Colton Dean · University of Pennsylvania '29

Ibuildautomationsthatpayforthemselves.

Scheduled automations, AI workflows, and spreadsheet-native operational systems for companies that move faster than their ops.

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Colton Dean
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· About
COLTON DEAN
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA '29
BASED · PHILADELPHIA

I build the systems companies would have built themselves — if they had the time.

Scheduled jobs that run while the team sleeps. AI agents that convert unstructured inputs into structured databases. Webhooks that behave like micro-services with no servers to maintain. Spreadsheets that quietly became the operating system of an entire practice.

Bespoke work for companies that want leverage, not headcount.

· Selected Work

Four practices.
Sixteen production workflows.

015 connected workflows

Creator Operations Suite

A connected set of automations layered on a single Google Sheet that runs an entire creator management operation — payouts, contracts, promo tracking, CPM — without manual weekly work.

Flagships
  • Contract Sync (AI-Powered)
    Claude + structured output parser translates freeform contract blurbs into normalized database columns; failed rows auto-retry on the next run.
  • Weekly Payout Calculator
    Monday-morning scheduled job pulls view deltas against prior 5-week snapshots, reads each contract's CPM terms, writes computed payouts — replaces hours of manual math with one run.
  • Creator Promotion Tracker
    Daily parallel scraper across TikTok, Instagram (posts + reels), and YouTube with per-platform error continuation; merges, dedupes, filters against a brand-mention list.
Stackn8nClaudeGoogle SheetsTikTokInstagramYouTube
027 connected workflows

Content & Growth Automation

AI-drafted newsletters, human-in-the-loop social posting, and webhook-triggered email pipelines. Brand voice preserved via approval gates; drafts never publish without sign-off.

Flagships
  • LinkedIn Auto-Poster (Human-in-the-Loop)
    Claude drafts in defined voice → email approval gate → publishes directly via LinkedIn API → updates usage counters → confirmation email. Full loop, no copy/paste.
  • Daily AI Newsletter
    7AM aggregator pulls curated RSS + direct scrapes, Claude writes a sectioned newsletter, parallel second agent scores each story and POSTs top picks to a downstream webhook.
  • AI Opportunity Intelligence Brief
    Morning RSS aggregation → GPT-4o identifies actionable business opportunities → emailed as a concise daily brief.
StackClaudeGPT-4oGmail APILinkedIn APIRSSWebhooks
033 connected workflows

Email Management Suite

Real-time classification, calendar-aware meeting replies, and natural-language rule authoring. The inbox arrives pre-triaged, with drafts already waiting.

Flagships
  • Outlook Auto-Classify & Draft Reply
    Every inbound email → OpenAI classification (category + spam + reply-needed + meeting-request) → meeting requests get calendar-aware replies proposing specific free slots; regular replies get voice-matched drafts. Every decision logged.
  • Add-Rule via Chat Interface
    User types a natural-language rule ("emails from X always go to Y"); AI parser with structured output writes it into the rules table. Non-technical users maintain the classifier by talking.
  • Overnight Category-to-Subfolder Mover
    Reads the folder tree, builds category → subfolder map, moves the last 24h of tagged emails in batch. Runs the morning cleanup before the human wakes up.
StackOpenAIMicrosoft GraphExcelOutlookCron
041 workflow — 260+ lines of production script

Google Apps Script — Multi-Manager Creator Roster

A shared spreadsheet turned into a mini-CRM. onEdit-trigger script with conflict detection, attribution, concurrency locks, and column-order-independent header mapping — zero backend.

Flagships
  • Conflict-detected writes
    Handle already belongs to another creator → cell turns red, nothing is written. Duplicate prevention across managers.
  • Script-locked concurrency
    Two managers editing simultaneously never clobber each other; `delete` clears from master; column order per-tab is independent.
  • Header-driven mapping
    Each manager tab can be laid out differently — headers drive the sync. No schema rigidity, no backend to maintain.
StackGoogle Apps ScriptGoogle SheetsonEdit triggersScript Lock
· How I Build

Six patterns.
Running across every project.

I
Human-in-the-loop AI
Approval gates via email so AI drafts but humans publish — the right pattern for brand voice, legal, and reputation.
II
Idempotent scheduled jobs
`_meta` tracking tabs guard aggregators so accidental re-runs never double-count the same week.
III
Resilient parallel scraping
Multi-platform scrapers branch in parallel with per-platform error continuation. One platform outage can't kill the run.
IV
Unstructured → structured via AI
Contract blurbs, email intents, content scoring — all use AI agents with structured output parsers, not hand-written regex.
V
Webhook-as-API
Workflows expose webhook endpoints that behave like micro-services. Full HTTP response control. No server to maintain.
VI
Spreadsheet-native databases
Entire operational systems with Google Sheets as the source of truth. Automations handle the heavy computation sheets can't.
· Companies

Trusted by operators
building ahead of their stack.

Oasis
Oasis
Creator Operations Suite
Vero Capital
Vero Capital
Internal automations
Vador Build Partners
Vador Build Partners
Internal automations
· Engagement

Scoped, shipped,
handed off.

· Step 01

Discover

One call. What's the manual work eating your week? Which systems touch it? What's the definition of done?

· Step 02

Build

Scoped sprint. I ship the automation end-to-end — idempotency guards, error paths, logging, and approval gates where judgment matters.

· Step 03

Handoff

Full documentation, runbook, and a walkthrough call. Your team owns it after handoff — it keeps running without me.

· Contact

Have a workflow
worth automating?

Emailcolton.ai.dean@gmail.comBookAI evaluation call →
Typical first engagement: one scoped automation, two-week turnaround, one handoff call. Bring the messiest thing on your ops team's plate.