Inside Awestruck’s AI audit

Awestruck ran its own AI consulting playbook on itself. What started as a department-by-department audit uncovered opportunities to rethink how the business worked, and eventually shaped how it builds AI for clients.

Guest

Ryan Sprance

Co-Founder & Co-CEO, Awestruck

Grew Awestruck from an Instagram side hustle into a destination marketing agency of nearly 100 people across 13 countries. Inc. 5000 four years running, debuting at #25.

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Anirudh Narayan

Co-founder & Chief Growth Officer, Lyzr

Co-founder & Chief Growth Officer, Lyzr. He built Agent Sam, the AI agent that pitched Lyzr to its Series A investors.

Follow Ani on LinkedIn →

Must watch if you sell AI to clients but haven’t run the same audit on your own team.

Chapters

Orange dot marks a key moment

Ryan Sprance and Anirudh Narayan on How We Agent, episode 5: Awestruck

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Five moments worth pressing play for

Short on time? Pick up where you want.

Moment 01

$106K to $31M, with zero ad spend

Six years, nearly 100 people across 13 countries, four straight years on the Inc. 5000. Not one dollar on paid marketing.

$106K in 2019$31M in 2025
Moment 02

360 hours a month, spent formatting client reports

Ryan audited every department for labor hours that shouldn’t exist. Formatting client reports by hand was eating 360 hours a month on its own.
Moment 03

The in-house tools that beat the vendors

The audit turned into 12 internal products. Three of them:
- Budget pacingOutperformed the commercial product it replaced.
- CommissionsRemoved 20 hours of monthly Excel work.
- ReputationServes 150+ clients in each brand’s own voice.
Moment 04

Stop selling AI subscriptions. Build agent portals.

Ryan’s bet for the next two to three years: role-based agent portals for companies that have an AI budget and no idea where to spend it.
Moment 05

A stack non-engineers can ship on

Awestruck picked tools so the people closest to the work could ship updates themselves.
- Lovable
- Lyzr
- MCP