For 5–50 person companies

You're paying people to do work software should already be doing.

Every small company has a handful of processes that quietly eat a day a week — the report someone rebuilds every Monday, the data retyped between two systems that don't talk, the quote assembled by hand for the four hundredth time. I find them, cost them out, and build the systems that remove them. Then I hand you the keys and leave.

Start with a map Estimate your hours

Fixed scope. Fixed price. Your accounts, your code, no retainer.

Process map — sample output

Week 2

OPS.01Weekly ops report rebuilt by hand6.5 hrs/wk

FIN.03Invoices retyped into accounting4.0 hrs/wk

SAL.02Quotes assembled from scratch5.5 hrs/wk

SUP.04Intake email triaged manually3.0 hrs/wk

ADM.07Scheduling and confirmations2.5 hrs/wk

Every engagement starts here. You get the map whether or not you hire me to build anything — priced small enough that it's an easy yes and useful enough to act on alone.

How it works

Three steps. No open-ended engagement.

Consulting gets a bad name because it bills by the hour and never quite finishes. This doesn't work that way. Each step has a defined output and a defined end, and you can stop after any of them.

STEP 01

Map

I spend time inside your business watching the actual work — not the org chart version of it. You get a written map of every manual process, the hours it consumes, and what it costs you a year. Fixed price, and yours to keep even if we stop here.

STEP 02

Build

We pick the two or three processes worth removing first. I scope and price them before I start, then build in your accounts on your infrastructure — not on a platform you have to rent from me.

STEP 03

Hand over

Code, credentials, documentation, and training for whoever owns it after me, plus a support window agreed in the scope. After that I'm available, not necessary — that's the difference.

What I build

Unglamorous work, removed permanently.

Almost none of this is exotic. Most of the waste in a small company sits in the gaps between the software you already pay for — and that's exactly where nobody's product team is working.

What goes away

Recurring reports — rebuilt by hand every week or month
Re-entry between systems — the same data typed twice
Quotes and proposals — assembled from scratch each time
Intake and follow-up — leads and requests triaged manually
Scheduling and dispatch — coordination by phone tag
Document review — long files read to find three facts

What you're left holding

A working system — running in your stack, not mine
Every credential — accounts in your name from day one
The source code — in your repository
Documentation — written for whoever inherits it
Trained staff — the people who use it, not just the owner
No license fee — nothing to keep paying me for

Estimate

The hours are already being spent. The only question is on what.

Every number below except one comes from you. The exception is the automation rate, which comes from published research — McKinsey Global Institute and a randomised trial published in Science — and is cited on the panel, not buried.

Where the time goes

People doing this work4

Hours each spends on it, per week6 hrs

Fully-loaded cost per hour$45

Salary plus payroll tax and benefits, divided by hours worked — roughly 1.3× the hourly wage.

Recovery estimate

Annual · Live

Recoverable

per year · conservative case $0

Recalculates as you move. Every figure traces back to something you set — except the automation rate, which comes from published research, cited below.

DATA.ENTRYHours back per month0

ANNUALHours back per year0

FTEFull work-weeks recovered0

FLOORConservative case$0

How this number is built

people × hrs/week × 4.33 weeks × automation rate × loaded rate

The automation rate is the only figure I supply, and it comes from published research rather than from me. For this category the rate is 69% — McKinsey Global Institute.

Read that number honestly: it is the share of time that is technically automatable with demonstrated technology, not a promise of what you'll bank. Real projects land lower, because someone still handles exceptions and signs off. That's what the conservative case is for — the same math run down to a deliberately pessimistic rate. Everything else on this page is yours.

Sources: McKinsey Global Institute, A Future That Works (2017) — automation potential by work activity. Noy & Zhang, Science (2023) — randomised trial, 453 professionals, 40% time reduction on writing tasks.

Who you're hiring

I owned the IT company. Now I own the operating company.

Most people selling AI consulting have never run payroll. I've done both sides of this — I built and ran my own IT company, and I currently run a commercial services business with trucks, technicians, and invoices that have to go out. The processes I automate are ones I've had to do by hand myself.

Background

IT company owner — years of infrastructure, support, and the unglamorous parts nobody demos
Government cybersecurity — I build assuming the data matters and someone will eventually audit it
Operator — I run Hydromation, a commercial aquatic services company in Ashburn, VA

How I work now

Hands-on daily — this is what I've been building with for months, not a practice area I added last quarter
Shipped, not theorized — including CMMC Map, compliance software for small defense subcontractors
Security is not a phase — private by default, least privilege, and I'll tell you when something you're doing is exposed

Questions

The things people ask first.

I don't know what should be automated. Is that a problem?

No — that's step one, and it's most of the value. Almost nobody knows where their hours actually go until someone counts them.

What does it cost?

The map is a small fixed fee. Builds are quoted as fixed-price scopes after the map, so you see the number before committing. I don't bill hourly — that puts us on opposite sides of the same clock.

We already pay for a lot of software. Won't this overlap?

Usually the opposite. Most of the waste sits in the gaps between the tools you already own — the handoffs nobody's product team is responsible for.

Will I be dependent on you afterward?

Deliberately not. Your accounts, your repository, your data, documented and handed over. If I've done it right you won't need a second engagement.

Is our data safe in these systems?

Private by default, least-privilege access, and nothing public unless you explicitly decide it should be. It's the part of my background I'm least willing to be casual about.

Start here

Start with the map.

Tell me roughly what your company does and where the week goes. If there's nothing worth automating I'll say so — that's a short email and it costs you nothing.

Got it — I'll come back to you shortly.