Fig. 01 — Author's Note

Author's Note

Strategy, building, and asking better questions.

Hazel Quimpo at a rooftop patio with string lights and city skyline — marketing strategist and builder

I set up AI so the people you already have can spend their time on the work that needs a person. Small teams doing real work deserve better tools than the ones they've been handed.

Fig. 02 — The Beginning

The Beginning

I started in marketing because I was good at making complicated things make sense. Did that for tech companies — Yelp, StellarWP, The Events Calendar, a handful of agencies and startups.

Built marketing systems, ran teams, wrote thousands of pages of content, and sat through enough meetings to last several lifetimes.

Fig. 03 — The Shift

The Shift

Got tired of the meetings. The decks nobody reads. The strategy docs that sit in Google Drive and die. Somewhere along the way I found Claude and started building things again, instead of planning them. A website in an afternoon. An app over a weekend. Automations that replaced entire workflows.

Started showing friends what I was doing, then their teams. These days most of that work is setting up systems for small businesses and nonprofits that can't hire a developer or a full-time ops person.

Fig. 04 — The Current Setup

The Current Setup

In 2025, we packed up our family — husband, two kids, two very confused dogs — and moved from Long Beach, CA to Shorewood, Wisconsin. New city. New chapter.

Now I set up automation and AI for small businesses and nonprofits, and build apps through The Clever. I'm writing two books. I'm building apps. My kids run a cookie business. I go to therapy every week and I'll talk about it publicly because someone should. I have too many ideas and not enough hours. I'm working on that.

Fig. 05 — Core Principles

What I Believe

Community over scale.

Mental health is not optional.

AI should make you more human, not less.

Local matters.

Ship it, then fix it.

Fig. 06 — What I Actually Do

What I actually do.

  • A.
    Set up automation

    Forms, follow-ups, reports, and reminders that run on their own, built in accounts you own.

  • B.
    Build marketing strategies

    For teams that are tired of agency nonsense and want strategy that ships.

  • C.
    Put AI to work carefully

    With a written policy, a person approving what goes out, and no sensitive data where it doesn't belong.

  • D.
    Build small tools

    Dashboards and internal tools for operations that have outgrown a spreadsheet.

Fig. 07 — Stay in the Loop

The Weekly Dispatch.

AI that makes sense. Marketing that doesn't suck. One email a week from someone who actually builds things.

Fig. 08 — Want to build something?

Let's make something real.

Start with an audit and we'll find the three automations worth building first.

Book an audit →