What an hour of your time is actually worth.

You are doing $15 an hour work every day. And you are telling yourself you cannot afford to get help.

For owners.

The productivity research coming out of AI labs right now keeps landing on the same number: knowledge workers using AI tools are finishing tasks in a fraction of the time. Not 10% faster. Measurably faster in ways that actually show up in output.

Here is the part nobody is saying out loud: the people who benefit most are not the ones with the biggest teams. They are the ones doing everything themselves. Every hour of repetitive work you hand off to a system is an hour you get back at your full rate — not at whatever a part-time hire would cost you.

The math on this is brutal once you run it. Most owners have never run it. That is the whole problem.

How to calculate your owner hourly rate and use it to decide what to hand off first.

Step 1  ·  Calculate your number.

Take your target annual income. Divide it by 2,000 (working hours in a year). That is your hourly rate. Write it down somewhere you will see it.

Step 2  ·  Audit last week.

List every task you did last week that someone making 20% of your rate could have done. Be honest. Most owners fill half a page.

Step 3  ·  Price the biggest one.

Pick the biggest time drain on that list. Find one AI tool or system that handles it. Budget the first month of that tool against what it cost you to do it yourself. The math usually wins in week one.

Every system we build starts with this calculation. It is the clearest way to show an owner where the real cost is before we touch anything. Not the cost of the tool. The cost of not having it.

Your move

Forward this to another owner who is too busy to think about why they are too busy.

Questions? Just reply to this email. A real person (me, Cam) reads every one.