Process
Hiring someone to automate part of your business means letting a stranger near the machinery.
Here's exactly what happens, week by week, and what I need from you at each point.
Most builds run four to eight weeks. The stages below are the same either way. On a smaller project they simply compress. A booking system I built for a home-massage service ran the whole arc in a month.
Week 1
The diagnostic
What I do: sit with whoever actually does the work and watch them do it. Map every step, every handoff, every tool. Then measure what it costs today. Timed with a stopwatch, counted from your records, or pulled from your systems. Whichever gives the most honest number.
I'll also look for steps that should be deleted rather than automated. Sometimes the best outcome of week 1 is a shorter process and a smaller bill.
What I need from you: 60–90 minutes with the person who does the work, not the person who describes it. Read access to whatever system holds the history: the CRM, the spreadsheet, the inbox.
What you get: a written baseline saying what this costs you now and how that figure was reached, plus a scoped plan with a fixed price.
You can stop here. The diagnostic stands on its own. If you take the plan and build it yourself or with someone else, that's a legitimate outcome and you've still got the measurement.
Week 2
Decide and scope
What I do: bring you two ways to solve it, honestly compared, not one option defended. Usually a cheaper, narrower version and a fuller one. I'll say which I'd choose and why.
We also agree the constraint out loud: what can't be touched. Budget, a system you're not replacing, a team that isn't changing how it works, a legal requirement. Writing that down is what stops week 6 becoming a surprise.
What I need from you: a decision, and the name of whoever will own the system after I'm gone. If nobody owns it, it dies. I'd rather say that now than build it anyway.
Weeks 3–5
Build
What I do: build the thinnest version that works end to end first, then widen it. You'll see something running by the end of week 3. Early and ugly, not late and polished.
Everything gets logged from day one. That's not housekeeping: those logs become the after-measurement, for free, forever.
What I need from you: access to the accounts the system touches, and roughly 30 minutes a week to look at what's there and tell me where it's wrong.
What will go wrong: something. It always does. On one project the AI agent answered confidently and incorrectly in front of a customer, and the fix was two changes at once. You'll hear about problems from me before you notice them yourself.
Week 6
Cut over
What I do: run the new system alongside the old one where the risk warrants it. Train the person who'll use it daily, not the person who hired me. Write the runbook: what to do when it breaks, who to call, how to switch it off.
What I need from you: 60 minutes with the actual user, and someone to say “yes, switch it on.”
Weeks 7–8
Watch and hand over
What I do: stay close while it runs in the real world. Fix what surfaces. Hand over the documentation, the accounts, and the off switch.
What I need from you: to tell me what's annoying. Small irritations in week 7 become abandoned systems by month three.
Day 30: Measure the after
What I do: measure the same thing, the same way, with the same method as the baseline. Not an estimate. The same measurement.
Then you get the number.
If it didn't move, you'll hear that from me. A project that didn't work and was measured honestly is worth more than three that “went great”. To you, and to me.
This is included in every build. Never a separate line item.
What this costs you in time
| Week | Your time |
|---|---|
| 1 · Diagnostic | 60–90 min, plus read access |
| 2 · Decide | One decision |
| 3–5 · Build | ~30 min a week |
| 6 · Cut over | 60 min |
| 7–8 · Handover | Occasional messages |
| Day 30 | 30 min |
Under six hours across two months. If it needs more than that from you, I've scoped it wrong.
Three commitments
I reply within 24 hours
on business days. If something's on fire, sooner.
Fixed price, agreed before I start.
No hourly billing, no scope creep invoices. If the scope genuinely changes, we re-scope and you approve it before anything happens.
You own everything.
The accounts, the workflows, the documentation, the credentials. Nothing is hosted on something only I can access. If we stop working together, nothing stops running.
Start with the diagnostic: USD 150. Week 1 starts there.
Start with the diagnostic: USD 150