FrUn SMB AI Guide

Name: Ops Machine
Brand: Ops Machine

At a glance

Ten fractional experts — finance, HR, legal, marketing, operations, product, and technology — wrote the same six-part playbook for SMB owners. Republished here with permission; canonical guide at frun.pro/smbaiguide.

Republished with permission. The canonical version lives at frun.pro/smbaiguide (Superhuman Docs). This hub is an authorized mirror for discoverability.

Introduction

— Karina Mikhli, Founder, Fractionals United®

Most small businesses know they should be using AI. Almost none of them know where to start.

The advice out there is either written for enterprises with IT departments or it’s a list of tools that’s outdated the week it’s published. Neither helps a 10-person company figure out what to actually do on Monday morning.

I’m lucky to be surrounded by fractional leaders who solve exactly this problem for their clients every day. So I pulled a group of them together in Fractionals United® to write the guide, with each contributor covering their own function: finance, HR, legal, marketing, operations, product, and technology.

We cover what to understand before you spend a dollar, what to buy, where to start in the first 30 days, and what to avoid.

It’s free, it’s practical, and it’s written for owners, not enterprises.

Read the canonical guide: frun.pro/smbaiguide

What’s in the guide

Each expert wrote a full chapter with the same six-part structure:

Mindset — beliefs before you spend a dollar
Tool stack — start cheap, stay simple
First 30 days — where to start (checklist)
Use case — a real SMB example
Guardrails — what not to do
Lessons learned — one thing for every owner

Cross-function themes (process before tools, one workflow beats ten pilots, human review stays non-negotiable) run through the opening sections on the canonical doc.

Contributors

Equal credit — full chapters on the canonical guide. We republish Mitch Schwartz’s Operations chapter in full below.

About this republish

Hosted by Ops Machine with permission from Fractionals United. Editor: Karina Mikhli. June 2026.

Disclaimer (from the guide): Views are each contributor’s experience-based opinions, not endorsements by Fractionals United. Tool recommendations change — verify before you buy. Not legal, financial, or HR advice.

FrUn SMB AI Guide

Introduction

What’s in the guide

Contributors

Finance — Lindsay Sailor, MBA

Human Resources — Carol Fraser, SCP, ACC, CCP

Legal — Scott Palmer

Marketing & GTM — Crys Black (Brand, Content & Voice)

Marketing & GTM — Paul Mosenson (Lead Gen & Follow-up)

Operations — Jason Prosnitz (Outcomes Over Adoption)

Operations — Mitch Schwartz (Building the Workflow)

Product & Design — Amy Bonsall

Technology — Ben Shichman (The Starter Stack & Quick Wins)

Technology — Kevin Ziegler (Data, Permissions & Governance)

About this republish