Newsletter

Built by Operators

A weekly email for people who build the systems their companies run on. Operations, automation, AI — from someone who does it every day, not someone who tweets about it.


What you get each week

  • 01

    One ops problem I solved this week

    Real, from my company. Not a case study from 2019.

  • 02

    One tool or system I'm building or testing

    What I'm actually using in production, not what I saw on Product Hunt.

  • 03

    One tactical takeaway you can use Monday morning

    Something you can implement this week. No theory.

No fluff. No “top 10 AI tools” listicles. Just an operator sharing what's working.


One email per week. Unsubscribe anytime. No spam, no upsells.


Archive — 4 issues


DeShawn Smith

COO, CMS Mortgage Solutions

I run operations for a multi-state mortgage brokerage — 150 people, 25 states, thousands of loans a year. I didn't inherit systems. I built every one of them from scratch.

Custom platforms, AI agents, automated workflows, compliance engines. All designed to replace the manual work that kills companies when they try to scale.

“If it repeats, automate it. If it's manual, it's broken.”

© 2026 DeShawn Smith