1517: The AI Chief of Staff: Run Your Startup Like It's 10x Bigger w/ Brandon Katz
Ready to operate your business with the strategic power of a company ten times its size? In this mind-blowing episode, we sit down with Brandon Katz, the visionary founder of DreamLever, to unpack the revolutionary concept of the "AI Chief of Staff." Brandon explains how we're entering the golden age of entrepreneurship, where AI isn't just automating tasks—it's becoming a strategic partner. This episode is a must-listen for any founder who wants to move beyond simple AI prompts and harness the power of agentic AI to manage knowledge, drive accountability, and make smarter, faster decisions. Brandon breaks down how to build an "organizational brain" that gives you and your team an unprecedented competitive advantage, no matter the size of your business.
💡 What You'll Take Away For YOUR Business
- 🧠 How to build an "organizational brain" by systematically capturing and organizing your company’s knowledge.
- 🚀 Why your first hire could (and maybe should) be an AI agent, and how to implement it from day one.
- 🤖 The difference between basic AI and "Agentic AI" that proactively works for you while you sleep.
- 📈 How an AI Chief of Staff can provide the visibility and insights needed to run your startup like it's 10x its size.
- 🗣️ The single most important action you can take right now to prepare your business for the AI revolution (hint: it involves your meetings).
- 🔗 How to connect your company's goals, conversations, and data to create an unstoppable AI-powered management system.
📝 About Brandon Katz
Brandon Katz is the Founder and CEO of DreamLever, where he is building the AI Chief of Staff for founder-led startups and SMBs. His journey began as Chief of Staff at Fine Fettle, where he helped scale the company from 35 to over 300 employees by architecting the very management systems that became the blueprint for DreamLever. With a unique background holding both a JD and an MBA from NYU, Brandon combines systems-based legal thinking with sharp business acumen to democratize world-class management for entrepreneurs everywhere.
🎯 Brandon’s BEST Piece of Advice for Wantrepreneurs and Entrepreneurs
"Don't stand in your own way... a lot of the struggles of entrepreneurship are self-imposed."
📢 Memorable Quotes
- "Systematically, we need to change the way that we're running companies around AI. So AI is at the center and fueling everything that we're doing across the business." – Brandon Katz
- "The one piece of advice I would offer anybody that's trying to leverage AI most effectively for their organization is just start recording all of your meetings right now." – Brandon Katz
- "If you had a system that was focusing you on the most important things, giving you the information you needed early and driving that forward everywhere across the organization, you would just have orders of magnitude more productivity everywhere." – Brandon Katz
💡 Actionable Takeaways
- ✅ Start recording and transcribing all of your business meetings immediately to begin building your company's knowledge base.
- ✅ Create a simple "context graph" for your business by documenting your goals, key metrics, and org chart in a central location.
- ✅ Reframe your role from just a founder to a manager of outcomes, whether they are driven by people or AI agents.
- ✅ Explore using AI to create proactive meeting agendas based on your team's goals and recent performance data to make every meeting hyper-effective.
🔗 Links & Resources
