddenly within reach of the rest of us. AI has done that. It is real, and it is happening fast.
What concerns me is what people are doing with it. Most of the conversation around AI for small business is about replacement. Replace your assistant. Replace your marketing. Replace your team. I do not believe that is the point of any of this — and I do not think the people who built businesses worth running believe it either.
The reason a small business is worth working with is the human behind it. The owner who actually answers the phone. The maker who knows their craft. The team that remembers the customer’s name. If we use this technology to flatten that out, we have spent a generational tool to make ourselves smaller.
So I started Vertix Solutions to do the opposite. The point is to give the owner a digital team that handles the work draining their week — the research that never gets done, the operational follow-through that never quite catches up, the strategic thinking there’s never time for — and to give all of that time back. Not to anyone else. To them. To spend on the parts of the business that mattered to them in the first place: the craft, the relationships, the choices only they should be making.
The name is intentional. Vertix — from the Latin vertex, the turning point, the place where forces converge. A small business owner running things on their own sees the picture from one angle. A research analyst, an operations specialist, a compliance officer would each see something different. Vertix Solutions is the place those perspectives meet — so the owner walks away with a complete picture they couldn’t have assembled alone.
One commitment binds the whole thing: human first, always. The technology is the engine. The people are the point. If a feature ever undercuts that, I’ll redesign it. If a client engagement ever drifts that direction, I’ll end it. That is the line.
If any of this resonates with how you think about your business — write to me. I’d like to hear what you’re working on.
— Todd Staben, Founder, Vertix Solutions
If any of this resonates — write to me.