FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Clear answers about wallet credit, usage, subscriptions, and how Tycoon charges for work.
Can an agency really deliver quality work with AI doing most of it?
For productized services at SMB and mid-market price points, yes. The quality bar in that segment is 'better than what the client could do internally with their in-house marketing coordinator' — a bar the AI team clears easily when properly directed. The failure mode is not quality; it is founders who don't set up good enough direction and QA, so AI produces generic output. Agencies that invest in AI role onboarding, style guides, and quality gates deliver work that outperforms most traditional agencies at their price point.
What's the real margin on an AI-first agency?
At $10-30K MRR, typical margins are 70-85% because the main cost is Tycoon usage ($200-800/month) plus a few tools ($100-300/month) plus Stripe fees. Above $30K MRR, margins often drop slightly to 60-75% as you bring in fractional humans for edge cases or strategic work. Compare to traditional agencies running 20-35% margins with full-time humans. The margin delta is why bootstrapped agencies are suddenly economic in the AI era.
How do clients feel about AI doing the work?
They don't notice or care as long as the outcome is good. Most agencies don't advertise the AI-first model; they deliver the work and let results speak. A few lean into it ('our AI-first content engine ships 3x faster than traditional agencies') and find it's a positioning advantage for buyers who value speed. The conversation to avoid is 'AI wrote this blog post' — that triggers brand concerns. The right framing is 'our team uses AI to ship faster with the same senior-level oversight'.
What categories work best for AI-first agency models?
Strong: SEO content, programmatic SEO, design retainers, paid media management, bookkeeping, technical writing, video transcription and editing, social content production. Decent: web development (for common stacks), CRM implementation, paid media strategy. Weak for now: brand strategy consulting, senior taste-led creative, complex M&A advisory, high-stakes legal work. The rule: if the output has a clear spec and can be QA'd against it, AI-first works. If it requires gut-level human judgment at every step, stick with humans or hybrid.
When should I hire my first human employee?
When you have a capability gap the AI team genuinely cannot fill, not before. Common real gaps: a senior domain expert for a vertical where the AI team's depth is shallow, a sales lead for enterprise deals requiring relationship-led selling, a customer-facing ops person for a high-touch white-glove tier. Common fake gaps: 'I'm busy' (hire the next AI role instead), 'I need someone to review the AI' (tighten the AI's context and QA), 'my clients expect a human team' (reframe positioning). Most AI-first agencies get to $500K-$1M ARR before the first real human hire.