The kid who started at 15 and never stopped building

2001: first business at 15

Carl started a web design and hosting company called ZainyFX from his bedroom at fifteen. While his mates were doing homework, he was invoicing clients. He then co-ran an IT support company with his father for eight years before selling it in 2011, at 25.

2014: Automation Agency

After a few experiments (including a gift-basket business whose clients included some very recognisable names), Carl founded Automation Agency in 2014. It began as high-priced done-for-you marketing projects and pivoted within months into a productised, flat-monthly-rate service: a delegated marketing team for small businesses.

That model ran for over a decade. More than 1,340 clients. Around 700,000 marketing tasks delivered. The kind of volume that teaches you what actually works in a real business, because you've watched every way it can break.

2016: AI, before it was a buzzword

Automation Agency deployed AI classifiers in its delivery systems in 2016... years before "AI agents" was a phrase anyone used at a barbecue. Carl's approach was the same then as now: boring beats shiny. Use the machine for the work the machine is good at.

2019: the 8 months that changed everything

In 2019 a relationship ended, and Carl stepped away from the business to heal. He told his team he'd be gone a few weeks. It became eight months. The business kept running without him... eventually on around four hours of his time a month.

Two things came out of that season. The personal journey through it became Becoming Bulletproof (2020), a book about surviving and thriving in any situation... a deeply personal book, not a business one. And the fact the company held for eight months without its founder became living proof of what he now teaches: a business should be a machine you direct, not a treadmill you power.

2025: the rebuild

When large language models changed what was possible, Carl didn't write think-pieces. He rebuilt his company. Automation Agency spent twelve months developing its own multi-agent AI delivery platform, with named AI team members (Alex, Clara, Sam, Sally, Debbie and Vinnie) working alongside the human team.

2026: operator to orchestrator

Then came the bigger realisation: business owners don't want to outsource AI. They want to own it. So Carl launched a new ecosystem... workshops, sprint programs and a hands-on builders' lab... teaching owner-operators to install AI team members in their own businesses. His message on every stage comes down to one line: hire AI team members, don't program tools.

Today Carl's own week is run by the systems he teaches. An AI executive assistant triages his inbox and drafts his replies. AI designers produce his creative. And when personalised emails went out to every attendee of one of his events while he was on the floor playing trains with his daughter... that was the point, actually. That's what all of this is for.

The other stuff

Carl is the author of Red Means Go (2010) and Becoming Bulletproof (2020), with a third book in progress. None of them are business books... they're about the person running the business, which he'd argue is where most business problems actually live. He has hosted multiple podcasts, including Entrepreneurs Rising and Dadpreneurs Rising, and has been featured in the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Dynamic Business and Under30CEO, with an Anthill "30 Under 30" nod back when he qualified for the "under 30" part.

He lives on the Central Coast of NSW with his partner and their daughter. His stated purpose, unchanged for years: to be a guiding light leading others to their greater selves.