Is this THE year you're finally able to get out of the day-to-day of your business?
The year you elevate to being the visionary your business needs and your soul craves?
The year you make the impact and profit you want without having to carry it all?
The year you actually live the Rich Fulfilled Life™ you built your business for in the first place?
Small and mid-sized business is changing faster than most founders realize.
AI is reshaping how businesses run, how teams operate, and what it takes to scale without everything depending on one person (you!).
The businesses that successfully make it through this shift won't be the ones layering AI into what they’ve always done.
It’ll be the ones who redesign how their business works so AI agents and lean teams operate together as a complete ecosystem.
There's a clear divide forming between founders who design for this intentionally and those who keep trying to fix things one piece at a time.
Extraction is where you get ahead of it and step into the future of leading a business not dependent on you.
Because this isn't only about getting out of the day-to-day in the short term.
It's about designing a business that can keep running and growing without continuously sucking you back in as the market evolves.
So when things change, and they will keep changing... you can stay focused on writing the book, speaking on stages, transforming your client's lives, changing your industry...
You can continue feeding your soul while leading your business towards your vision instead of getting pulled back into the daily questions, decisions, and fixes that drain you and keep you from what you love most and do best.
If you're like most of the successful founders I know, you've tried the typical advice to step out of the day to day, things like:
- "Learn to delegate better."
- "Hire more people or managers."
- "Document your SOPs."
- "Use AI automations and agents."
- "Invest in this shiny new system or tool."
But if you've already tried that, you know firsthand it doesn't work as advertised.
Sometimes you experience temporary relief but things always boomerang back to you.
That's because adding people, processes, or technology into a business that’s still built around you doesn’t remove the dependency... it amplifies it.
And adding AI just creates a faster version of the same problem.
You can’t fix what you can’t fully see and when everything is dependent on you, it’s nearly impossible to zoom out to see where things are built around you.
Without that clarity, you end up:
- Fixing symptoms while the underlying structure stays broken
- Wasting months (or years) on changes that don't move the business forward
- Getting frustrated and burned out because nothing seems to work for long
- Inadvertently drive up expenses and create even more dependency on you
This can look like:
- Hiring a right-hand person to lead but without the right structure to support them they become another person asking for direction and decisions
- Documenting SOPs that don't get used or still require you as part of the workflow
- Delegating more but the team lacks what's needed to operate independently and everything still comes back to you
- Implementing AI tools that should save time but they just add complexity and create mistakes and slop you fear is damaging your brand and client experience
Imagine this instead...
Your business keeps moving forward, growing, serving clients well, generating revenue and profit, without you needing to be in the middle of it every day.
Your team owns their work so completely that you can step back without anything falling apart.
You have time for the strategic thinking your business actually needs from you, for the work only you can do, and for the life you built this business to support in the first place.
That's what happens when the structure is designed to work that way.
And with AI agents now able to handle the operational and growth work that used to require so much more headcount, getting there is more achievable than it's ever been.
You need to see where the dependency lives, redesign the structure, and build AI into it from the start.
That's exactly what we do together inside Extraction.
One Day to Design Your Business to Run and Scale Without You
Extraction is a 1-day intensive for forward-thinking founders of 7 - 8 figure service-based businesses ready to lead the future of small to mid-sized business instead of reacting to it.
In one focused day, you redesign the two things that have the biggest impact on scaling without everything running through you:
- Your team structure
- Your operating system
With AI agents built deliberately into both, so you leave with a clear, prioritized roadmap from your current state to a lean, AI-enabled, founder-optional business.
WHAT'S INCLUDED
Create the roadmap to extract yourself from daily operations leveraging a sustainable lean and scalable structure enabled by AI
Digital Self-Assessment:
Self-paced - complete anytime before May 13th
You start with a comprehensive assessment to identify where dependency exists, what’s keeping you in the day-to-day, and where AI can have the biggest impact in your business.
Extraction Kickstart Call:
May 13th, 4pm - 5pm ET / 1pm - 2pm PT
We walk through what to expect so you can maximize the value of the one-day intensive.
You’ll also review your assessment results so you understand where and why things are dependent on you before we redesign them.
Extraction 1-Day Intensive:
May 21st, 10am - 6pm ET / 7am - 3pm PT
This is where everything comes together.
We focus on the two areas that have the biggest impact on scaling without dependence on you - your team structure and your operating system, with AI built into both.
Workshop 1: Your Lean Dream Team with AI
You'll map your ideal Lean Dream Team structure with AI agents built in, see exactly how AI influences your current team and accountabilities, and get clear on which people investments are needed next.
Workshop 2: Your Scalable Operating System with AI
You'll redesign how your business runs and grows across marketing, operations, and service delivery, with AI handling what currently requires your involvement to keep moving.
Workshop 3: Your Founder Extraction Roadmap:
You'll bring it all together into a prioritized roadmap that takes you from where you are today to an AI-enabled business that no longer depends on you to scale successfully.
Extraction Final Integration Session:
June 3rd, 6pm - 7pm ET / 3pm - 4pm PT
We reconnect to answer questions, refine your plan, and look at what comes next as you begin implementing what you designed.
Why This Works When Other Things Haven’t
Most founders try to fix dependency by adding more people, more processes, more tools, more AI.
But if the business is still built around you, adding more amplifies the dependency.
Extraction works because we start by diagnosing exactly where the dependency lives.
Then we redesign the structure itself so the business no longer requires you to keep running and scaling.
- You see what’s causing the dependency
- You change the structure that’s creating it
- You follow a clear path to remove it
- Your roadmap is aligned with where the market is going next so things don't boomerang back to you as SMB continues to shift
When you know exactly what needs to change, everything that follows is focused and clear instead of expensive and draining.
What You Wrap Up Extraction With
Sustainable Scaling Diagnostic Results so you can see exactly where dependency lives and where AI fits
Your Lean Dream Team Design with AI so your people lead the work and the technology and tools without everything dependent on you
Your Scalable Operating System Design with AI so your business can run and grow successfully without you at the center of everything
Your Founder Extraction Roadmap sequenced for the biggest impact first
You get the diagnosis, the design, and the roadmap. All in one high-impact day.
"I own a design business and we were stuck. We knew that there was a lot of growth ahead of us but we were having trouble getting there. One of the things I liked the most about Crista’s program is that in order to scale I knew I needed something, but I didn’t know what it was.
If you want to save time, grow your team, build systems that work, and continue to work at a bigger level, that’s what you are going to get from her program and I can not recommend it enough.
Crista’s program is phenomenal and amazing for that. It has already saved us more than 10 hours a week, which is huge. That’s a day's worth of work so that I can focus on the things that I need to as the CEO of my company."
Make This the Year You Fully Elevate Yourself Out of the Day to Day and Into Visionary Leadership
Early Bird: $997 (first 20 founders)
Standard Investment: $1,500
Hi, I'm Crista Grasso.
A scaling strategist, operations alchemist, and Founder of the Lean Scaling Co & Strategic Ops Institute.
For 30+ years, I've helped businesses scale from Fortune 500s to service-based businesses like yours.
I created Extraction because I kept seeing founders jump into implementation without proper diagnosis. They'd work hard, make changes, and still feel trapped because they were solving the wrong problems.
And now I see the same thing happening with AI, founders adding tools into a structure that hasn't changed and wondering why the dependency hasn't shifted.
I'm equal parts strategist and systems thinker. I help you see what you can't see from inside your business, then design the structure that will actually free you, with AI built in from the start.
What Extraction Is and Isn't
Extraction is...
- A diagnostic to reveal exactly where you're stuck and where AI fits into the structure
- A design process to create your future-state team and operating system with AI built in
- A roadmapping session to prioritize and sequence the changes for the biggest impact
- A blueprint you can implement yourself or with our support in Scale with AI
Extraction is not...
- An implementation program (that's what Scale with AI is for)
- A course with modules to watch
- Generic advice or templates AI could provide you
- A quick fix or magic solution
How to Know if Extraction is Right For You
Extraction is for you if you're running a high multi-6 to multi-7-figure service-based business with a team of contractors or employees, and...
- You want to get out of the day-to-day but don't know what will make it stick
- You're tired of guessing and want a clear and personalized path forward
- You want to understand where AI fits into your specific business before you heavily invest in AI tools and agents
- You're willing to invest one day to get complete clarity on the path forward
Extraction won't be a fit right now for you if:
- You're newer to business and still finding product-market fit
- You're running things solo without support
- You're expecting to be fully extracted after one day
- You're not open to making structural changes to how your business runs and grows