From Admin Drag to AI Partner

Client: Deanna Reich — Coquina Capital

Company: Coquina Capital

Industry: Commercial Real Estate, Private Lending

How Deanna built the back office of her commercial lending firm with an AI partner named Nova — faster operations, sharper brand voice, more time in the conversations that grow the business.

Results

• 3 — Sessions to a fully custom AI partner, Nova
• 100% — Brand voice consistency across investor communications
• Audio — First workflow that matches how she actually thinks
• More — Time in revenue-generating investor conversations

The Challenge

Deanna was launching Coquina Capital, a firm connecting investors to private lenders. She had part-time contract marketing support and was personally handling everything else — emails, database management, marketing coordination, summaries, invoices, and overall organization. The work was manual, time-consuming, and pulling her away from the conversations that actually grow a lending business.

She is an audio thinker by nature. Sitting at a keyboard to translate her ideas into clean, organized output was the slowest part of her day. She was building momentum, but spending too much energy on administrative work instead of strategic growth.

Why She Chose HeyAlla

Deanna didn't want another productivity tool to figure out alone. She wanted a system she could talk to — not type at — and an advisor who could help her think strategically about how AI should be built around the way her brain actually works.

What We Built Together

• A custom AI partner, Nova: Trained to think like a commercial lender while reflecting Deanna's voice, positioning, and strengths. Built so she can speak her thoughts and get back structured, on-brand output in real time.
• Voice and brand alignment: Nova was trained on Deanna's tone so investor communication stays consistent across every touchpoint — without her having to draft from scratch.
• Operational lift across the back office: Email drafting, organization, summaries, and follow-ups now move through Nova instead of sitting on Deanna's plate.
• A workflow built for an audio thinker: Spoken inputs, structured outputs. The system meets her where she works best instead of forcing her into a keyboard-heavy process.
• Real-life utility, not just business: Nova helps her organize thoughts and draft messages on the go, expanding the value of the system well beyond Coquina Capital.

I was genuinely surprised at how quickly ChatGPT became accurate and aligned with my tone within days. Naming my AI Nova made the experience feel collaborative rather than transactional. It feels less like issuing commands to a computer and more like partnering with an intelligent system that enhances my thinking.

The Bigger Picture

What started as an AI consultation became the operating backbone of a new firm. Deanna runs Coquina Capital with more clarity, more energy, and a holistic view of her business that was buried under admin work before. Her brand voice is consistent. Her capacity has expanded.

In her own words: "The more strategically you integrate AI, the more capacity you create in your life. It allows you to scale faster, operate more strategically, and focus on the parts of your business that truly energize you. Work becomes lighter and more enjoyable."