Derek
Johnson

I dig into how a business really runs, find the problem worth solving, and build the AI that wows the team and the customers.

I fall in love with the problem first. Then I wow people with the solution.

I cofounded an indoor golf business, ran it for two years, grew it to $35K a month, and sold it to a private equity buyer. I did everything along the way: the sales calls, marketing, and ad buying; the hiring and scheduling; the pricing, software troubleshooting, and coaching on the floor. Wearing every hat taught me exactly where a business hurts.

That is the part of this work I love most. I sit down with the owner and the people doing the job, ask a lot of questions, and get into the nitty gritty until the real problem shows itself. Usually it is hiding in a handoff, a spreadsheet, or a task someone has done by hand for so long they stopped noticing it.

Then I design the AI solution, get it built, and teach the team to use it. My favorite moment is when an employee realizes an afternoon of work just disappeared, or a customer gets an answer so fast and so personal that they tell a friend about it. Creating that kind of wow experience is what I'm here to do.

Derek Johnson
$35K

Monthly recurring revenue reached within 10 months of start up

11x

Return on ad spend from the client acquisition system I built

300+

Hours coaching, explaining technical things to people who did not want a technical answer

1

Business built and sold to a private equity buyer

Hiring? Paste the job description and get an honest fit read.

A small tool I built on the Claude API. It reads your posting against my background and tells you where I fit, where I don't, and what I'd do in my first thirty days.

What I've built for clients

I love going deep enough into an operation to find where the hours are leaking, building the thing that stops the drain, and then watching a client's face when they realize what just got handed back to them.

From first conversation through delivery, here's what I've done in the past year.

2026

Deliciously Fit N Healthy

Site rebuild. Customized quiz.

Rebuilt the site for a nutrition and fitness coach and designed an embedded quiz that scores and routes visitors to the right offering. Owned scoping, design, build, and client relationship.

2025 to now

A multi-agent operations system

Internal build used as a demo in sales conversations.

Built a manager agent coordinating four specialists for customer service, scheduling, research, and inbox triage. I run my own business on it so prospects see a system that already works instead of a slide about one. Built on n8n, the Claude API, and Notion.

The path here

Sep 2025 to now

Derek Johnson AI Consulting

Founder, AI strategy and implementation, Gilbert AZ

  • Lead discovery with owners and their teams: map how the work actually gets done, find where time and customers are slipping away, and pick the problems where AI will make the biggest impression.
  • Shape AI strategy and roadmaps in plain language, turning technical options into decisions an owner can make with confidence.
  • Design and implement AI agents, automations, and websites, owning every engagement from first call through delivery, training, and adoption.
  • Built the practice from nothing: brand, pricing, proposal system, client onboarding, and the internal frameworks that keep delivery consistent.
Oct 2023 to Sep 2025

Lighten Golf Club

Cofounder

  • Started an indoor golf coaching business with a friend and ran daily operations end to end.
  • Grew it to $35K in monthly recurring revenue within 10 months of launch, on an acquisition system returning 11x on ad spend.
  • Handled client management, one-to-one coaching, staffing, and the Trackman-based technical systems behind the bays.
  • Sold the business to private equity buyers in September 2025.
2023 and 2024

HXP Humanitarian Experience

Trip leader, for youth service in India and Fiji

  • India: Responsible for logistics, safety, and group dynamics as the leader of 19 teenagers on a month-long service project.
  • Fiji: Returned the following year to lead a second trip.
2016 to 2018

Full-time service mission, Czech Republic and Slovakia

Volunteer

  • Reached fluency in Czech and Slovak through full immersion while building trust across a hard language and culture barrier.
2023

Brigham Young University

Bachelor of Science, Neuroscience, Provo UT

What I bring

Curiosity about how businesses work is the real skill here. I like asking the question behind the question until the actual problem is on the table. New software rarely slows me down, since almost any technical problem I can work through with my agents. The human half, what a team needs and whether they will love using the thing, is where I put most of my attention.

Skills

  • Business discovery and process mapping
  • Find the problem worth solving with AI
  • AI strategy and roadmapping
  • Design experiences that wow employees and customers
  • Recognize when people are the right answer vs bots
  • Identify scope and requirements
  • Communicate with clients, stakeholders, colleagues
  • Create documentation and training that drives adoption
  • Start-up savvy, broad business operations
  • Manage paid acquisition, SEO, sales
  • Utilize P&L, pricing, unit economics

Builds

  • Claude API and Claude Code
  • n8n workflow automation
  • Multi-agent architectures
  • Notion, Go High Level, Stripe
  • Web builds and front-end work

Also

  • Working since my teens, starting as a lifeguard and swim instructor
  • Love jazz piano, golf, ultimate frisbee and disc golf

Where I'd lean on your team

  • I don't have a computer science degree and I've never worked inside an engineering org. If you need someone shipping production code on a team of engineers, that isn't me, at least not yet.
  • My deployments so far have been small business scale. I'm curious about operating at enterprise volume or under a formal compliance regime.
  • I learn fast and appreciate being told directly when I'm wrong.

What I'm looking for

An AI consulting, implementation, or strategy role where I get to dive deep into a business, find the problems that matter, and solve them with AI in ways that wow the people who work there and the customers they serve. I have been geeking out on the business potential of AI for a year, and I want to keep compounding it inside an ongoing operation.