Matt Airhart is the founder of Side Shop AI in Dayton, Ohio. A former Target Executive Team Leader with a UConn degree in economics and political science, he spent 19 years as an Air Force spouse running a household across four bases and two continents. Today he helps individuals and small businesses set up AI assistants that learn to do things their way, so they spend less time doing tasks and more time just checking them.
Dayton / Miami Valley · one-person side shop
Your side shop for AI that actually helps the business run.
Setup over spectacle. I help small and local service shops — and everyday people who run a house like a shop — cut the busywork that sits before the real work. Practical agents and automations. Not chatbot demos. Not from-scratch website rebuilds — we wire agents to manage sites.
About
A side shop next to the main work
I’m a one-person shop in the Dayton / Centerville area (Miami Valley). The name is literal: Side Shop AI sits beside the work you’re already doing — the calls, the jobs, the household week — and takes the side work that keeps stealing the day.
I don’t sell a demo booth or a chatbot that looks clever once. I set things up so a normal week runs quieter: intake that doesn’t drop, follow-ups that don’t live only in your head, helpers that know the house rules and stay in their lane.
I learn in public on sideshopai.com and @SideShopAi — field notes, setups, and the mistakes I make so you don’t have to repeat them. Come join the journey if that helps. If a bot is the wrong tool, I’ll say so.
Founder
Who's behind Side Shop AI
Audience
Who this is for
Shop floor
Local service businesses that still run on people and hate missed calls, messy intake, and follow-up that never lands.
Solo desk
One person wearing every hat who needs one concrete job named and wired.
Home crew
Households that want decisions off the plate without turning dinner into a software project.
Neighbors
Local service shops in the Miami Valley are especially welcome. You’re not too small.
Scope
What I set up — and what I skip
Do
- Name the real job (not the shiny tool).
- Give it a thin station — tools it actually needs.
- Teach the steps so a helper can run without babysitting.
- Prove it on a normal week.
- Put lasting rules where the next run will read them (memory, profile, routines, skills, seats) — correcting a chat once is not teaching the house.
Don’t
- Chatbot demos that look smart once and die in the inbox.
- Website rebuilds or “agency” theater.
- One mega-chat that drifts.
- Pretending a bot replaces a specialist on the ground when you need a person.
Field note · three moves
Imitate → Iterate → Innovate
I steal useful shapes from what already works — not costumes from someone else’s stack. Then I bend the shape until it helps your job. Only after it fits do we innovate so the helper is keyed to your preferences, not a generic AI brochure.
Imitate
Steal the shape
Iterate
Bend it to your job
Innovate
Key it to you
Process
How this shop works
Short chat → one-page plan you approve → build → launch + fixes.
Learn
Learn · Save · Help
Learn
People can learn for free. Read the field notes and proof. Imitate what works, iterate on your bench, innovate only where it earns it. Learn · plan · execute — setup over spectacle.
Save
Keep what you need. Stash a note, bookmark a setup, come back when the week allows.
Help
When you’re ready for wiring and execution, say the one problem. We set it up; you approve.
Local
You keep the front. I take the side work.
Dayton / Miami Valley — neighbor energy, not an enterprise AI deck.
- One-person side shop · Centerville / Dayton neighbors first
- Neighbor energy — not an enterprise AI deck
- Public inbox: [email protected]
- Site: sideshopai.com
Learn, then name one problem
Name one thing that eats your week — missed calls, intake, follow-ups, the deciding before the craft, a helper that keeps making the same polite mistake.
Email [email protected] or use How can we help? We’ll figure out whether a setup helps — or say so if it doesn’t. Prefer in person when we can; I’m not a big telephone guy, but email works.