Corner Store Consulting.
AI & operations help for small business

Everyone says AI will change your business. Nobody shows you how.

We do. We get inside your business, find where AI and better systems will actually save you hours and make you money, and hand you a plan in plain English. Run it yourself, or we'll build it with you.

One fixed fee, quoted before we start. No hourly billing.

Sound familiar?

You're the owner, the manager, the bookkeeper, and the marketing department.

You keep hearing you should be "using AI" — and have no idea where to start.
Your prices haven't really changed since you opened — or they change on gut feel.
Your evenings go to scheduling, invoices, and emails a computer should be handling.
You're paying for marketing and can't say which of it actually brings people in.
The numbers that matter live in your head, a spreadsheet, or nowhere at all.

None of this means your business is broken — and you don't need to become a tech person to fix it. You need someone who knows both AI and business, whose entire job is finding this stuff in yours. That's us.

What you get

A plan, not a pitch deck.

We spend time inside your business — on site, in your books, with your team. Then you get a written plan that says, in plain English, exactly where AI fits in your business, where it doesn't, and what to change first. It's yours to keep whether or not you ever hire us again.

  • Every manual task worth automatingAnd the specific tool to do it — booking, invoicing, reminders, scheduling, paperwork.
  • What your prices should beBased on your own numbers and demand, not what you charged in year one.
  • Where your marketing money actually goesWhat's bringing customers in, and what to cut.
  • The handful of numbers to watch every weekSo you always know how the business is really doing.
How it works

Three steps. The third one is optional.

STEP 01

We learn your business

On site and in the numbers. How work gets done, how prices get set, where the hours and the money go.

STEP 02

You get the plan

Written, prioritized, and in plain English — what to change, what it costs, and what it's worth. We walk through it together.

STEP 03

We build it with you Optional

If you want help, we set up the tools, build the systems, and train your team — then hand you the keys.

What this looks like

Say you run an indoor kids' playground.

Here's where we'd look first. The actual plan depends entirely on your business — this is the shape of the work, not a promise of findings.

Where the hours and dollars go

  • Party bookings handled by phone, text, and memory
  • Staff schedules built by habit, not by busy hours
  • Party and membership prices unchanged for years
  • Front desk buried in waivers and reminder calls
  • Ad spend with no idea what's working

What the plan would cover

  • Booking, reminders, and waivers that run themselves
  • Schedules matched to when families actually show up
  • Pricing tied to your calendar — weekends aren't Tuesdays
  • Routine admin handled by AI instead of your staff
  • One weekly view of the numbers that matter

Illustrative example only — not a past client, and not a claim about results. Every plan is specific to the business it's written for.

Pricing

One fixed fee. You'll know it before we start.

  • The plan is a fixed fee, quoted after a short call about your business.No hourly billing. No meter running. No surprise invoices.
  • The plan stands on its own.You can take it and run it yourself — hiring us to build is always optional, and always priced before any work begins.
  • If we don't think we can help, we'll tell you on the first call.This only works if the plan is worth multiples of what you pay for it.
Who's behind this

Built by an investor who's done this work for institutions.

Adam Bates has led investment teams deploying institutional capital and helped scale businesses like Topgolf. Corner Store Consulting brings that same playbook to Main Street.

Meet Adam →
Get started

Thirty minutes. Your business. No pitch.

Tell us what you run and what eats your time. We'll tell you honestly whether we can help — and exactly what it would cost.

Who we are

Adam Bates.

A private equity investor and operator, bringing a decade of institutional investing to the businesses that have never had access to it.

Adam has spent his career on both sides of the table — leading investment teams that decide where institutional capital goes, and operating inside high-growth companies in tech and entertainment.

From leading investments in companies like WHOOP, Liquid Death, and OpenAI and working to scale businesses like Topgolf and HomeLight, he knows what makes businesses go from good to great.

Work with us

Your business, examined like an investment.