The whole thesis
Technology for the systems behind your business.
Every company has a front end its customers see and a back end that actually runs it. We work on the second one — the workflows, handoffs, spreadsheets and integrations that decide how much it costs you to do business.
- From $4,500
- About 4 weeks to launch
- 30 days operating support
Where operational drag usually shows up
01
Nobody owns the middle
Sales, finance and delivery each have an owner. The machinery between them doesn’t.
02
The improvement list never moves
Everyone knows the three things that need fixing. They have been on the list for years.
03
Software gets bought, not built into the workflow
You pay for tools your team works around, and a person fills the gap.
04
Improvements are never measured
Something got implemented, everyone agreed it felt better, and nobody can say by how much — which means nobody can decide what to do next.
05
The knowledge is in three heads
The real process is not the one in the SOP. It is the one two long-tenured people carry around, and it leaves when they do.
What we actually deliver
A map of how the work actually flows
Not the org chart. The real path a piece of work takes, with the systems, decisions and waiting time on it.
The baseline nobody has ever captured
Volume, time per item, people involved, error and rework rate.
The system that replaces the manual part
Automation, integration, AI or internal software — whichever the problem actually calls for.
An operating arrangement after launch
Monitoring, incident response, vendor changes and an improvement backlog, so the system does not decay.
Every engagement starts with a measurable operational problem.
That single rule is what separates this from a technology project. We do not start from what we could build. We start from the number we are trying to move.
- We agree the KPI before we build, in writing.
- We instrument it from day one, so nobody argues about it later.
- We keep optimizing against it after launch, because that is where most of the gain is.
- If the baseline says the workflow is not worth automating, we tell you that instead of building it.
What fixing operational drag looks like in practice
Order to cash
Order → validation → ERP → invoice → follow-up
The path from a customer email to money in the bank, with the manual re-keying removed and the exceptions surfaced.
Procure to pay
Invoice → PO match → approval → accounting
Only the mismatches reach a person. The matches post themselves and leave an audit trail.
Operational visibility
Systems → standardized data → dashboard
Management sees throughput, backlog and exceptions today rather than in a spreadsheet on Friday.
What this looks like in production
Case studies that used this capability
Integration · Automation
Bullhorn
Recruitment software, used by 10,000+ companies
Recruiters were working across disconnected tools — job boards, CRMs and applicant tracking — and re-entering the same candidate data in each one.
Integration · Managed system
Mula
Mobile payments
Users needed to pay bills, buy airtime and send money across many separate banks and providers, each with its own interface and failure behaviour.
Internal software · Automation
Paved
Newsletter sponsorship marketplace
Matching advertisers to newsletter publishers, placing campaigns and reporting on them was relationship-by-relationship work that did not scale.
The rest of what we do
Questions about operational drag
We don’t know whether we need AI, automation or custom software. Where do we start?
You start with the problem. Describe the process that costs you the most time or causes the most errors, and we work out which of those four things fits — often it is a plain integration and some software, not AI. Choosing the technology is our job, not yours.
How long before we see something working?
A pilot runs about four weeks from kickoff to launch: roughly a week to map the workflow and agree the baseline and KPI, two to three weeks to build, then launch with monitoring. We then operate it for 30 days and report the result against the baseline.
What does this cost?
The 30-day pilot starts at $4,500 and covers one workflow end to end, including 30 days of operating support. Ongoing managed systems are a monthly fee that depends on how many workflows we run for you and how critical they are. We quote both in writing before anything starts.
What if the pilot doesn’t work?
We agree the acceptance criteria in writing before development starts. If the system does not meet them, there is no implementation fee. You keep the workflow map, the baseline and the documentation either way.
Is our company the right size for this?
The offer is built around businesses doing roughly $5M to $30M in revenue, with recurring internal processes and someone who owns them. Outside that range we will still reply — we will just be honest about whether we are the right fit.
Which part of your operation costs the most to run?
Usually it is the part nobody owns — the handoffs between the teams that do have owners. Point at it and we will come back with what it costs you today and what we would change first.
- For businesses with $5M to $30M in revenue
- No long-term commitment
- Start with one workflow
- Keep ownership of everything we build