The Short Version
I Didn't Start in AI.
I Started in the Trenches.
I've spent 20+ years in marketing and advertising — which basically means I've survived every platform change, algorithm update, and "marketing is dead" headline the internet has ever thrown at us.
Marketing isn't dead. It just got smarter.
I started in traditional media sales. Yes, the "let me show you this rate card" days. I worked my way up through digital strategy, UX/UI design, search, paid media, programmatic, and full-scale campaign execution. Along the way I earned AAF Mosaic Star and Silver Medal recognition, picked up additional ADDY Awards, helped build an award-winning agency out of East Texas, and drank enough coffee to keep a small Colombian village in business.
Then came the pivot.
In 2021, while looking for a real competitive edge, I stumbled into automation and AI. Not the buzzword version — where you slap "AI-powered" on everything and call it innovation. The real thing. Custom automations. Intelligent agents. Systems that actually change how a business operates day to day.
I went all in.
I co-founded Starfish Solutions to serve small and mid-size businesses as an AI automation consultant in East Texas — building custom automations, AI agents, and workflow automation systems that handle the manual work you're still doing yourself. We serve the Shreveport-Bossier and Tyler-Longview markets, with clients across the country.
People ask me all the time: "Abel, isn't AI going to replace us?"
"No. But someone using AI will."
That's why I spend my time helping business owners work with AI — not run from it. Whether I'm presenting as an AI consultant for small business owners, building a 15-agent automation hierarchy, or helping a local business owner realize they've been doing manually what a system could handle in seconds — this is what gets me out of bed in the morning.
Two businesses. One mission: make marketing and AI work for real businesses.
