This is the work. Six systems we designed and built, two of them for clients and four of them our own products. Each page describes what the system does for the person using it, what governs it, and what state it is actually in right now. None of them names a client and none of them explains how it was built. What you should be able to judge is whether this practice can build the thing you have in mind. More about the practice behind these systems.
How to read this portfolio
Portfolio pages fail in one of two directions. They say nothing concrete, or they say enough that the client wishes they had not. These pages are written to a line, and it is worth knowing where it sits.
No project is named and no client is named
Every system here is described by what it does rather than by who paid for it. A client who hires us to build something that gives them an edge does not benefit from us listing them beside a description of that edge. References happen privately, with permission, at the point in a conversation where they would mean something.
The system is published, the way it is built is not
You will find the order things happen in, what governs a decision, and what the person on the other end sees. You will not find coefficients, thresholds, schemas, or the internals of any calculation. Structure tells you whether we understood the problem. Parameters are the part the client paid for.
Built, designed, and planned are marked separately
Software portfolios drift into describing the roadmap as though it shipped. Here, anything live is called live, anything designed but not built is called designed, and anything still on paper is called planned. Two of the six are fully live. The other four are at some stage short of that, and each says so in its first sentence.
There are no numbers on these pages
Nothing about hours, conversions, accuracy, or customer counts. Some of those figures exist and belong to the client; others would be meaningless at the stage a system is in. A figure you cannot audit is decoration. What you can audit is whether the system described fits the problem described.
Six systems, what each one does, and where each one stands
Status labels here match the labels used on the individual pages. Where a project is partly finished, the label says both halves rather than rounding up.
| System | What it does | Capability | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quoting and invoicing system (client engagement) | Turns a structured request into a quoted fee and an issued invoice without staff review on every order | Custom app, workflow automation, integrations | Live |
| Construction estimating and field operations platform | Carries a measurement taken on site through quantities, an estimate, and a proposal, on whichever device you are holding | Custom app, mobile, product engineering | Calculators live · platform in development |
| Notice operations and evidence platform | Sends required candidate notices on approved templates and keeps the record of what went out and what happened to it | Custom software, compliance operations, integrations | Live |
| Portable AI-assisted sample analysis (client engagement) | Analyzes a veterinary sample and returns results with confidence figures for a professional to review before anything is acted on | Applied machine learning, edge systems, prototyping | Prototype |
| Vetted marketplace with verification in the core | Governs who can list, what reaches the public, what can be changed afterward, and what a seller can edit about their own record | Custom app, marketplace, trust and safety | In Final Testing |
| Simulation engine, productized as a diagnostic service | Models bounded-rationality play across tabletop games and reports the single change worth making, sold as a scoped service | Custom software, simulation, productized service | Service Launching |
The four groupings and what belongs in each
Products and Platforms
Multi-user software with its own users, its own release cycle, and a life beyond a single engagement. The estimating platform, the notice platform, and the marketplace sit here. What defines the group is that somebody other than the person who commissioned it has to pick it up and use it without training.
Workflow and Operational Systems
Systems that replace a manual step inside a business already running. The quoting and invoicing system is the clearest example: nothing about the firm’s service changed, but a step that used to require a person no longer does. The delivery process behind the simulation service belongs here too, because the interesting part of that project is the operating process rather than the engine.
AI and Edge Systems
Work where a trained model does something at the point data is captured rather than in a data centre afterward. The portable sample analysis prototype is the one project here. Everything in this group carries a review requirement, because a model producing output nobody checks is a liability dressed as a feature.
Websites and Digital Operations
The public-facing layer and the operations behind it: the storefront side of the marketplace, and the separate brand site the simulation service runs under. Most of our work in this group is either routine enough not to warrant a page or covered by an agreement that keeps it off one.
The practice areas this work comes out of
- custom application development — Four of the six are applications with real users, permissions, and states, rather than automations wired between existing tools.
- workflow automation services — Where the goal is removing a manual step from a process that already works, not building a new product around it.
- custom software and AI development — Model-backed and simulation work, including the review and escalation policy that has to sit around any automated output.
- managed services for systems we build — Live systems producing records somebody may need to rely on later do not get handed over and forgotten.
Is this a fit for your business?
A good fit when
- A person currently has to touch every single transaction in one of your processes
- You want to build rather than buy, because what you need does not exist as software you can license
- An automated output has to be reviewed by a qualified person, and you want that boundary designed in
- You are commercializing something internal and the hard part is the service around it
Probably not a fit when
- You want a named reference list and public metrics before a first conversation
- You need an off-the-shelf tool configured and nothing custom built
- You want the cheapest possible build with no further involvement from anyone afterward
What to have ready
- A description of the step that currently requires a person, and what they are actually deciding
- Whoever knows the rules, even if those rules have never been written down
- A view of what you want kept confidential, agreed before we start rather than after
Questions we get asked
Why will you not tell me who the clients are?
Because the reason a client pays for custom software is usually that their competitors do not have it. Publishing their name beside a description of what it does erodes the thing they bought. We describe the system instead, which tells you what you need to know about whether we can build. Named references happen privately, with permission.
Can I see a demo of any of these?
For our own products, sometimes, depending where they are. Client systems are not ours to demonstrate. What we can usually do instead is walk through the decision structure behind a system of the same shape, which is more useful than a screen tour anyway. The screens are the easy part.
Why are there no results or metrics anywhere?
Some figures are the client’s to publish rather than ours, and some would be dishonest to quote at the stage a system is in. A prototype has no meaningful accuracy figure and a product in final testing has no meaningful usage figure. We would rather be judged on whether the system design is sound.
Who owns what you build?
For client engagements, the client does, including any intellectual property in it. One of the projects here is patent pending and the patent is the client’s. Our own products are ours. Which arrangement applies is agreed in writing before work starts, not discovered afterward.
Related
- automated quoting and invoicing for a professional services firm
- mobile construction estimating and field operations platform
- notice operations and evidence platform
- portable AI-assisted veterinary sample analysis
- a vetted marketplace with verification built into the core
- a simulation engine productized as a diagnostic service
Tell us what the process looks like now and we will map what a system would need to do. No obligation, and you keep the map either way.