Stephen Rutter: A system, not agents in silos

Founder, The Scale Institute

Stephen Rutter founded The Scale Institute in 2017 and co-founded Neutopia. When his story was written, he was also a director and COO of an Indigenous group of businesses, in finance, office supplies, smart workplaces and drone mapping for Traditional Owners. He is a proud descendant of the Trawlwoolway Tribal Group from Tebrakunna country, Tasmania.

Stephen laughs into his phone on a harbourside boardwalk as an android checks off his sales leads.

What changed

With his agent team, Stephen runs sales pipelines across five businesses, with his agents working together in a system modelled on traditional knowledge-keeping.

What he was up against

Stephen wanted sales pipelines across all of these businesses without working a hundred hours a week.

What he built

Stephen spent most of the course building Deadly Hustler, an agent trained on his 30 years of sales and relationship-building experience. It researches and qualifies leads across his five businesses, matches each opportunity to the right venture and writes the outreach.

Then he built a whole department around it. “I didn’t want to build a bunch of AI systems to operate in silos,” he says. He calls it The Growth Engine, and named each agent to honour his Indigenous heritage:

Deadly Hustler (The Scout) finds and qualifies opportunities.
Dhurinya (The Weaver) records and connects information during meetings.
Gulbanha (The Gatekeeper) protects his time and energy.
Winhanga (The Steward) keeps the collective memory of the team.

“I’m excited about getting more of our team into the Superesque program. Others in our team will think differently to me, using AI assistants in different ways, helping us keep up with the demands and dynamic nature of the industries we’re working in.”

Stephen RutterFounder, The Scale InstituteFoundations