have recently launched a [Notion consulting agency](https://www.maray.ai/digital-systems-for-businesses) that specializes in creating bespoke operating systems for businesses and organizations.
In this blog post, I am going to share how I organize my business operations in Notion and explain how I automate a few things in the customer acquisition workflow.
This article is part of the [open startup series](https://www.maray.ai/posts/maray-digital-operations-agency) where I share my journey building a sustainable business as a solopreneur to gain financial freedom.
#######Announcement. As part of the launch, I am offerting a free bespoke operating system to 1 startup, 1 entrepreneur, 1 small-medium size business and 1 non-profit organization. Send me a request where you describe your company and goals for the OS.
## Startup OS: Structure
The main structure consists of the following elements:
- Vision
- Product & Service
- Actions
- Clients
- Finances
- Growth
- Knowledge
### Vision
First, comes the vision of the company. Here I define the goals that I pursue, create milestones and outline a strategy for company’s growth.
### Projects / Product / Service
Next comes the product and the service area. This workspace is dedicated to project design and management. It’s home for clients’ work and the products I am going to launch.
### Actions
Actions is the operations dashboard where I create and track tasks related to the company and to the product development.
I’ve been thinking if it’s a better to separate company and product task management, but for now I’ll make one database and filter the items based on the type.
### Clients
This area of the system is for relationship management. It’s a database of potential, active and past clients with all the relevant information. It has a link to product management to track the relevant projects and to meetings to track the relevant meeting memos.
### Finances
Finances is a workspaces related to payments and contracts. It’s more a source of information than an active operations workspace.
### Growth
Growth is a workspace for everything related to the growth of the company.
For now my strategy is to market my services through content and organic traffic.
### Knowledge
Knowledge is a comprehensive database of important information on every topic.
Every page contains a linked view of Knowledge database to show the relevant topics.
For instance, if it’s `Product & Services`, I can display design guidelines, tutorials, templates, useful information and so on.
It saves time, makes the work coherent and will align my future collaborators and team with the way the company works.
## Startup OS: Operations
My lead generation is made through the content on the blog and the landing page.
When a prospective client fills out a form, it appears in the `Clients` database with a `Lead` status.
I use Tally forms and one of its features is that it smoothly integrates with Notion, so it was very fast to set up.
Once I have a potential client, I review the form submission and contact them to set a date for the first meeting. During the meeting I am going to learn more about the project, discuss the problems and set the goals.
After the discussion I will prepare the proposal that outlines the goals, the schedule and the fee. Whenever the client accepts the proposal, I can start to work on the project.
During this phase, the client will have a Notion page where they can track the progress of the project, and leave feedback. Depending on the project, there will be a few meetings to discuss the project, answer questions, and get more detailed feedback.
Once the project is nearly done, I am either record videos explaining the system or make a team onboarding training.
### Actions / Calendar
The only part of the system that I haven’t figured out is how to organize the Actions (task management) and the Project Development calendar.
I don’t know yet if I should separate company and project developement tasks in separate databases/dashboards or keep everything in one and separate with filtered views.
As a solopreneur I might make it simpler and go with one database. However, organizations that are bigger and more complex might not want to mix these two things.
### Knowledge / Wiki
Whenever I find something useful and reusable in the future, I try to capture it in the company’s wiki. It’s not going to be useful only for me, but also people that I am going to work with in the future. I can give them access to certain wiki page that explain how things work or give specific guidelines.
## Startup OS: Automations
Automations can save a lot of time taking over the boring tasks that are repeated over and over again.
Currently, I’ve created 2 automations.
First, after a form is submitted on the [landing page](https://www.maray.ai/digital-systems-for-businesses), it creates an entry in the Notion clients database.
Second, when I review the new submission and set its status to `Lead`, the automation sends an email to the customer to choose a date for out first meeting.
The more I use the system and work with the clients the clearer it would become how I can automate certain things to free me from repetitive and boring tasks.
## Final thoughts
The Startup OS that I am building my Notion consulting business with will be soon released as a premium template. The template would be a good start if you want a quick Notion OS setup for your organization.
If you want a bespoke operating system, [send me a project request](https://www.maray.ai/digital-systems-for-businesses) and we’ll start building a workspace that is tailored to your company and operations.
