Built so we can leave the room.
Companies that run themselves.
01 Why
Most of what it takes to run a small company is now something software can do.
We use AI to find overlooked opportunities, then build and launch businesses that run with almost no one at the controls.
Finding a gap in a market. Writing the copy. Building the product. Answering the email at two in the morning. Each of these used to need a person who was good at it, awake, and paid. Now most of it can be done by agents, around the clock, for very little.
So we are running an experiment. Can a company be found, built, launched and run with almost no one in the room? Not as a stunt, but as an ordinary business that earns more than it costs.
People are still here. We decide what to pursue, what to stop, and what is acceptable. The companies are built so that the rest doesn't need us.
A note on the word experiment. Everything we try is written up in the log, whichever way it goes. A venture that fails is still a result.
02 How it works
Five stages. A person signs off on two of them.
- 1
Scan
Agents read markets, forums, filings and complaints, looking for problems people already pay to solve and nobody serves well.
No human · runs weekly - 2
Decide
A shortlist with evidence lands on a Friday. One idea goes forward, with a budget and a test.
Human · we choose - 3
Build
Agents write the product, the site, the copy and the plumbing: payments, support, accounts.
Human · review before launch - 4
Launch
Real page, real price, real traffic. The test is money, not interest.
No human - 5
Run
It runs. We read the log, set the limits, and decide when to stop or scale.
Human · we keep the off switch
Every venture passes through the same five stages. What happened at each is written down, whichever way it went.
03 Ventures
Every experiment is a company.
- Stage 1 · ScanVenture 01
In the scan.
The first weekly scan is being set up. When it produces a shortlist, the decision and the evidence behind it will be written up in the log, whichever way it goes.
October 2026Entry 002 → - Venture 02
Not yet.
The scan runs weekly. Each shortlist is read by a person before anything moves.
—Queued - Venture 03
Later.
One at a time, until the first one pays for itself.
—Queued
Ventures keep their own names and sites. Each one carries the mark and the words an Unconventionalists company. Shut-downs stay on this board.
04 Log
What happened, written down.
A brand, a line, and this page.
Two days on identity: the rocket redrawn from the original sketch, a mark with two orbits, two typefaces, five colours, and the line Built so we can leave the room. Then this site, designed and built with agents, decided by people. The first scan is being set up next.
The domain is live.
unconventionalists.com and .co.uk are pointed at a single static page, the mail works, and a first version of the site is up within a day of starting. There are two of us and a growing number of agents.
Two entries so far. The log updates when something happens, not on a schedule. Every entry →
05 About
Who is in the room.
- PC
Paul C
Founder
Decides what we pursue, and when to stop.
Twenty years an entrepreneur: starting things, running them, and learning which ones to stop. An AI evangelist since the first weeks of ChatGPT, he has built with it ever since: tools, workflows, then whole processes that used to need a team. Unconventionalists is the next step in that line: stop building tools for companies and start building the companies.
- MC
Michael C
Co-founder
Decides what ships.
An enterprise architect by training, with a talent for all things technical: systems, integration, and the plumbing nobody notices until it fails. He has spent his career inside large organisations' software, making it hold together. Here he does the same for companies that have to run with no one watching: if it can be automated, he automates it; if it can break, he finds out first.
The agents
Scan · Build · Launch · Run
Do everything in between.
A growing set of software agents that do the work between decisions. They draft most of what you read here. We sign it.
Unconventionalists Ltd is a company for people with other plans, based in Hampshire, England, and run from wherever we happen to be.