Founder of Sherpa · AI Infrastructure · Salt Lake City, UT
I'm Jacob Ragan, founder of Sherpa. I help contractors implement AI into their business — starting by capturing the data most never collect, so that data can turn into the insights that drive smarter marketing, sales, and operations.
Operator first. I've built, scaled, and exited a services business — now I build the systems I wish I'd had.
My work sits at the intersection of AI automation, marketing, and sales — applied to the trades, the industry I think AI changes most. I publish my predictions, run Sherpa, and install these systems inside real contracting businesses every week.
A ten-year prospectus: AI will run everything between the customer and the crew — and the contractors who own that system will own their markets.
Read the prospectus → PredictionWithin five years, the best contracting businesses will have AI agents running the entire office — answering, quoting, scheduling, invoicing, chasing. Here's what that business looks like, and why the owners who build it first will be impossible to catch.
Read → ThesisHome services is one of the last giant, fragmented industries. AI collapses the operating costs that kept it fragmented. The next decade is a consolidation story, and the acquirers will be the operators who built the machine first.
Read → ThesisTrucks, crews, and ad budgets can all be copied. The one asset a contracting business can build that competitors can't buy is its data — and almost nobody in the trades is collecting it.
Read →The mission: help 1,000 contractors modernize with AI in the next 18 months.
Sherpa is where the thesis becomes a product — AI marketing, sales, and operations systems installed inside real contracting businesses. The company, traction, and roadmap →
Every engagement is measured by what it does for your business — more booked jobs, faster lead response, less wasted admin, and clean numbers you can actually run the company on. That's the only scoreboard that matters. Investing in this space? Read the investor overview →
Most contractors are flying blind. Leads, calls, quotes, and jobs live in scattered tools — so nobody really knows what's working.
I fix that at the root. I instrument your business to capture the data most contractors never collect, turn it into clear insight, and build the AI systems that automate your marketing, sales, and operations around what the data actually says.
Instrument the business so every lead, call, quote, job, and dollar is tracked — capturing the data most contractors never collect.
Turn raw data into clear insight: where leads come from, what converts, and exactly where time and money leak out.
Build the AI systems and automations across marketing, sales, and ops that act on those insights — without adding headcount.
Every cycle the data gets richer, the systems get smarter, and your margins climb. The business gets easier to run, not harder.
I instrument every lead source so you finally know what's actually driving calls and booked jobs — then automate the follow-up around it. Instant speed-to-lead response, review generation, database reactivation, and reporting that shows real cost per job instead of guesswork.
I turn your sales process into a system your whole team runs the same way. AI-assisted intake and follow-up, structured offers and downsells, clean CRM pipelines, and call insights — so more of the leads you already pay for turn into signed work.
I automate the back office that eats your team's day — quoting, scheduling, dispatch, invoicing, and data entry — connecting the tools you already use so information flows on its own and nothing slips through the cracks.
AI systems and automation built specifically for contracting and home-service trades:
Jacob Ragan is the founder of Sherpa and an AI systems consultant for contractors. He helps contracting and home-service companies across the United States implement AI — capturing the data most contractors never collect and using it to automate their marketing, sales, and operations.
Sherpa is Jacob Ragan's company. It builds AI marketing, sales, and operations systems for contractors, with a mission to help 1,000 contractors modernize their businesses in the next 18 months.
It starts with data. I instrument your business so leads, calls, quotes, and jobs are all tracked, then layer in practical automation: instant AI response to new leads, an AI receptionist that books and follows up, automated quoting and scheduling, and back-office workflows. The goal is fewer missed leads and less admin — not AI for its own sake.
Because you can't automate or improve what you can't see. Most contractors have their numbers scattered across tools and nobody really knows what's working. Capturing the data first turns every later decision — what to automate, where to spend, who to hire — into an informed one instead of a guess.
Marketing: lead tracking, speed-to-lead response, reviews, and reactivation. Sales: intake, follow-up, CRM pipelines, offers, and downsells. Operations: quoting, scheduling, dispatch, invoicing, and data entry. It all connects into one system where information flows automatically.
Usually not. I build around the tools you already run — your CRM, phones, and field software — and connect them so data flows between them. If something's genuinely holding you back, I'll tell you, but the goal is to make your current stack work like one system.
The quickest wins — speed-to-lead, follow-up automation, and reactivation — usually show up within the first few weeks because they recover revenue from leads you already have. The deeper systems and data advantages compound from there.
Answer three quick questions and I'll run a 360° audit of your business — a detailed breakdown of the hidden gaps quietly costing you leads, sales, and hours, plus exactly where AI can close them. Free, and no pitch.