The SaaS Podcast - SaaS, Startups, Growth Hacking & Entrepreneurship 454: Fyxer: From Executive Assistant Agency to $18M ARR AI SaaS - with Richard Hollingsworth
Sep 25, 2025
Richard Hollingsworth, Co-founder and CEO of Fixer, transformed a bootstrapped executive assistant agency into a thriving AI SaaS business that skyrocketed from $1M to $18M ARR in just 8 months. He discusses leveraging customer data for AI development and the pivotal role of GPT-3 in automating services. Richard highlights targeting professional services for growth, details a rapid $1.2M enterprise deal, and shares insights on scaling a team from 4 to 40 while maintaining company culture. Personal stories showcase Fixer's positive impact on work-life balance.
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From Farm To Executive Assistant Agency
- Richard and his brother grew up on a farm and moved into tech to chase faster, controllable outcomes.
- They built an executive assistant agency for years, learning hiring, sales, and customer needs before Fixer AI.
Data + Humans Created Clear AI Focus
- Their EA business produced six years of time-tracking data that revealed exact assistant workflows to automate.
- That data plus human assistants to train models gave them instant product-market fit when GPT-3 arrived.
Ship Narrow, Beat Humans First
- Train AI to mimic a proven human workflow and only launch when accuracy beats humans on that task.
- Focus on tightly scoped workflows where models can exceed human performance first.
