Automation for the five people who actually run your business
Automation talk usually turns into a shopping list of tools you'd have to rent forever. That's not automation, that's subscription creep with better marketing.
The shape of automation I actually build
The version I sell is different: a custom app, sized for one job, priced once, owned by you. Not five. Not "a full stack." One well-scoped thing that gives an actual person back an actual hour.
Every automation is built around a specific role, not a "process." That distinction matters.
- For your bookkeeper — invoice chase writes itself, in your voice, ranked by ROI. Cash forecast is live. Margin drift flags itself. See The Books app.
- For your sales person — reads every inbox overnight, tells them the one deal to chase today. Reply drafted.
- For your ops person — every job, every crew, every promise, one screen.
- For you (the owner) — a four-minute Monday briefing. Not a KPI wall.
- For your admin / front-of-house — 92% of client comms auto-drafted in your voice.
Why "custom" beats "rented" for Brisbane SMBs
Rented AI (per-seat SaaS with an "AI" logo) has three problems for small businesses:
Custom flips all three. Flat build fee. Voice trained on your actual replies. When it's live you own the code.
- Price scales with your team. Every hire is another seat. Your automation is never done paying for itself.
- Generic templates. The whole point of automation is that it sounds like you. Rented tools sound like everyone else who rented them.
- You don't own it. Vendor decides what changes, what breaks, whether to sunset the product.
When automation makes sense (and when it doesn't)
It makes sense when a specific role in your business is drowning in admin. It doesn't make sense when the underlying process is broken — automating chaos just makes faster chaos.
The Leak Check tells you which one you're looking at.
How the Leak Check works
Twenty minutes. Straight read either way, whether you hire me or not.
Before you ask.
What's the smallest build you'll take?
Can I add to it later?
Do you integrate with Xero?
Stop bending.
Start shipping.
Tell us what's going wrong. Michael calls you back — usually the same day — twenty minutes, no pitch, no charge.