Solo-Founder Marketing Playbook — one person + a Claude Code team

Doc 29 is the strategy ($1M ARR, pricing anchored to five competitors). This doc is the execution manual for a one-man company: the pricing explained plainly, ten marketing plays sized for one person, and — the multiplier — how to staff a marketing and sales department entirely with Claude Code agents, the same way Trackmint’s own board is already worked by an AI employee.

1. The pricing, explained simply

Free ($0): 1 user, 1 project, board + timer. This is the funnel, not charity — households and tryouts live here, and some become businesses. Solo ($15/mo flat): everything a freelancer bills with. Priced below the FreshBooks-Lite-plus-a-timer combo people already pay for, so switching is a save, not a spend. Team ($29/user/mo): budgets, invoices, payments, workload. This is the money plan — it replaces Harvest + FreshBooks at one price. Pro Pack ($59/user/mo): AI document scan + profession packs (legal forms, trades). Half of Clio’s top tier; at Housecall Pro’s floor while doing more. AI Worker seat ($19/agent/mo, any plan): the product nobody else sells. Every “hire an AI employee” story you tell markets a seat no competitor has a price for.

Why these numbers work for one person: at a blended ~$70/mo per account you need ~1,200 accounts for $1M ARR — and just 60 accounts ≈ $50k/yr, which funds the whole solo operation while it compounds. You don’t need a sales force; you need the funnel running every day, which is what the agent team below is for.

2. Ten marketing plays a one-man company can actually run

Each play lists the human’s job vs the agents’ job — your week stays under ~10 founder-hours.

1. The AI-employee demo loop. You: record 90 seconds of the live board once a week (the agent completing real tickets). Agents: write the caption in 5 platform flavors, schedule posts, collect replies into a digest.
2. “Alternative to X” SEO pages. Agents draft “Harvest alternative”, “Clio for solo attorneys”, “Jobber too expensive” pages from doc 01/29 research; you review 2/week and publish. 30 pages in 4 months.
3. Launch days. One Product Hunt + Show HN per pack, quarterly. Agents prepare the listing, FAQ, first-comment, and a reply cheat-sheet; you show up for launch day and answer humans.
4. Review-site presence. Agents draft the Capterra/G2 listings and the in-app “leave a review” ask timing (right after a paid invoice); you approve. Reviews then compound without you.
5. Trades micro-influencers. Agents build the list of 50 contractor YouTubers with emails, draft the pitch, track replies; you approve each send and sign the $200–500 deals. Two videos/month.
6. Bar-association newsletters. Agents research the 6 cheapest state solo/small-firm sections and draft the sponsorship email + ad copy; you place ~$500 each, one per month.
7. Built-in-public weekly post. Agents draft “what the AI employee shipped this week” from the actual board + git history; you edit voice and post. This is the story tech press picks up.
8. Template gallery. Agents generate 20 shareable board templates (home renovation, wedding budget, side hustle) with landing copy; each template is an SEO door into the Free tier.
9. GitHub “bring your agent” funnel. The agent-tool + SOP goes public; agents write the README marketing, answer issues in draft, and flag hot leads (companies starring/forking) for you.
10. Payment-rail directories. Agents prepare Stripe/PayPal/Zelle small-biz directory submissions and co-marketing pitches; you submit. Free placement, compounding trickle.

3. The Claude Code marketing & sales team

You already employ one AI worker on the Trackmint board. The marketing department is the same pattern: each “employee” is a scheduled Claude Code task (or Cowork scheduled task) with a written role card, working a Trackmint board of its own so you manage marketing exactly like engineering — assign → accept → deliver → review.

The roster (6 agents, all runnable today):

• Content Writer — daily 30-min run: drafts one SEO page or social post from the research docs; files output as a ticket on a “Marketing” board with the draft attached; never publishes without your ✓.
• Social Media Manager — daily: turns the week’s demo video + built-in-public material into platform-sized posts, keeps a content calendar, reports engagement numbers into the board.
• SEO Analyst — weekly: checks which pages rank/convert (from analytics export you drop in a folder), proposes the next 5 pages, updates the keyword map.
• Sales Development Rep — daily: works the lead list (influencer replies, GitHub stars, trial signups from the admin tool’s users:list), drafts personalized follow-ups for your approval, moves each lead through a pipeline board: New → Contacted → Replied → Won.
• Review & Community Manager — daily: drafts responses to app reviews, Reddit/HN mentions, and support emails; escalates anything sensitive to you.
• Analytics Reporter — Monday morning: one-page digest — signups, funnel conversion, CAC per channel, MRR — and recommends which play to double down on (the kill-or-double quarterly rule from doc 29).

How to wire it (practical): create a second Trackmint workspace (“Trackmint Marketing”) — your marketing agents work it via the agent tool under the same SOP as engineering. In Claude Code, each role is a scheduled task whose prompt is its role card + “read the board, do today’s tickets, file drafts, log honest time.” You spend ~1 hour/day as the approver — the only human in a six-person department. Rules that keep it safe: agents draft, you publish; agents never spend money; every deliverable lands as a board ticket so nothing happens invisibly.

Why this reaches the goal: the $1M plan needs ~40k signups over the ramp — a content-and-outreach volume no solo founder can type. Six agents producing daily at ~$100–200/mo total in API cost replace roughly a $30k/mo headcount. The funnel math in doc 29 assumed this leverage; this section is how it’s real.

4. The slogan book — 21 lines

Primary: “Built by AI. Run by humans — and AI.”

Twenty more, by angle —

The money angle: 1. “The work you track is the work you bill.” 2. “Stop working for free.” 3. “Every hour has a home.” 4. “Time in. Money out.” 5. “Your unbilled hours are hiding. We find them.”

The AI-employee angle: 6. “Hire your first AI employee today.” 7. “It clocks in. It ships. It logs its hours.” 8. “Your newest teammate doesn’t take lunch.” 9. “Humans dream it. Agents do it. Trackmint bills it.” 10. “The first tracker where the AI is on the payroll.”

The simplicity angle: 11. “One board, from to-do to paid.” 12. “Track. Bill. Done.” 13. “Run your business from one screen.” 14. “Less software. More Saturday.”

The industry angle: 15. “Speaks contractor. And lawyer. And developer.” 16. “From kitchen remodels to court filings.” 17. “Your trade. Your words. Your board.”

The trust/edge angle: 18. “Built by the thing it tracks.” 19. “We used it to build itself. It billed us.” 20. “Small business software that actually got smaller.”

Testing rule: run 1, 6, and 11 as the first A/B/C on the landing page — they represent the three distinct buying motives (money recovered, AI leverage, simplicity). Keep whichever converts; use the industry lines (15–17) on the pack-specific pages.