Custom business software: internal tools that replace the spreadsheet

Software for the work that lives in a spreadsheet, on a whiteboard, or in someone's head:

• Internal tools, such as job trackers and scheduling boards, for the work your staff do every day.
• Portals where staff or customers sign in and see what applies to them, instead of asking by email.
• Dashboards that put the numbers you check every week in one place.

They're web apps: they run in a browser on phones, tablets, and computers, with nothing to install. I don't build native apps for the App Store or Google Play.

They can usually work with the tools you already use, if those tools have an API.

More about connecting the tools you already use

Often, yes. If an existing product fits your work at a fair price, I'll tell you, and I'll help you pick one. Someone else keeps it up to date, and you can start using it without waiting for a build.

Custom makes sense when:

• You're bending the way you work around a tool that wasn't built for it.
• Staff copy the same information between several tools by hand.
• You're paying per seat for features nobody uses.

Yes. A working first version of the idea, enough to test with real customers before spending big. I scope it to the few things the idea can't do without, so real use can show what's worth building next.

It gets a fixed quote like any other project. The code and accounts are yours from the start.

1. A conversation about how the work happens today: who does what, where the information lives, and where it gets stuck.
2. A written scope of what the software does, and what it doesn't.
3. A fixed quote, so the price is settled before work starts.
4. Working pieces as they are built, so you can try them and tell me what's wrong while it's still easy to change.
5. Launch, on hosting in your name.
6. Hand-off: a written runbook, admin access, and every account in your name.

If you want something that is outside the scope, I quote the change before I do it.

I am, start to finish. Today I build custom enterprise software as a consultant. Behind that are 30 years of software, including engineering and management at Microsoft and Yahoo.

I use AI-assisted development, and every line that ships has been read and tested. The FAQ below says how.

More about my background

You do. The code lives in your GitHub account, and every account the app depends on, from the domain and hosting to the email and the database, is in your name and on your billing.

If we stop working together, nothing has to be handed back, because none of it was ever mine.

You get a written runbook: how to deploy, how to restore from a backup, and where every account lives. You also get admin access to all of it, so another developer could pick it up later.

Ongoing support afterward is there if you want it.

If you or your team built a first version with ChatGPT, Claude, Lovable, Bolt, Replit, or v0, it may not need starting over. I start with a free review of what you have, then a fixed quote to finish it.

Mockup to production