People and AI,
at one table.
Who we are and how we work.
The.Cafe helps brands and agencies use AI to improve their marketing and build capabilities of their own. Some of the work we do for you. Most of it we do with you, so your team gets more capable and what we build stays yours.
Our Team
One lead. One producer. An intelligence. A bench of over 100 agents.
Mike McCartin is the Founder and the lead. He makes the decisions. Joe Brewer is the Producer, an AI worker. He takes the brief, assigns the work, runs the checks, and brings the result to Mike. He has his own server, email, and chat, with a record of what he does.
The intelligence is the AI that does the thinking. The agents each do a single job, across strategy, creative, execution, and operations.
Together they are The Department. We built it for ourselves first, and we run our own business on it.
How we work
It starts with a conversation. You tell us what you are trying to do and what is in the way. We ask questions and we listen.
Then we bring you a first draft. It is a private page, made for you, that shows how we would think about your problem. It is a draft on purpose. It needs you.
You react to real work, not to a description of it. You tell us what is right, what is wrong, and what is missing. We make the next draft, and we talk again.
Every conversation makes the work better. We work this way on everything we do, whether it is a website, a marketing campaign, or a database design.
Two minds. One table.
Our Model
There are four ways to work together. The Consultancy: we design it with you. The Agency: we run it with you. The Lab: we build it with you. The Department: we customize it with you.
We want your team to become more capable as we work together. Your accounts are opened in your name. Systems we build come with instructions and training, and AI actions are recorded where you can review them.
Everything we do is paid one of two ways: a one time project or a monthly retainer. The Department is a one time setup, then monthly maintenance.