Free business parable

Stop Being the Glue

How to Use AI and Automation to Build a Company That Runs Without You

Sam owns a $15M maple syrup distributor in Woodstock, Ontario. Revenue is up. She works sixty-hour weeks. And her biggest customer, 30% of revenue, is one bad quarter from walking, because the business runs on spreadsheets, six browser tabs, and rules that live in one employee's head.

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By Oscar ONeill · Founder of DigitalStaff

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7 chapters ~2 hour read First 3 chapters free online
Cover of Stop Being the Glue, a business parable by Oscar ONeill: a navy maple syrup tin whose golden syrup holds up icons for email, a spreadsheet, a delivery truck and a phone
Written in the style of The Goal and The Phoenix Project Based on real client work since 2017 50+ organizations

What This Book Is About

The problem

Sam runs a $15M maple syrup company with about 30 employees. She works sixty hours a week. Can't take a vacation. Her best employee spends 80% of her day retyping data from PDFs into QuickBooks. Her biggest customer, 30% of revenue, just sent a vendor scorecard saying MapleCo is below threshold.

The journey

Sam makes three expensive mistakes first. She hires a second clerk who would cost $65,000 a year all-in, and he quits in six weeks. She buys $30,000 of "AI-powered" software that doesn't fit how her team works. She gets her IT guy to duct-tape ChatGPT to Zapier, and starting at 2:14 AM on a Sunday, it email-bombs fourteen customers. Only then does she meet Oscar, who starts with: "What are you actually doing, step by step, right now?"

This is the story of what happens next. It's a business parable about AI and automation that reads like a novel, because the best way to learn is through someone else's mistakes.

What You'll Learn

Each chapter tackles a real challenge business owners face when implementing AI and automation.

Why hiring doesn't fix a broken process

Adding people to a bad system just gives the bottleneck a second chair. Sam learns this the hard way.

The difference between automation, RPA, and AI

Most vendors blur them together. Oscar breaks them apart so you know which tool fits which problem.

How to map your processes honestly

Not the clean version. The real one, with the workarounds, the judgment calls, and the steps only one person knows.

How to get your first automation win

Start small, run it alongside the manual process, and let trust build before you scale. The playbook for doing it right.

Why you need an AI policy before something goes wrong

Your employees are already pasting data into ChatGPT. Sam finds out what happens when nobody sets guardrails.

How to stop being the glue

The hardest lesson isn't about technology. It's about letting go of being the person the business can't run without.

Who This Book Is For

  • You run a business doing $5M to $50M in revenue, and you and one or two key people are the glue between your systems
  • Your team spends hours on manual data entry, copying between spreadsheets, PDFs, and apps
  • You've heard about AI but you're allergic to buzzwords like "digital transformation"
  • You want someone to show you what this actually looks like for a business like yours
  • You've ever thought "there has to be a better way to do this"

Table of Contents

Plus: the 90-Day Playbook, the Process Discovery and Sam's Math worksheets, the Readiness Staircase self-check, Your Lisa, Lisa and Ray's Questions for any automation provider, Sam's AI Policy template, a Technology Glossary, and a Platform Quick Reference

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About the Author

Most people discover automation at work. Oscar discovered it in a dungeon full of scorpions.

At 12, he built a bot in RuneScape to mine ore while he slept. He woke up rich (in game gold). Years later, he built a professional bot using UiPath that could fight scorpions, heal, catch fish, cook the fish, and go back to fighting. On a loop. Indefinitely. He got banned.

Today he runs DigitalStaff, a business automation agency based in London, Ontario. Since 2017, his team has built custom AI and automation for 50+ organizations: construction companies, healthcare clinics, law firms, distributors, and Indigenous communities.

The process his clients describe is always the same: open an email, download an attachment, enter data, file it, repeat. Same structure. Same waste of human time. The difference from RuneScape is the stakes. And the fact that nobody bans you for automating your accounts payable.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the book really free?
Yes, 100% free. The first three chapters are readable right here on the website with no signup. Enter your email and you get the full book two ways: the complete PDF in your inbox, and every chapter unlocked to read on the site. No credit card, no catch.
How long does it take to read?
About two hours. It's written as a story, not a textbook, so it reads fast. Most people tell us they finish it in one or two sittings.
Do I need technical knowledge?
Not at all. The book is written for business owners and operators, not engineers. If you've ever used a spreadsheet or sent an email, you have all the technical background you need.
Will you sell my email or spam me?
No. We'll send you the book PDF and occasionally share useful content about AI and automation. You can unsubscribe at any time with one click.
Is this based on a real company?
Sam and MapleCo are fictional, but their problems are composites of real clients we've worked with since 2017. The mistakes, the wins, and the lessons are all drawn from real experience.
What format is the PDF?
It's a standard PDF that works on any device: laptop, tablet, phone, or e-reader. You can also use Amazon's 'Send to Kindle' feature to read it on a Kindle. Prefer a browser? Every chapter is also readable on this site once you've signed up.

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