We're your outside tech people. Tell us how your business runs and where the computers get in the way, and we'll handle the tech side while you run the place.
A few lines is plenty to start.
Owners and managers of businesses that aren't tech businesses. You're very good at your own work and have no wish to become a computer person.
and once, a yogurt factory
Parts, inspections and repairs on the plant floor, tracked somewhere better than a handwritten list.
The computers, the lighting and the AV, set up so a busy night doesn't depend on one person knowing the trick.
Project folders that make sense to whoever opens them, and numbers that match the accounting system.
Bids and change orders that live in email threads and a shared drive.
Service calls in one app, invoices in another, and somebody retyping between them every evening.
Client files spread across inboxes, shared folders and other people's portals.
Numbers that have to be right, pulled by hand from systems that were never meant to meet.
Bookings and the till on a full day, with no time to fight the computer between customers.
We pick the smallest thing that works. Every business sits somewhere different on this line, so that's where we start.
A setting, a script or a cleanup. Sometimes the problem is one formula, and we'll tell you so.
Something off the shelf, chosen well. Buying is often cheaper than building, so the market comes first.
The systems you already pay for, talking to each other, so nobody copies and pastes between them.
Software shaped around how your business works, for the jobs no product on the shelf gets right.
Often a mix. A product for most of it, a script for the part that's yours alone.
Plain advice on the tools you're paying for, including the ones you could drop.
Help leaving software that isn't working for you, with your records coming along.
A retainer for businesses that want their tech people on call, month after month.
Designed and built to fit the business, usually as part of a bigger piece of work.
When the fix is small, we'll say so and do it, rather than sell you a project.
If something on the market already does the job, buying it is usually cheaper than building it. You get help picking, then setting it up to fit.
Most businesses already own good tools that don't talk to each other. Usually someone fills the gap by copying and pasting.
Some work is particular enough that no product fits it. That's when we build software shaped around how your business runs.
Too many programmers think like programmers. They pick the tool first and ask about the business later, if they ask at all. Our first question is what problem we're actually solving.
We learn how the work actually gets done before we talk about software.
A better formula, a script, a product, a server. We pick the point that fits your budget and your people.
The bartender, the office manager, the designer: the person who uses it all day is who we design for.
Nothing gets built or bought until you've seen in writing what we'll do and what it costs. The first conversations are all about how your business runs.
Talk
How the work gets done today, start to finish, including the spreadsheet and the email steps.
Watch
Where it helps, we spend a day or two at the desk next to the people who'll use what we build.
Plan
In writing, in plain words, with the options laid out from simplest to most involved.
Start
Once you've said yes. If the plan needs to change along the way, you hear about it first.
Anything else, just ask when you get in touch.
No. You need to know how your business runs, and you already do. We'll ask the questions and put anything technical into plain English.
Businesses that aren't tech businesses, from a barbershop to a yogurt factory. Our clients have included construction and excavation companies, HVAC outfits, design firms, and finance and insurance offices.
Only if it's the right call. Often the answer is a better setup of what you already pay for, and sometimes it's cancelling something.
It depends on where the work sits on the spectrum. Before anything starts, you get a written plan with a price, and you decide from there.
That depends on the work too. The plan says what to expect before you agree.
Where it helps, yes. Sitting with your people for a day or two is often how we find the real problem.
If you use that term, it fits our ongoing work. We'd describe ourselves as your outside tech people.
A few lines about your business and the part that keeps getting stuck is plenty. We'll read it and write back to set up a time to talk.