For owner-run businesses
AI that works.
Most of it doesn’t — because it gets bolted onto work nobody mapped. We trace how your business actually runs, put a number on what the bottleneck costs, then build only what that number justifies.
Start here
One of these is usually the reason.
- “We can’t take on much more work without hiring — and hiring barely helps.”Capacity ceiling
- “If I’m out for a week, things stop.”Owner dependence
- “Revenue is up. The business is harder to run and I’m not taking home more.”Complexity tax
- “Leads, quotes, and invoices fall through the cracks and nobody notices for weeks.”Revenue leakage
- “We’re opening a second location — and I don’t think we’re ready for it.”Major transition
They look like five different problems. Underneath, they are the same one: work moving through the company in a way it has outgrown.
The arithmetic
The cost is usually hiding in hours nobody counts.
- 3.5 hrs
- Per person, per dayChasing status, re-keying between systems, and coordinating handoffs.
- 3,500
- Hours a yearFour admin staff × 3.5 hours × 250 working days.
- $91,000
- At $26/hr fully loadedAbout a person and a half — spent on work no customer is paying for.
Worked example for a 12-person company, not a Mission result. The assumptions are stated so you can substitute your own — which is exactly the first thing the Operational Leverage Map has you do.
Step one
We trace how the work actually moves.
Not the org-chart version, and not the version in the SOP nobody has opened since 2023. The version where the job sits in someone’s inbox for two days because that is the only place it can wait.At every step we write down who touches it, which system it lives in, who is allowed to decide, and the exception nobody wrote down. Then we time the gaps between them — which is where the money turns out to be.6steps3of them re-key the same job6days of it spent waiting, not working
Step two
Then we put a number on it — and say what’s worth fixing.
Every recommendation is sized against what the constraint actually costs. Six verdicts come out of a diagnosis, and only two of them involve building anything.
- Keepinvolves building nothing
It already works. Leave it alone.
- Improveinvolves building nothing
The process is right; the execution is loose.
- Integrateinvolves building nothing
The tools work. They don’t talk.
- Automateinvolves building
It’s repetitive, high-volume, and rule-shaped.
- Replaceinvolves building nothing
The tool is the bottleneck.
- Buildinvolves building
Nothing off the shelf fits the way you work.
How to start
Free assessment. Paid plan. Build if the numbers justify it.
Thirty minutes is enough to name the constraint. Nothing after that gets bought, built, or paid for until the number justifies it.
Book the assessment
Thirty minutes, free. We walk one workflow of yours, name the constraint, and put a first number on what it costs. Prefer to start alone? The Operational Leverage Map is the same diagnostic as a workbook.
Or have us do the full pass
The Strategy Process is $2,000 over 10–14 days: we map the operation, design the architecture, and hand you a costed implementation plan. The full fee credits toward the build.
Then build — or don’t
You leave with a plan you own. Run it yourself, have us partner with your team, or hand it to us. A plan that says “change this process, buy nothing” is a valid outcome.
Full terms on the Strategy Process, or see what this looks like in your seat and your trade.
Before you ask
The eight questions every owner asks.
- We already tried automation and it didn’t stick.
- Almost always because it started with a tool instead of a map. If nobody wrote down how the work actually moves — including the exceptions people handle from memory — the automation covers the demo path and breaks on the real one.
- We use ChatGPT already. How is this different?
- A chat tab answers when someone remembers to open it. This is work that runs on a schedule, inside the systems you already use, with an owner and an approval step — whether or not anyone thought to ask.
- Is this just a way to sell me software?
- Six verdicts come out of a diagnosis and only two of them involve building anything. “Keep it, it works” and “fix the process, buy nothing” are results we hand over regularly — and you keep the plan either way.
- What does it actually cost?
- The map is free. The Strategy Process is $2,000 for 10–14 days, paid up front, and the full fee credits toward your first build with us. Implementation is priced per line in the plan — you see each number before you agree to it.
- We’re not technical.
- That is the normal case. You explain how the business runs; we handle everything technical and report back in plain language. Your team approves anything that touches a customer or moves money.
- My team thinks this means layoffs.
- The work in scope is the coordination and admin nobody was hired to do — chasing, re-keying, status-checking. The point is to give people back the hours they lose to it, not to remove the people.
- How much of my time does this take?
- The map is self-paced and most owners get through one workflow in an afternoon. The Strategy Process is a handful of focused working sessions across two weeks.
- What if the answer is that we’re fine?
- Then we say so, and you have documentation of why — which is worth having before the next person tries to sell you a platform.
Find out what it’s costing you.
Thirty minutes on one workflow. You leave with the constraint named and a number on it — whether or not you ever buy anything.