I rebuild the back office of your business, so it takes the leg-work out of running it.
Most businesses run on re-typing: the same information entered into three places, evenings lost to paperwork, one person who’s the only one who knows how everything works. I spent fourteen years inside one company automating all of that away, until nearly everything ran itself. Now I do the same for other businesses.
I’m a UI and UX designer at heart, and it shows: systems that move with the natural current of your business, screens that make sense at first sight, software people actually want to use.
While you are talking, I am building it in my head. Getting it out means translating it: every screen, every field, what your people see when there is nothing there yet, what happens when somebody enters the wrong thing. Whatever I fail to name does not get built, so I am the one who has to notice the gap.
Paper, pens, and re-typing
- Blank workbook sheets printed out; the team wrote item details on them by hand
- The sheets were walked to another person, who typed each online listing from scratch
- Mistakes crept in at every re-copying step, and mistakes cost real money
Photos in, listings out
- Take photos of the item: the system identifies it, builds the listing, checks market prices, and publishes in a few clicks
- Inventory, shipping labels, customer messages, and backups run themselves
- The system watches itself and speaks up before anyone notices a problem
Fewer mistakes
An automated step doesn’t mistype a number, skip a line, or forget a follow-up. The errors that come from re-copying information by hand simply stop happening.
Your time back
The repetitive work (entering, copying, checking, filing) runs on its own. Your people review and approve instead of typing.
In your pocket
Orders, inventory, money, and problems: visible from your phone, wherever you are. You don’t have to be in the building to know exactly how the business is doing.
One custom system that runs your whole business
Client & customer portals
A secure page where clients check status, share documents, and see what’s next, instead of calling for updates.
A phone line that answers itself
An AI receptionist that answers, checks your real records, takes messages, and transfers. I run one on a live business line today.
Paperwork that files itself
Forms, records, and documents that move where they belong on their own: entered once, never re-typed.
Job & order tracking
One screen showing every job from “came in” to “done”: who has it, what’s late, what ships today.
Your numbers, live
Sales, jobs, money in and out: always current, on your desk and on your phone.
Tools that finally talk to each other
The systems you already use, connected: information typed once shows up everywhere.
Your brand, carried through
The look of your business, from the card in someone’s wallet to the screen your staff logs into. One design language, not five.
A safety net
Backups that run themselves and verify they actually worked, and monitoring that speaks up before anyone notices a problem.
I design for your business, not just build for it
Before I automated anyone’s back office I spent fifteen years as a designer, on paper and on screen. That is where the ads, the business cards, the signage, the website, and the social templates come from, and it is why the software ends up shaped like the way your people already work.
It also means the whole thing can be one piece of work. One design language running from the card in a customer’s wallet to the screen your staff logs into, and the numbers that normally take an evening to assemble, what sold, what it cost, who came back and who quietly stopped, arriving in one dashboard on your phone.
Most businesses buy these separately. The logo from one place, the website from another, the system the staff uses from a third. None of them have met, which is why the part customers see is considered and the part your people work in isn’t.
How a wheel business replaced its paper workbook with a system that runs the company
In 2012 every listing was written out by hand and typed in from a paper sheet. I built one small tool to speed that up, and then, year after year, the system absorbed another piece of the work. It’s called Templatizer, and today it is the company’s back office.
Worth knowing: I didn’t build this as an outside contractor. I worked inside the company and used it every day for fourteen years. That’s why it fits, and it’s how I approach every build.
I build constantly, on every platform there is
A video editor that runs in a browser tab. A project tracker that replaced a subscription. Phone apps, desktop applications, and the monitoring that watches all of it. None of it is client work, which is exactly why it is worth showing you: it is the clearest look at how I work.
I come in and watch
I sit with your team and learn how the work actually flows, not how the org chart says it flows.
You get a map
A written plan in plain English: what I’d automate, what it saves you, and a fixed price. No surprises.
I build in stages
You see it working as it grows, piece by piece. Your business never stops to wait for it. I usually build a tool before I build the product, because every system has a job buried in it that repeats a few thousand times, and taking that out once is what keeps the stages short.
Maintained remotely
After the build, updates, fixes, and improvements happen from my desk: no repeat site visits, no IT department needed.
Renting software
- The average small company rents 25 different programs, at thousands of dollars per employee per year, prices climbing far faster than inflation
- Built for the average business: you bend to fit it, and per-seat fees rise every time you hire
- The vendor can raise prices, drop features, or retire the product (remember QuickBooks Desktop)
Owning your system
- Built around how you already work: the software bends, not the business
- You own it all: the system, the data, everything. No per-seat fees, ever
- Grows with you, maintained entirely remotely for a flat cost, a fraction of the subscription stack it replaces
The full decision framework → or what custom software really costs →
“What if you get hit by a bus?”
You own everything: the code, the documentation, the accounts. Any competent developer could pick it up tomorrow. Nothing shuts off.
“Do I own it?”
Yes, as mechanisms, not promises. The code lives in a repository you own; I work in it as a collaborator. Your domain, your hosting, and every account are registered to you. Documentation is a deliverable, not a favor. If we part ways, everything keeps working.
“How do I know what it costs?”
Every build starts with a written map and a fixed quote, built in stages. Stop at any stage and keep working software. No open-ended bills.
“How can one person build all this?”
Because the slow part used to be typing, and it isn’t any more. I build with AI, which means the work moves from writing code to describing exactly what the software is: every screen, every field, every state. That description has to be exact, and getting it exact is the job. I still design it, decide it, test it, and answer for it. Your system will have something in it that turns four hours of somebody’s week into four minutes. I point that at my own work too.
“Couldn’t I just use ChatGPT?”
You could, and you’d get code. You wouldn’t get someone who sits in your shop, learns how the work actually flows, builds around it, trains your people, and answers for it for years. Code is the easy part; a running system someone stands behind is what you’re actually buying.
“Who fixes it when it breaks?”
I do, remotely. And it watches itself, as my last one did for fourteen years. Most problems are fixed before you’d notice.
“What happens after it’s built?”
A care plan: flat monthly maintenance from my desk. Monitoring, backups that verify themselves, updates and fixes as the business changes. And you’re never obligated to keep it; the system is yours either way.
“What if you’re on another job, or on vacation?”
I take a limited number of engagements at once, so every client gets real attention. For maintenance issues I respond within one business day. And the systems watch themselves: most problems are caught and fixed before anyone calls.
“My business is too weird for software.”
Weird is the specialty. Off-the-shelf tools are what can’t handle weird; a custom system is built around the weird parts instead of fighting them.
Start with the thing that annoys you most.
Email me a short description of the most repetitive, time-eating process in your week. In a few days you’ll get back a plain-English map of what could run itself and what that’s worth. Free, no meeting required.
Justin Zagar · Evolve Engineering
Or email me directly: