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Fredrik Filipsson

Founder, Main Street AI  ·  Small Business Owner & AI Automation Practitioner

I've spent over 10 years building small businesses from the ground up. Along the way, I made every mistake possible — including spending years doing manually what a $20/month tool could have done for me. Then AI changed everything. I built systems that automated my booking, follow-ups, reviews, and customer service. My businesses ran more smoothly. I got my evenings back. Now I teach other local business owners how to do exactly the same thing — in plain English, with no tech background required.

10+Years in Business
250+Tutorials Written
50+Tools Tested
12Industries Covered
The Story

Why I built this site

I didn't start as a tech person. I started as a small business owner — the kind who answered phones at 9pm, chased invoices by hand, and sent appointment reminders one by one from my personal cell. For years, that was just what running a business looked like.

Then I discovered automation tools. Not in a Silicon Valley context — just in a desperate, "I need to stop doing this manually" context. I set up my first Zapier automation to send a confirmation email when someone booked. It took me 45 minutes and I felt like I'd built a robot. The next week I automated follow-up texts. Then review requests. Then my entire onboarding sequence.

Within a year, I had built back 15 hours per week — hours I'd been spending on repetitive tasks that software could handle better than I ever did.

But here's what I noticed: every tutorial I found assumed you already knew what "workflow automation" meant. They were written by developers for developers. There was nothing for the plumber who has never heard of Zapier. Nothing for the salon owner who just wants to stop playing phone tag. Nothing for Main Street.

That's why I built this site. Every tutorial here is written the way I wish someone had explained it to me — with no jargon, real examples from real business types, and screenshots of every single step. If I tried a tool and it didn't work for a normal small business owner, I say so. If it genuinely changed how I run things, you'll know that too.

This is not a site built by people who've only read about AI. It's built by someone who uses it every day to run actual businesses.

Background

10+ years of building — the short version

What I write about

Six areas I know from the inside

Workflow Automation (Zapier & Make)

Built dozens of multi-step automations across different business types. Know what actually works at small business scale — and what's overkill.

🤖

AI Chatbots & Customer Service

Set up chatbots on my own business websites. Know the difference between a chatbot that books appointments and one that just frustrates people.

📅

Booking & Scheduling Automation

Tested every major booking tool. Know which ones work for which business types, which have the best free plans, and which are worth paying for.

📧

Email Marketing on Autopilot

Built email sequences that run for months without touching them. Welcome series, follow-ups, re-engagement — all from real business experience.

Review Automation

Went from a handful of Google reviews to triple digits using automated request systems. Know what triggers a review and what gets ignored.

📱

Social Media Automation

Batch-scheduled months of content using Buffer and AI writing tools. Know how to create a month of posts in an afternoon without outsourcing.

From Fredrik

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