How Beam AI’s one-man ops team saves 480hrs per month with Deel

Beam AI, an AI startup automating back-office tasks, was born global. With a New York HQ, an operational hub in Berlin, and offices in Abu Dhabi and Karachi, their 40-person team is spread across the world. This entire global operation—from HR and finance to legal and ops—is managed by one person: Chief of Staff, Fredrik Falk.

As employee #2, Fredrik had to find the most efficient way to scale the company. "As a one-man ops team for a 40-person global company, I handle the vast majority of global HR, finance, and ops," Fredrik explains. "I have to find the most consolidated way to manage my problems."

The team faced several critical challenges:

• Lack of specialists: They had no in-house legal team, no IT department, and no payroll specialists. Hiring them would be costly and contrary to their "lean" operational model.
• SOC 2 compliance: Achieving SOC 2 compliance is a mess of documentation for any startup, but for a distributed team without a legal department, it was a massive hurdle.
• Complex payroll: Managing payroll in-house, especially in notoriously complex markets like Germany, was becoming a very manual and messy burden.
• Global IT logistics: Without an IT team, how do you compliantly ship a new laptop to Turkey, manage a budget for a new joiner in New York, and—most importantly—retrieve a machine from an employee offboarding in the UK?

Beam AI has used Deel since its founding, starting with contractors. But as the company scaled, Deel’s platform scaled with them, evolving from a single tool into their central operations hub. Every time a new operational challenge emerged, Deel had a solution.

• Global payroll for Germany: Deel automated Beam AI's "messy and manual" payroll for its German entity, navigating the country's complex regulations without requiring a specialist.
• Deel IT (without an IT dept): Beam AI doesn’t have an IT team. Deel IT allows them to set a budget, let new hires pick their equipment, and have Deel manage logistics, delivery, and handoffs globally, saving them time and money.
• Seamless worker management: Deel's platform seamlessly managed both EOR hires in complex markets like the US, and their global network of contractors.
• A full, consolidated HR stack: Beam AI consolidated its entire HR function onto Deel—using HRIS for time-off policies, Expenses for reimbursements, and the Carta integration to simplify equity management.

A critical test came when a new joiner in the UK didn't work out. Fredrik was stressed about retrieving the company laptop, but Deel handled the entire pickup and retrieval process, ensuring compliance and taking the burden off his plate.

“Every time I think 'this sounds really painful,' I check Deel, and the solution is already there. It’s done exactly what I wanted it to do, every single time. It’s a pleasure to use.” —Fredrik Falk, Chief of Staff at Beam AI

By consolidating its entire global operations onto Deel, Beam AI saves an estimated 480+ hours in administrative work every month, the work of at least three full-time specialists.

“As a one-man ops team, I don't have a dedicated IT department, a legal team, or a payroll specialist. I have Deel. It's the 'easy button' that gives me the leverage of a full back-office, saving me hundreds of hours a month so I can focus on high-level strategy, not admin.” —Fredrik Falk, Chief of Staff at Beam AI

This massive efficiency gain allows Beam AI to stay lean and empowers Fredrik to focus on high-impact strategic initiatives, not manual admin. The savings are both financial and operational. Retrieving one laptop from the UK would have cost hours of admin and over $100 in insured shipping. With Deel IT, the cost is consolidated, and the process is painless.

For Fredrik, Deel’s greatest strength is its ability to grow with them without being overwhelming.