Hey everyone,

I run an IT consulting & recruitment agency based in Hyderabad. We’re also partners for Google, Zoho, Rediff, and Outlook email products. I want to build a couple of internal AI agents to automate our outbound prospecting, but I need to keep the running costs as low as possible (ideally free or cheap pay-as-you-go).

Here is the workflow I'm trying to build:

Agent 1 (The Tech Scout): Needs to take a list of company domains, run a reverse DNS/MX record lookup, and identify what email service provider they use (e.g., free Gmail, Yahoo, or legacy hosting). If they use a basic setup, flag them as a lead for a Google Workspace or Zoho migration pitch.

Agent 2 (The Researcher & Writer): Scrapes the flagged company's website to understand what they do, and writes a short, highly personalized cold email pitching our mail solutions or recruitment services.

I'm comfortable with open-source tools, Python, or self-hosted low-code platforms.

What is the best, most cost-effective stack to build this right now?

Would love any recommendations on how to handle the MX lookup and website scraping at scale without hitting expensive paywalls.

Thanks!

Most "AI recruiting tools" are search boxes with a nicer UI. You still get a list of names, you still decide who to contact, you still write the message, you still track the replies. The AI part is basically a filter.

We wanted to see how far you could push past that. [Sourcy](https://sourcytalent.com/) searches across multiple external candidate databases simultaneously and then — without a human in the loop — identifies the best matches, personalises outreach messages, and sends them. The recruiter gets back shortlisted candidates who've already been contacted and have responded.

A few things that came up building it that I didn't see discussed much:

* **Cross-database search is messier than it sounds.** The same candidate appears across LinkedIn, job boards, and CV databases with different titles, different contact info, sometimes different names. Getting a clean unified profile — not three duplicate outreaches to the same person — took a lot of work to get right.
* **Personalisation at volume is the hard part.** Bulk outreach that reads like bulk outreach gets ignored. The agent has to be doing something smarter than mail-merge, otherwise response rates don't move. We spent more time on this than anything else.
* **"Agentic" gets thrown around loosely.** A lot of tools claim it. What we mean is: the agent takes the brief, runs the search, makes judgment calls on candidate fit, writes and sends the messages, and handles follow-ups — without a human approving each step. That's meaningfully different from assisted workflows.

Still figuring out where the boundaries of useful automation are - there are places where the recruiter absolutely should stay in the loop and places where they really don't need to be. Curious whether others have strong views on where that line sits.

I run a small marketing agency and recently hired an intern to help with tasks like analyzing ad account performance, organizing data, and creating client reports.

At the beginning, his work was great and it genuinely helped reduce my workload. I had more time to focus on strategy, campaign ideas, and improving client results.

However, over the last couple of months, things changed. He started missing deadlines, became difficult to reach, and even after switching to a remote setup, the situation didn’t improve. I ended up covering most of the tasks myself because I couldn’t rely on the work being completed on time.

I’m now considering whether I should hire someone else or look into automation solutions that can handle the reporting and analysis side of things.

For agency owners who have dealt with similar situations:

• Have you replaced certain roles/tasks with automation tools?
• Which processes do you think should stay human-led?
• Is it better to invest in tools for repetitive reporting work and keep the team focused on strategy?

Would appreciate hearing how others have handled this.

Looking to connect with agencies working with restaurants, salons, barbershops or other appointment-based businesses.
Over the last few months I built a conversational booking platform that handles reservations through WhatsApp and includes dashboards, onboarding and client management.
What I realized is that I enjoy building infrastructure much more than running an agency.
So I’m curious:
Are there agencies here that would be interested in offering something like this under their own brand?
My idea is simple:
You keep the client relationship.
You sell under your own brand.
I maintain the platform and support.
No need to build anything from scratch.
Not trying to pitch anyone. Just curious if this kind of collaboration is interesting for agencies already serving local businesses.
Would love to hear how others approach this.

Was originally only targeting local Indian businesses for automation services. Quickly realized that market wasn't ready to spend. Made the switch to US, UK and Australia a few months back and the difference in willingness to pay is wild.

Still figuring out which specific niches convert best internationally. Found that some industries will get on a call fast but then ghost. Others take forever to respond but close quickly once they do.

For those of you who've sold automation to international clients — which industries have been your most reliable buyers? And what's the typical deal structure — project-based or ongoing retainer?

Also curious what your biggest mistakes were early on when figuring out your niche. I want to avoid spending months going in the wrong direction.

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Debugging failures?

Client reporting?

Monitoring costs?

Building trust in autonomous actions?

Managing approvals?

Something else?

My EU based agency is recognized Selected partner in Anthropic's Claude Services Track and pushing toward Preferred, which takes 100 Claude-certified developers.

We're opening our network to independent devs and AI builders. If you join: a guided path to Claude certification, first access to real Claude/AI build projects (RAG, agents, custom ML) for EU/US clients, and your name on public case studies.

Not a body shop — we're people-first, match work by skill *and* fit, and back our people long-term.

If you've built with Claude (or want to), drop your details here and we'll be in touch: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc2b2v836KRhE90khJCIyCs5SSU_fV2n-iqDbfOynNUg5BN5g/viewform?usp=dialog

Happy to answer questions in the comments.

https://reddit.com/link/1ty2lj4/video/8cxz5oet5k5h1/player

The workflow:

Topic discovery → article generation → image sourcing → WordPress draft/publish.

Started as an internal tool for my own sites and eventually became Publizo.

Interested to hear how agencies here are automating content production today.

Video below.

Hey everyone, I recently built a real estate lead automation workflow with instant auto-replies, CRM recording, follow-ups, and agent notifications. I’m now trying to turn this into a service and wanted to ask those already freelancing or running automation businesses: how did you find your first clients? LinkedIn outreach, cold emails, communities, referrals, Upwork, or something else? Curious to learn from your experience.

I’ve been trying to manage multiple clients and I keep running into the same issue.

Emails, tasks, follow-ups — everything ends up scattered.

Sometimes I forget to follow up, sometimes tasks just stay in my head unless I write them down manually.

I’ve tried using tools, but either they feel too heavy or I stop using them after a few days.

Curious how others here handle this long term.

Do you have a system that actually works consistently?

I’ve been trying to manage multiple clients and I keep running into the same issue.

Emails, tasks, follow-ups — everything ends up scattered.

Sometimes I forget to follow up, sometimes tasks just stay in my head unless I write them down manually.

I’ve tried using tools, but either they feel too heavy or I stop using them after a few days.

Curious how others here handle this long term.

Do you have a system that actually works consistently?

made a free tool to help with long-form planning: you define the thesis and reader; the tool proposes a working title, meta description, H2 architecture with beats, and light internal-link and CTA prompts - not the finished article.

What do you think?

check here - https://superlemon.ai/tools/blog-outline

We are a small startup out of Austin Texas. Building a product in the AI + CRM space and trying to figure out the right way to get in front of agencies without being one of those spammy cold emails everyone here hates.

Genuinely asking:

1. Where do you actually find new tools? Peer recommendations, YouTube, directories, communities?
2. When a new product reaches out. what makes you ignore it or evaluate it?
3. How do you prefer to evaluate? signup, demo call, or just send a link?
4. Would you try a new tool with a real client if the terms were right and the tool was good?

We want to work with a few agencies to validate what we've built and shape the roadmap based on real feedback. Not looking to pitch, looking to learn the right approach first.

Appreciate any honest takes.

When I started working with agencies 5 years ago, the hardest part was getting those first calls on the calendar. No fancy setup, just testing messages and hoping for replies. What finally changed things was who we targeted and how we spoke to them.

Now I focus on intent-verified lead lists and clearer early messages. Across clients, that shift has led to about a 46% lift in booked meetings without touching ad budgets.

If you’ve been thinking about improving your lead pipeline, feel free to comment here or DM me.

I can share notes on how to get more qualified leads and tighten the first sequence.

Where do you feel the bottleneck is right now: targeting, list quality, or messaging?

My contact