You own it. We run it.Automation and AI for owner‑run businesses.
The phone answered, quotes sent, invoices chased — while you're on a job. Built around how you already work, on systems that belong to you. Nothing new to learn, nothing extra to manage.
- “Someone re-types that into the other system every morning.”
- “We pay per seat for six tools that don't talk to each other.”
- “It's all in spreadsheets, and half of it is in my head.”
One Tuesday, sample data. All of it happened while the owner was on a job.
Six things we build
Most engagements combine two or three. The skill is working out which ones your problem actually is — an automation priced like a platform loses the plot in both directions.
Owner-operated businesses, from one person up, where the company has outgrown the way it is being run.
Workflow Automation
Days to two weeksWe make two systems talk to each other so a person no longer has to. Forms into your CRM, jobs onto the calendar, follow-ups that send themselves, reports that arrive without being asked for.
Usually the first thing we build for someone.
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The tell is always the same sentence: someone re-types that every morning. A quote goes from the enquiry form into a spreadsheet, then into the CRM, then someone remembers to chase it. Each hop is a chance to lose the job. We map the chain end to end and remove the human from the middle of it, leaving people where judgement is actually needed. It is the smallest thing we do and the fastest to prove — you will see it working in days, not months.
Deliberately a small first step. It is the cheapest way to find out whether you want to work with us.
The Owned Platform
Two to six weeksOne system that replaces the pile of separate subscriptions: CRM and pipeline, files, chat, calendar and booking, knowledge base, client portals, forms and e-signature — running on infrastructure in your name.
We run our own company on this.
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Most growing businesses end up renting five or six tools that each do their job well and none of which talk to each other — so a person becomes the glue between them, and the bill grows every time you hire. This puts the same capabilities on one system you own: pipeline, files, chat, scheduling, SOPs, client portals, forms, signatures. Flat cost instead of per seat. Your data on infrastructure in your name. The honest trade-off is that someone has to run it — updates, backups, security — and that is what the monthly covers.
The most persuasive thing we can do is show you ours rather than describe it. This is not a demo we built for you.
Custom Apps & Platforms
A month upwardsSoftware built for how you actually work, when you have been told to just use some product and it does not fit. Customer portals, quoting engines, booking systems, internal tools, dashboards.
For the process that has outgrown its spreadsheet.
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This is our largest work and the most carefully scoped. It starts where off-the-shelf stops: a pricing model nothing supports, a portal your customers need but no product provides, an internal process that has been living in a spreadsheet nobody else dares touch. We stage the build so phase one is something you can see working rather than a document, and we will not put a fixed price on a vague idea — for your protection as much as ours.
Scoped properly before anything is committed. If we cannot see the payback, we will say so.
Web & AI search · flo-aeo
Two to five weeksA fast website you own, plus the measurement layer underneath it — so you can finally see which marketing produced actual money, not just traffic. Including being found when a customer asks an AI assistant instead of a search engine.
The front door to a system, and the answer when a customer asks an AI who to call.
Run the free AI-search check →Learn more
We do not really sell websites on their own — a site that just sits there is a commodity, and you can buy one cheaper elsewhere. What is worth paying for is the site as the front of a working system: enquiries captured and routed, bookings taken, follow-up automatic, and server-side tracking that tells you which ad or page actually produced the job. Fast, yours, and measurable. And built so that when someone asks ChatGPT or Google's AI who to call, your page is the one it can read and cite.
If you already have a site you like, we will happily build the system behind it and leave the design alone.
AI Features
Days to three weeksSoftware that handles repetitive judgement inside a system we have built: answering and qualifying enquiries, booking appointments after hours, reading documents, estimating from a photo.
It triages. A person still decides.
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A chatbot bolted onto a website is a toy. Something that answers at eleven at night, works out whether the enquiry is real, books it into the right slot and files it in your CRM with the context attached is a different proposition. That is what this is: a working part of a system, not a widget. We are deliberate about the limits — it triages and captures, and a human confirms anything that matters. It will say it does not know rather than invent an answer.
Sold as part of a system. On its own it has nothing to file into and nowhere to book.
Managed Operations
Monthly, ongoingWe host it, watch it, back it up, keep it patched and current, fix what breaks, and keep improving it. Every build we do comes with this proposed.
A system with nobody looking after it quietly rots.
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This is the part clients almost never ask for and the part that decides whether any of the rest keeps working in two years. Certificates expire, dependencies go stale, disks fill, something upstream changes. Owning your infrastructure means somebody has to look after it — that is the honest trade against renting software, where the vendor does it for you. We do it, along with a standing allowance for the changes you will inevitably want.
Priced by what is actually being operated, not as a percentage of the build.
We quote per business, in writing, once we understand the shape of the problem. Every build comes with a monthly for running it.
One Tuesday, with the system running.
The jobs owners ask us for most often, drawn as the real interface with sample data and laid out across a day. They are examples, not a menu: if the thing eating your week is not here, that is the thing we build.
- 23:12Handled
Website enquiry · Danforth Bakery · on the board, reply sent
- 01:40Booked
After-hours call · furnace out · booked Tue 9:00
- 05:55Needs you
Priya asked about a Saturday install. Outside your hours — held for you.
What happened while you slept
Overnight enquiries answered, one booked, and the one thing that actually needs a decision from you, on your phone before the first coffee.
The call you missed while on a ladder
The receptionist asks the questions a good dispatcher asks, sorts urgent from routine, and books against your real calendar. The recorder shows every decision as it lands.
Talk to it yourself →Your inbox, sorted before you open it
Quote requests go to the board, bills go to bookkeeping, newsletters get filed, spam disappears. What is left is the handful of things only you can answer.
A photo becomes a quote
The customer sends a picture. Vision measures it, your catalogue prices it, the quote goes out — and a person approves anything that matters.
The web enquiry that answers itself
A form comes in from the website, gets checked for spam and duplicates, becomes a card on the board and gets a reply, before anyone has looked at it.
Booked, reminded, and they actually show up
A text asks for Tuesday afternoon. A slot is offered, confirmed, and a reminder goes out the day before. No-shows drop when nobody has to remember.
The quote you forgot to chase
Most quotes die of silence. This one nudges politely on day three and day seven, in your voice, and stops the moment the customer answers.
Your Instagram, posted without you
Today's job photo becomes a post and two ad variants. You get one message: approve or edit. Tap approve from the truck and it schedules itself.
Applicants screened, interviews booked
Every applicant gets your screening questions the moment they apply. The ones who qualify land on the calendar; the rest get a kind no; the maybes wait for you.
Reviews you don't have to ask for
When a job is marked done, one text goes out. Happy customers are pointed to Google. An unhappy one reaches you privately first, before it reaches anyone else.
The invoice that chases itself
Sent, reminded at day seven, reminded again at fourteen, paid. The books update on their own and your phone tells you when the money lands.
The tune-up reminder that brings them back
Everyone you serviced this month last year gets one message. Three rebook before dinner. This is the cheapest revenue a service business has, and almost nobody collects it.
The week's numbers, as a text
Booked, quoted, unpaid, next week. Five lines on a Friday, nothing to log into, nothing to build in a spreadsheet.
Somebody looking after it
What the monthly actually does at two in the morning: backups, patches, certificates, a digest to you. Most nights, nothing to do — which is the point.
Is your business in the answer?
When a customer asks ChatGPT, Google or Perplexity who to call, the assistant quotes two or three sites. Type yours and see whether one of them is you, who is being quoted instead, and why.
- 1Type your website
- 2We ask an AI the ten questions customers ask before choosing
- 3See who it quotes
Told in your trade's words.
Same system, different day. Pick yours and see what a Tuesday looks like with it running.
Trades and home services
The phone rings on a ladder. Quotes go quiet. Invoices sit.
A day in your businessClinics, studios and appointment businesses
No-shows, a desk on hold, recalls nobody sends.
A day in your businessAccountants, bookkeepers, brokers and small firms
Chasing documents, tracking deadlines in your head, answering “where are we?”
A day in your businessContractors and renovators
Estimates from the driveway, subs to chase, invoices typed at the kitchen table.
A day in your businessProperty management and real estate
Repair requests at 10 pm, leads that want a showing now, rent to chase.
A day in your business
Small first. Then bigger, if it earns it.
The pattern below is the one that works, and we would rather follow it than talk you into a large build on a first call.
- 01
One painful thing, fixed
A single automation, fixed scope and fixed price, working in days. Cheap enough to be an easy decision and concrete enough to prove we are competent.
- 02
The system underneath
Once you can see it working, the bigger conversation makes sense: the platform, the portal, the thing that has been living in a spreadsheet.
- 03
The parts only you need
Custom software and AI for the bits of your operation nothing off-the-shelf covers. This is where the work stops being interchangeable.
- 04
Somebody looking after it
Running, monitoring and improving it monthly. Every stage above adds to this, and it is the part that keeps the whole thing alive.
Renting your tools, or owning the system.
Nothing wrong with renting software — most of what you use is rented, and most of it is good. This is what changes once a business is big enough that the seams start to cost real money.
Per person, per tool, every month
Six tools at fifteen a head across fifteen people is over thirteen hundred a month, and it rises with every hire
A flat cost that ignores headcount
You pay to build it, then to run it. Adding your tenth or fiftieth person changes nothing
A person is the integration
Someone copies the enquiry into the CRM, the CRM into the calendar, the calendar into the invoice
The pieces share one spine
An enquiry becomes a deal, a booking and a follow-up without anyone retyping anything
You adapt to the product
Your process gets bent to match how the software assumes you work, and the gap becomes manual effort
The software is shaped to the process
Including the parts that are genuinely unusual about how you operate
On their computers, under their terms
Exportable in theory, awkward in practice, and gone entirely if the product is discontinued
On infrastructure in your name
You hold the keys and can hand the whole thing to another developer
They do, and that is a real advantage
You never think about patching, backups or uptime. This is the strongest argument for renting
We do, on a monthly
The honest cost of owning it. Priced by what is actually running, not as a slice of the build
Wait, or work around it
Feature requests join a queue behind every other customer's
It gets built
Every retainer carries an allowance for the changes you will want once you are living in it
The honest catch
Owning it means somebody has to run it — updates, backups, security, the things that break quietly. With rented software the vendor does that. Here, we do, and that is what the monthly is for. Anyone who tells you self-hosting is free is selling you something.
And where renting is genuinely the right answer — accounting, payroll, anything heavily regulated — we integrate with it rather than trying to replace it.
The same terms every time, published.
You should not have to ask what is included, or discover the answer in month three.
Included in every build
Discovery, the build itself, go-live, written documentation in your own client portal, and thirty days of post-launch support. Not a line item, not an upsell.
Staged and milestone-billed
Anything substantial is broken into phases and billed against them, so neither of us is carrying the whole risk. Phase one is always something you can see working rather than a document.
You hold the keys from day one
Infrastructure is in your name, not ours. Documentation lives with you. If we parted ways tomorrow you would not need our permission for anything.
Fixed price where it can be fixed
Small, well-described jobs get a fixed price up front. Anything that needs several calls to understand gets scoped properly first — we will not put a number on a vague idea, for your protection as much as ours.
We will tell you when it is not worth it
If we cannot see a clear payback, or the honest answer is that renting software is fine for you right now, that is what you will hear. It costs us a deal occasionally and saves everybody a bad year.
What we turn down
Supplying staff. Ongoing marketing management. Cheap brochure sites. Anything needing enterprise compliance certification such as SOC 2 or HIPAA-grade. Said early rather than discovered late.
The questions we actually get
Including the two most people are too polite to open with.
What does it cost?
It depends which of the six lines your problem actually is. A single automation is a small, fixed-price job measured in days; an owned platform is a few weeks; a custom application is the largest thing we do. We do not quote from a first call, because a number said before the shape is understood is always wrong. You get a real, broken-down figure in writing before you commit to anything, and every build carries a monthly for running it, priced by what is actually operating.
Isn't this more expensive than just paying for software?
Up front, usually yes. The comparison worth doing is the total across everything you are already paying for, multiplied by the people you plan to hire, against a flat cost that does not move. It is also worth counting the hours someone currently spends being the glue between tools that do not talk. For a small business with a couple of subscriptions, honestly, renting is fine and we will tell you so.
What if you disappear? Would we be stranded?
It runs on infrastructure in your name and you hold the keys. Everything is documented in your own portal. If we parted ways tomorrow it keeps running, and any competent developer can pick it up — we build on ordinary open-source software precisely so there is no proprietary system only we understand. That is the point of not building you another product to be locked into.
Could we not just use Zapier, or hire someone?
For something simple you could, and you probably should. The difference shows up when several pieces have to talk to each other and somebody has to own the whole chain end to end. An assistant doing it by hand does not build a system — they are the system, and eventually they leave.
Do we have to replace everything we already use?
No, and you should not. Accounting, payroll and anything heavily regulated are better rented — we integrate with those rather than rebuilding them. Plenty of work we do starts as one automation joining two tools you are keeping.
How do engagements usually start?
Nearly always with something small. One painful manual handoff, tightly scoped and fixed in days for a fixed price. You get a working result quickly, and the larger conversation then happens against something running rather than a proposal. We would rather earn a platform build than sell one on a first call.
Who actually does this work?
You deal directly with the person who builds it, not an account manager relaying messages to a team you never meet. That is deliberate, and it is why we scope carefully and turn down work that is not a fit.
What don't you do?
We do not supply staff, we do not run marketing campaigns on an ongoing basis, we do not build cheap brochure websites, and we cannot take on anything needing enterprise compliance certification such as SOC 2 or HIPAA-grade. We would rather say that early than discover it late.
What's slowing you down?
Describe the thing that keeps costing you time or money. We'll tell you which of the six it is, roughly what it takes, and whether we're the right people for it.
Quick Info
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desk@floform.aiTimezone
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Available across North American business hours.
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A short call, no deck and no pressure — just what you have now, and what you are missing.