James Shi
Founder, SideKind · AI builder
James Shi builds AI agents for client-service teams and runs them in production. Founder of SideKind. 16 years in marketing and ops before that.
SideKind is a studio that designs, builds, and runs custom AI agents for client-service teams. James founded it and still does the building: scoping the agent's job, wiring it into the systems a team already works in, and staying on it once it is live.
Today that means Alfred, the flagship — a private AI teammate that lives in each rep's Slack, live now in agency beta.
The rule the studio works to, and the reason the writing here tends to be specific: before anything gets built, write the test that says it is working. If that test cannot be defined, the project does not get taken.
The 16 years before SideKind were in marketing and ops. What he writes here comes out of running the work rather than observing it.