Guided Tool Build
Guided Tool Build
Build the tool you gave up on.
We decide together exactly what it does. The team and I build it, and you have it working before the day is over. You own it.
Why this works now
Built for how you actually work
You have probably already thought about this tool. You may have tried to build it yourself one weekend, got something half working, and then got busy. Or you got it running and it wasn't quite right, and you couldn't tell whether the problem was the idea or the way you built it.
That's the gap. Knowing a tool should exist is easy now. Making one that holds up, handles the odd cases, and doesn't annoy the people who have to use it every day is still a craft.
And the reason the software you've tried doesn't fit is that it was built for the average version of your business. Yours isn't average. That's the whole reason you wanted your own thing in the first place.
Real examples
Testimonials
You ask for testimonials and never get them.
Send a link instead. Ten easy questions, and a clean testimonial lands in your inbox to approve.
Pricing
You explain your pricing forty times a month.
An estimator on your site. Six questions, a real range, and a note telling you who asked.
Intake
Every new job arrives as a messy email.
Your form hands you a formatted brief instead, organized the way you think about a job.
Mornings
Five tabs before you know what today looks like.
One email at 7am. Appointments, what came in overnight, what's overdue, what you owe people.
The spreadsheet
Forty columns and three people editing it.
One screen that reads the same sheet and shows status, totals, and what needs attention.
Repeat questions
People email at 11pm asking what's already on your website.
An assistant on your site that knows your services, hours, and policies, and tells you who it talked to.
Proposals
You copy last month's file and hope you caught every name.
Pick the options, get the finished branded document, correct every time.
The monthly report
You rebuild the same report by hand out of three places.
Paste the numbers, get the finished document, formatted the way your board expects it.
Yours
You have one that isn't on this list.
That's usually the best one. Tell me what it does and I'll tell you if it fits in a day.
How it goes
Guided means we decide together and we do the building
The Tool Fit Call
Thirty minutes to decide exactly what your tool does, and what it doesn't. You leave with a short written plan either way, and if it doesn't fit in a day I'll tell you what it would actually take. The $150 comes off the build if we schedule one.
We build the first version
We share a channel for the day. I ask you things as they come up, you answer when you can. No meetings, and no need to sit and watch.
You try it
I send you a link and you use the thing yourself. Twenty minutes later we talk about what's wrong or missing, and decide what the afternoon fixes.
We finish it
Your notes get built in. This is where a tool stops being a demo and starts being something you'll actually use on Monday.
It's yours
Live, working, and handed over with a short video walkthrough so you can show whoever else needs to use it.
Plain terms
What you get, and what this isn't
You get
- The working tool, live and ready to use
- A short video walkthrough for you and your team
- The files and code, yours to keep or hand to someone else
- One page in plain language explaining how it works
- Two weeks of fixes, in up to two rounds
This isn't
- A rebuild of or replacement for software you already pay for
- An application with multiple user accounts and permission levels
- Anything holding health, payment, or government ID information
- New features added after the day, which become their own day
- A guess. If your idea doesn't fit in a day, you hear that on the call.
The fine print, in plain language
No surprises after the fact
Fixes and changes are different things
You get two weeks of fixes, in up to two rounds. A fix is the tool not doing what we agreed it would do on our call. A change is the tool doing something new.
Changes are welcome, they're just their own day. The two weeks start the day I hand it over, so put it to work that first week rather than saving it for later.
One login, not a user system
One login is included, so your tool isn't sitting out in the open where anyone can find it.
What's not included is multiple user accounts, permission levels, signup pages, or password resets. If your tool needs five people logged in with different levels of access, that's a real application and we should talk about it as a project instead.
What your tool can hold, and who owns it
It can hold the same kind of information your contact form already handles. Names, emails, phone numbers, and notes about a job or an inquiry.
It won't hold health information, payment card numbers, government ID numbers, or passwords to your other systems. Not because it's technically difficult, but because information like that needs a level of handling and review that doesn't belong in a one day build.
You own all of it. At the end of the day the tool, the files, and the accounts are yours, and I'm not sitting in the middle of your data afterward.
If your business operates somewhere regulated, tell me on the call. Sometimes the honest answer is that this isn't the right vehicle for what you want, and I'd rather say so before you pay me than after.
Start with the call
Thirty minutes, $150, and it comes off your build. You'll leave knowing exactly what your tool would do and whether it fits in a day. If it doesn't, you still have the plan.