VA Optional · The four-week course
Run Your BusinessWithout You or a VA Holding It Together
I used to have a virtual assistant. Now my day starts with my AI chief of staff, Vera. She's sorted my inbox, drafted my replies, acted on what came in overnight, and she tells me what needs me. I spend my day moving the business forward instead of catching up. In VA Optional, you get the same Vera, already trained. By the end of your first lesson, she's set consistent naming rules and is filing your documents where they belong.
- Built with a professional AI engineer and running my business every day
- Step-by-step lessons, plus my team in Slack while you build
- Like a team that never stops building: new skills and agents keep coming
$2,497 once · course access for as long as VA Optional exists · your first 30 days of membership included
Already in use by CFOs, attorneys, brokers, staffing agencies, developers and insurance pros.
The real problem
Your Business Runs on Someone's Memory
The work in your business gets done one of three ways.
You do it
Every document, follow-up and password runs through you. It works until you're sick, on vacation or out of hours.
A person does it
It works until they leave. Everything you trained into them walks out the door with them.
A tool does it
The time you spend teaching it stays in your business. This is what VA Optional builds.
I know the first two well. I paid a VA $800 a month to keep my business moving, and I had good SOPs. My SOPs said what to do. My VA knew everything around them, like which folder a signed document goes in, who to email about which bill and what has to happen first.
None of it was written down anywhere I could reach. That's how most businesses run. The process is scattered across your head, your VA's head, your inbox and a dozen documents. When that person is sick or gone, you rebuild your business from memory while everyone waits.
So I trained AI on my business instead. Now everything it knows lives in accounts I own.
What you build
Meet Your AI Team
Four agents, each with a job, led by Vera, my AI chief of staff. They arrive trained on my business. I guide you step by step as you train them on yours, and they adapt to how you work. Everything they learn is written down in accounts you own.
Vera
CHIEF OF STAFF
Runs your day and hands work to the right specialist. Every conversation starts with her, and she holds your memory vault: your rules, your decisions, your history, backed up.
Tessa
CLIENT SUCCESS
Anything client-facing. Inquiries, onboarding, documents, follow-ups, renewals and the messages that go out to the people you serve.
Fiona
MONEY AND COMPLIANCE
Invoices and payments, the numbers that need checking, and the deadlines you can't afford to miss.
Owen
OPERATIONS
Vendors, scheduling, recurring tasks and the practical side of keeping your business running.
There's one front door. You talk to Vera, and she decides who handles it.
How Your Back Office Runs
- 1
You send Vera one message.
- 2
She hands it to the right agent.
- 3
The agent does the work inside your real accounts, like email, records, documents and signatures.
- 4
The answer comes back to you in Slack.
You stay in the loop where you want to be, and out of it everywhere else.
In my business
What This Looks Like on a Normal Day
Rentals are my business, so these are my examples. In yours it might be a client invoice, a supplier's price change or a renewal date nobody flagged.
On July 21, Vera Found $659 Nobody Was Looking For
A rent adjustment notice came in. I forwarded it to Vera and asked for one thing, a task to update the rent. She built the task and handed it to the right specialist. Then she checked the date.
The change took effect July 1, so the tenant had likely been overcharged $659. She showed me the math and proposed the fix before I'd finished reading the notice.
The Weekend I Didn't Have to Be On Call
The day before the weekend I asked Vera to make sure everything was on track so I didn't need to be on call. This is what came back.
- Insurance verified. Policy checked against the lease, coverage confirmed through July 2027, $100,000 personal liability against my $50,000 requirement.
- Documents filed. Executed lease and lead-based paint packet merged into a single 29-page file and filed to the lease folder. Insurance declaration filed to due diligence. Both named to convention.
- Funds accounted for. First month's rent, security deposit and cleaning fee all confirmed posted, with proof.
- Status: move-in ready.
I didn't touch any of it. I've had the other version of that weekend, phone on the counter, wondering whether anyone ever filed the lease. This time I read the report and went about my Saturday.
When a $659 mistake happens in your business, who catches it, and how long does it sit there first?
With your agents, it gets caught the day it lands.
From my members
Members Are Already Running It
These are members posting in our Slack, in their own words. I don't publish members' names.
The math
My VA Cost $9,600 a Year. Here's What This Costs.
Human help against digital help, side by side. Tool subscriptions are left out of both columns, and I list them below the chart.
Year one
A VA at $800 a month
$9,600
VA Optional with the membership
≈ $3,400
VA Optional without the membership
$2,497
Every year after
A VA at $800 a month
$9,600
VA Optional with the membership
≈ $930
VA Optional without the membership
$0
- Course, $2,497 once
- Membership, $931.20 a year (completely optional)
THE MEMBERSHIP IS OPTIONAL
It's the part I'd keep.
Skip it and VA Optional is $2,497 once. Your agents, your setup and the course stay yours either way. Keep it, and for about $930 a year you get help in Slack from my team, monthly office hours with me, and every update and new skill the day it ships.
When a VA leaves
What they knew leaves with them, and you start training again.
With your AI team
Every rule and every job you teach them stays written down in accounts you own.
Tools run about $70 to $90 a month and aren't counted here. You'll find the full list in the What You'll Need section. Your VA may cost more or less than mine, so run it with your own number. And that's before you price what an AI engineer would charge to build a system like this for you.
Every month you wait, you pay for another month of work you'll never own.
Who built it
Built With a Professional AI Engineer
Hiring a professional AI engineer is out of reach for most small businesses. The good ones are hard to find, they charge accordingly, and when the project ends you're left with a system only they understand. So I hired one, and we built VA Optional together.
Peter built the engine
Vera, the memory vault and the automations underneath are his builds, made to the standard he works to for paying clients.
I ran my business on it
Every day since the start of 2026, so every piece was tested in a real business before it reached you.
You build yours with my guidance
Step-by-step lessons, templates and checklists, with my team in Slack when you get stuck. You do the building, and I'm with you at every step.
Founder, The Lean Landlord
Stephanie Cabral
I run 19 units in Connecticut and self-manage every one of them. I bought my first rental in 2012 and started automating about ten years ago.
Learning it was a huge burden. I was never amazing at it, just proficient, and it took years of trial and error to get there. VA Optional is those ten years, handed to you without the pain.
AI engineer
Peter Israel
Peter builds automation systems for companies for a living, on the exact stack VA Optional runs on. Vera and the memory vault are his builds. He's careful about what these systems cost to run, which sounds like a small detail until you're paying for every message your agents send.
I couldn't have built this alone, and neither could Peter. I know what has to happen in a real business because I've done it wrong before, with my own money. He's the reason the pieces connect instead of sitting in a pile.
The four weeks
What You Build, Week by Week
Orientation · Start the Day You Enroll
Orientation opens the moment you enroll, and your own copy of my Airtable central hub is set up in your workspace within 2 business days. You also get an hour of 1:1 setup help with my team in your first 30 days. Use it to have them check your setup once you've done it, or do the setup together with them live on the call. Each lesson opens as you finish the one before.
- 1
Week 1 · Your Hub and Your First Hires
You set up the professionally engineered home your agents work from, backed up so nothing gets lost. Everything about your business goes into one central hub, and you hire Vera, your chief of staff, who brings on the rest of the team. By the end, they know your business and are doing real work.
- 2
Week 2 · Your Team Moves Into Your Day
Your team moves into your inbox and the tools you use every day. You learn to teach them new jobs yourself, so they handle things the way you would, not the way a generic AI would.
- 3
Week 3 · The Work Starts Happening Without You
I walk you through building three automations from my own operations. Then you get the one question you need to answer to get great workflows built for you, and you and Vera plan yours.
- 4
Week 4 · One System, One View
Everything comes together in a dashboard that shows you what matters across everything you run. You automate your document prep and signing. Then, using an AI maintenance coordinator as the case study, I show you how to put Vera and the team to work inside high-impact tools that don't connect to Claude directly. So your system isn't limited to the tools Claude already plugs into.
Four weeks is the shape. If it takes you six, that's fine.
You're not starting from a blank screen. You're setting up a system Peter and I built and I tested in my own business, so you're customizing something that already works. And when you get stuck, my team and I are in Slack.
A month from now
Your business doesn't live in your head anymore. Every client, vendor, document and task has a home in your central hub. Every job you repeat is written down as a skill, so it gets done the same way every time, whoever is doing it.
And Vera knows all of it. Your rules, your people, your vendors, the way you like things handled. She reads your hub and your memory vault every day, so she isn't guessing. You tell her what you need, she hands it to Tessa, Fiona or Owen, and it gets done. Airtable, Google Drive, your email and Slack all run through one team.
The jobs you've automated start on their own. Requests come in, the automations run, and you see what happened on your dashboard. You step in when a decision actually needs you.
That's the time you get back. I built this because I had to, and I run my own business on it every day.
12 THINGS, ONE PAYMENT
Everything You Get When You Enroll
Your AI team
Vera
Tessa
Fiona
Owen
- Vera, your AI chief of staffknows your business and runs your team for you
- Tessa, Fiona and Owen, your three specialistsAI agents for clients, money and compliance, operations
Your system
- Your own copy of my Airtable central hubset up in your workspace within 2 business days
- Your dashboardwhat matters across everything you run, in one view, built in Week 4
- Templates, prompts and checklistsready to use
The course
- Orientation and four weekly lessonsorientation opens now, each lesson opens as you finish the last
- The complete course, exactly as taughtaccess for as long as VA Optional exists, downloadable
Step-by-step help
- One hour of 1:1 setup help with my teamincluded while your membership is active
- Direct access to my team in Slackincluded in your first 30 days of free membership
- Monthly office hours with meincluded in your first 30 days of free membership
- Recordings & Resources libraryevery session from your membership, in your account
- VA Optional membershipyour first 30 days free with your course purchase
HIRING AN AI ENGINEER
$15,000 to $20,000+
to build a system like this for one business
VA OPTIONAL
$2,497
one payment, course access for as long as VA Optional exists, your first 30 days of membership included
Before you enroll
Is This for You?
VA Optional works across industries. It doesn't work for every person, so please read both lists before you enroll.
This is for you if
- The same admin repeats every week. Inbox, documents, invoices, follow-ups, scheduling, vendors.
- You pay someone to keep it all moving, or you're the one keeping it moving late at night.
- You can download a file and google your way out of a tech problem. You don't need to know Claude today, as long as you're willing to learn it.
- You want the system, and everything it learns about your business, to belong to you.
This is not for you if
- You want someone to build it for you. I give you exact steps, video tutorials and setup help, and you do the building.
- You're looking for one automation to fix one annoyance. This is your whole back office.
- You expect your AI team to be fully automated from day one. They learn as you train them.
- Your business doesn't have recurring admin yet. Bookmark this page and come back when it does.
If you read the second list and saw yourself, please don't enroll. There are no refunds, and I'd rather you keep your money until this fits.
REQUIREMENTS
What You'll Need
Paid
Paid
Paid
Free plan available
Free plan available
Optional
I teach VA Optional on the same tools I built my own systems on. The method adapts, so you can bring tools you already use. Your central hub, templates and setup help are built for our setup, though, so that's the path I'd recommend. With our setup, you'll need Claude, n8n and Google Workspace, which are paid, and most businesses already pay for Google Workspace or something like it. Airtable and Slack both have free plans that work at the level you need. DocuSign is optional.
Expect around $70 to $90 a month at entry-level plans, and up to roughly $150 if you run heavy volume. Nothing is bundled into my price and nothing is marked up. You hold every account in your own name, you keep them if you ever walk away, and my team never sees your data.
Tool prices verified July 2026 and set by those companies, not by me.
The offer
$2,497 Once. Your First Month of Membership
Is Included.
Today
$2,497
The full course and everything in it, plus your first 30 days of membership. Access is immediate.
Day 31
You choose
Keep the membership at $97 a month or $931.20 a year, or stop. You can add it again later from your account.
Either way
It's yours
Your team keeps working exactly as it does that day, and everything you built stays in your accounts.
Why I'd Keep the Membership
AI tools change fast. As I build new skills for my own business, they land in members' libraries, and every update to Vera and the other agents reaches members the moment we ship it. If you stop, your team keeps working exactly as it does that day, and everything you built stays yours. It just stops learning from me. A team that keeps learning is the reason I built this.
- Every update to Vera and the other agents, the moment we ship it
- Every new skill and agent we release, never an upsell
- Help in Slack from me and my team, for Vera, your agents and tech issues
- Monthly office hours with me
- 20% off every Build Day, built live with me
- Every member session recorded and added to your library
- One hour of setup help with my team while your membership is active
WHAT HAPPENS AFTER YOU ENROLL
You get instant access and create your login.
You watch a short orientation from me.
Your hub is set up in your workspace within 2 business days.
You book your 1:1 setup call with my team.
Access is immediate. Your first 30 days of membership start today.
We will call you back
Not sure if this is for you?
Leave your number and we'll call you back. A real person, no automated calls.
QUESTIONS
Before You Decide
IS THIS FOR ME
HOW IT WORKS
THE MEMBERSHIP
PAYING
I Built This Because I Had To.
For years I was the system. Then I paid someone to be the system, and it still lived in one head. Now it lives in accounts I own, and my team gets better every month I use it.
If your business runs on you, or on someone else's memory, start here.
Four weeks · $2,497 once · access is immediate
Questions before you enroll? Email me at stephanie@theleanlandlord.com. I answer every email myself.