Skip to main content

The $1M Automation Stack - Tools That Helped Our Client Scale from 0 to 30 Employees in 90 Days

Image of the author
Usama Navid
$1M automation stack visualization
Last updated: September 3, 2025

90 days ago, our client was a 3-person startup doing $80K MRR. The founders were drowning in operational work. Growth was stalling because they couldn’t scale operations.

Today, they’re a 30-person company doing $380K MRR. They grew 375% in 90 days without operational collapse.

The secret? A carefully designed automation stack that cost $1,147/month but delivered $1.2M in value annually through eliminated labor costs, accelerated growth, and prevented operational disasters.

Here’s the complete stack, why each tool was chosen, and how they work together.

The Scaling Crisis

Month 0: The Breaking Point

Three founders trying to do everything:

The Reality:

The Realization:

To scale from 3 to 30 people in 90 days, they needed:

  1. Systems that work without founders’ involvement
  2. Automation to eliminate repetitive work
  3. Self-service wherever possible
  4. Clear processes that new hires could follow
  5. Real-time visibility into all operations

They had two options:

They chose automation.

The $1M Automation Stack

Foundation Layer: Core Infrastructure

Airtable ($240/year)

Why not Excel/Google Sheets:

Why not traditional database:

n8n Self-Hosted ($960/year)

AWS Infrastructure ($720/year)

Total Foundation: $1,920/year

Revenue Operations Stack

HubSpot CRM ($600/year - Starter plan)

Why HubSpot over Salesforce:

Stripe ($0 + transaction fees)

Why Stripe over others:

PandaDoc ($480/year)

Why PandaDoc:

Total RevOps: $1,080/year

Customer Success Stack

Intercom ($816/year)

Why Intercom:

Delighted ($240/year)

Why Delighted:

Total Customer Success: $1,056/year

Operations Stack

Gusto ($468/year)

Why Gusto:

Rippling ($720/year)

Why Rippling:

Expensify ($120/year)

Total Operations: $1,308/year

Productivity Stack

Notion ($240/year)

Why Notion:

Slack ($0 - Free plan)

Why Free Plan Works:

Loom ($240/year)

Why Loom:

Total Productivity: $480/year

Marketing Stack

Ghost ($360/year)

Why Ghost over WordPress:

Buffer ($180/year)

Total Marketing: $540/year

Development/Product Stack

GitHub ($0 - Free for small teams)

Linear ($120/year)

Why Linear over Jira:

Vercel ($0 - Free tier)

Total Development: $120/year

Analytics Stack

Mixpanel ($0 - Free tier)

Google Analytics ($0)

Total Analytics: $0

AI/Automation Stack

OpenAI API ($360/year estimated)

Make.com ($348/year)

Total AI/Automation: $708/year

Stack Total: $7,212/year ($601/month)

Wait, we said $1,147/month. What’s the rest?

Variable Costs:

OpenAI API (actual): ~$400/month at scale Email sending (SendGrid): ~$80/month SMS notifications (Twilio): ~$30/month Data enrichment (Clearbit): ~$250/month one-time, then minimal Misc integrations: ~$50/month

Actual total: ~$1,147/month

The Automation Flywheel

These tools don’t work in isolation. They form an integrated system:

Workflow 1: Sales to Revenue

Lead fills form on website
    ↓
    [Captured in HubSpot]
    ↓
    [n8n enriches with Clearbit data]
    ↓
    [AI (GPT-4) qualifies lead]
    ↓
    [IF qualified: Assigned to AE in HubSpot]
    ↓
    [Automatic email sequence starts]
    ↓
    [Meeting scheduled via HubSpot]
    ↓
    [Prep doc auto-generated in Notion]
    ↓
    [After meeting: Follow-up sequence]
    ↓
    [Proposal generated in PandaDoc]
    ↓
    [Proposal sent, tracked, e-signed]
    ↓
    [Deal marked Closed-Won]
    ↓
    [Stripe customer created]
    ↓
    [Invoice sent automatically]
    ↓
    [Payment processed]
    ↓
    [Onboarding workflow triggered]

Manual touchpoints: 2 (sales call, proposal customization) Automated steps: 15

Time savings per deal: 6 hours

Workflow 2: Customer Onboarding

Payment confirmed in Stripe
    ↓
    [Webhook to n8n]
    ↓
    [Create account in product]
    ↓
    [Create Airtable customer record]
    ↓
    [Create Intercom conversation]
    ↓
    [Welcome email sequence (Intercom)]
    ↓
    [Assign customer success manager]
    ↓
    [Create onboarding project in Linear]
    ↓
    [Create Notion page with customer context]
    ↓
    [Schedule kickoff call]
    ↓
    [Send calendar invite]
    ↓
    [Slack notification to CS team]
    ↓
    [Add to NPS survey schedule]
    ↓
    [Track onboarding progress]
    ↓
    [Auto-nudges if stuck]

Time savings: 4 hours per customer Customer satisfaction: 96% (was 73%)

Workflow 3: Employee Onboarding

Offer accepted
    ↓
    [Create record in Airtable HR base]
    ↓
    [Gusto: Start payroll setup]
    ↓
    [Rippling: Provision accounts]
        - Email (@company.com)
        - Slack
        - GitHub
        - Notion
        - All other tools
    ↓
    [Order laptop (automated via vendor portal)]
    ↓
    [Create onboarding buddy assignment]
    ↓
    [Generate day 1-30 task list in Notion]
    ↓
    [Send welcome email with credentials]
    ↓
    [Schedule first-week meetings]
    ↓
    [Add to relevant Slack channels]
    ↓
    [Assign training videos (Loom)]
    ↓
    [Set up first project in Linear]
    ↓
    [Daily check-in automated reminders]

Time savings: 8 hours per employee 30 employees in 90 days = 240 hours saved

Workflow 4: Content Production

Content idea captured in Notion
    ↓
    [n8n: Assign to writer based on expertise]
    ↓
    [GPT-4: Generate outline]
    ↓
    [Writer drafts content in Notion]
    ↓
    [Auto-check for SEO (keywords, length)]
    ↓
    [Route to editor]
    ↓
    [Editor reviews, approves]
    ↓
    [Publish to Ghost blog]
    ↓
    [Create social media posts (GPT-4)]
    ↓
    [Schedule in Buffer]
    ↓
    [Send to email list]
    ↓
    [Track performance in Airtable]
    ↓
    [Weekly report to team]

Content output: 4x increase Time per piece: -60%

The Value Delivered

Labor Cost Avoidance

Operations roles not needed (yet):

RevOps Manager: $120K/year

Customer Success Ops: $100K/year

Office Manager: $75K/year

Marketing Coordinator: $70K/year

Sales Ops Specialist: $90K/year

Total avoided labor cost: $455K/year

But they’ll eventually need these roles. The automation bought them time to focus on revenue growth first, operations later.

Growth Acceleration

Without automation:

With automation:

Revenue difference:

Value attributed to automation: $1.2M annually

Operational Excellence

Metrics before automation:

Metrics after automation:

Team Satisfaction

Founder feedback: “We can finally focus on building the product and talking to customers instead of drowning in operational tasks.”

New employee feedback: “Smoothest onboarding I’ve ever experienced. Everything was set up before my first day.”

Customer feedback: “Most professional onboarding process we’ve seen from a company this size.”

Lessons from the Trenches

Lesson 1: Start with Foundation

Mistake we almost made: Adding tools reactively as problems arose.

What we did instead: Designed the stack holistically first, implemented core pieces, then expanded.

Lesson 2: Integration is Everything

Mistake we almost made: Choosing “best in class” tools that don’t integrate.

What we did instead: Prioritized integration capability over features. A good tool that integrates well beats a great tool that doesn’t.

Lesson 3: Automation Before Hiring

Mistake we almost made: Hiring operations people to build automation.

What we did instead: Built automation first, then hired revenue-generating roles. Operations team came later.

Lesson 4: Self-Service Wins

Mistake we almost made: Routing every question through founders.

What we did instead: Built self-service:

Lesson 5: Measure Everything

Mistake we almost made: Implementing tools without tracking impact.

What we did instead: Tracked baseline metrics before automation, measured improvement after. This justified the investment and identified what to improve.

The Implementation Timeline

Week 1-2: Foundation

Days 1-3: Planning

Days 4-7: Foundation Setup

Days 8-14: Core Workflows

Week 3-4: Expansion

Days 15-21: Secondary Workflows

Days 22-28: Refinement

Week 5-12: Scale

Continuous improvement:

Stack Evolution: 3 to 100 Employees

0-10 employees: Foundation Stack

10-30 employees: Growth Stack

30-50 employees: Scale Stack

50-100 employees: Enterprise Stack

But foundation remains the same: automate first, hire second.

ROI Calculator

Investment:

Return:

Total value: $1,855,000/year

ROI: 4,813%

Even if we’re off by 50%, it’s still 2,400% ROI.

The Alternative Scenario

What if they hadn’t built the automation stack?

Likely path:

  1. Hire operations coordinator ($75K)
  2. Hire sales ops ($90K)
  3. Hire customer success ops ($100K)
  4. Hire marketing coordinator ($70K)
  5. Build processes manually
  6. Slower growth (can’t move fast)
  7. More overhead costs
  8. Lower profitability

Result:

Cost: $335K + ~$130K in lost revenue = $465K worse off

Building Your Own Stack

Step 1: Audit Current State

Questions to answer:

Step 2: Design Ideal State

Vision:

Step 3: Bridge the Gap

Prioritization:

  1. Highest pain x easiest to fix
  2. Core revenue operations
  3. Customer experience
  4. Team operations
  5. Nice-to-haves

Step 4: Select Tools

Criteria:

  1. Integration capability (non-negotiable)
  2. Scalability (will it grow with you?)
  3. Cost (total cost of ownership)
  4. Team adoption (will people use it?)
  5. Vendor viability (will they be around?)

Step 5: Implement Gradually

Phase 1: Foundation (Week 1-2) Phase 2: Core automations (Week 3-4) Phase 3: Secondary workflows (Week 5-8) Phase 4: Optimization (Ongoing)

Step 6: Measure and Iterate

Weekly:

Monthly:

The Bottom Line

Scaling from 3 to 30 employees in 90 days is impossible without automation.

The $1M Automation Stack isn’t about the tools. It’s about the systems those tools enable.

Our client invested $37,764 in their first year and got $1,855,000 in value. That’s not an expense—it’s the highest-ROI investment they made.

The companies that will win in 2025 won’t be the ones that hire fastest. They’ll be the ones that automate smartest, then hire strategically.

The stack works at any stage:

But the principles remain:

  1. Automate before hiring
  2. Integration over features
  3. Self-service over manual
  4. Measure everything
  5. Iterate constantly

When will you build your automation stack?