Software that fits how you actually work
Most growing businesses end up running on nine tools that half fit, three spreadsheets nobody dares touch, and a process that only works because one person remembers it. We build the system that replaces all of it.
One for a trade business, one for an events company, and one we built for ourselves before we ever sold it to anyone else.
Quoting meant notes from the van, a spreadsheet and an evening at the desk. The survey now feeds the quote, their own pricing is already in it, and it lands while the job is still fresh in the customer’s mind.
Enquiries, availability, quoting, jobs and invoicing in one place, built around how they actually run events. Still being built out, already running the business day to day.
Pulling our sales and reporting together took seven hours a week. It takes 45 minutes now, and the hours that came back went into selling rather than admin. We would not put a business through a build we had not been through.
This is a system we would build for a trade and installation business. Click through the modules. Notice that the agents and the automations are not bolted on afterwards, they live inside it.
An illustrative example of a system we would build. Every one is designed around how that business actually works, and the real builds are just below.
Every growing business hits the same wall. The tools nearly fit, so people invent workarounds, and eventually the workarounds are the process. Here is how it usually goes.
One for quotes, one for jobs, one for invoices, a CRM nobody fills in properly, and a shared drive. Each was sensible on the day you bought it.
Nothing talks to anything else.
The bits no tool covers end up in a spreadsheet. Then the spreadsheet becomes load-bearing, and only one person really understands it.
Your process now depends on one person.
Instead of the tools serving how you work, you start changing how you work to suit the tools. Growth gets harder and nobody can quite say why.
That sentence costs more than software ever would.
Swipe to read on
At some point it is cheaper to build the thing that fits than to keep paying for nine that nearly do.
Most systems we build are a combination of these, put together around how your business really works. Pick one to see what goes into it.
XeroOutlookWhatsAppWebsite formsStripeCompanies House
Sales stops depending on whoever remembers to update the spreadsheet. The pipeline is real, because keeping it real takes no effort.
SageGoogle MapsMobile appSharePointSupplier feeds
Operations stops being run on phone calls and memory. Nothing gets double-booked, nothing gets forgotten, and everyone can see where a job is.
XeroQuickBooksStripeGoCardlessDocuSign
Quotes go out the same day instead of the same week, and they are consistently priced no matter who builds them.
StripeYour websiteEmailSMSDocument storage
Customers get answers at midnight, and the phone rings less. Businesses we build these for typically cut inbound admin calls by half.
Google CalendarOutlookSMSWhatsAppYour website
The diary stops being a source of stress. Empty slots get filled and nobody spends their morning rearranging next week.
XeroPower BIZapiern8nYour own API
The workarounds disappear. New starters learn one system, and the business stops depending on one person knowing where everything is.
Not every business needs custom software. These are the signs that you do.
Every quote takes a skilled person hours, and the slow ones lose the job to whoever answered first. Add up what you spend a year before you decide custom is expensive.
Usually 10 to 200 peopleAnd only one person really understands it, and everyone quietly worries about that.
Almost every growing businessYou do something differently to your competitors, and generic software forces you to do it their way instead.
Specialists and niche operatorsSomebody copies data from one system into another every day. That is a job a system should be doing.
Anyone with an admin bottleneckA portal where they see their jobs, documents and invoices, without paying per customer for the privilege.
Trades, services, wholesalers, agenciesEvery new customer adds admin, so growing means more people rather than more profit. That is a software problem.
Anyone scaling on people, not systemsCustom does not mean isolated. Your system connects to the tools you are keeping, so nothing gets rekeyed and nothing goes out of sync.
Logo wall: Kon to swap these tiles for real brand SVGs, greyscale on dark, uniform height. Built on mainstream, well-supported technology so any competent developer could pick it up. Custom software should never mean stuck with us. And if something has an API, or even just a spreadsheet export, we can almost always connect it.
Every build goes the same five stages, and every stage ends with something you can see and use. No months of discovery and no strategy deck that sits in a drawer.
Two to three days of senior time inside your business. We sit with the people doing the work, record their screens, and map how a job really travels from enquiry to cash, workarounds included.
We do not build for six months and hope. A clickable version of your system before we build the real thing. You use it, break it, and tell us what is wrong while changing it costs nothing.
Built in stages you can see, with the agents and automations designed in from the start rather than bolted on afterwards. Whichever part earns the most goes live first, usually pipeline and quoting.
The stage everyone quietly worries about, handled properly. Nothing is lost, nothing gets typed twice, and nobody arrives on a Monday to a system they have never seen.
Software is never finished, and a system that stops evolving starts holding you back. New processes, new integrations, the client portal you add in month four because customers keep asking, all handled inside the plan rather than quoted as projects.
You see it working from week three, and you keep seeing it. The system arrives in stages your team has already used, not as one launch day.
94%
Across the jobs below, the average is a 94% cut in hands-on time, and the numbers get more reliable rather than less.
You read it, change a line, send it
You approve the one line that needs a decision
You make the two calls that need a voice
You set the credit limit and say hello
You interview the four on the shortlist
You read two pages and change what you disagree with
Estimates for typical processes, not results from a specific client. The measured before-and-afters are up in the case studies. What matters is not the exact number, it is that the person who used to spend their week on this now spends it on work that needs a person.
Custom software is built and then it lives, so we work as an ongoing partner rather than quoting a project and disappearing. Both plans are run through a Design Box account manager who knows your business. Prices exclude VAT.
For building steadily, one part of the business at a time.
For replacing the lot properly, with several parts of the system being built at once.
Three-month minimum, then rolling and cancellable with 30 days. Model and token costs sit on your own account, quoted up front, and are usually a small fraction of the savings.
This is the comparison worth doing, because it is the real alternative. Figures below are for one mid-level AI engineer, using current UK salary ranges and 2026/27 employer rates.
Salary range from current UK market data. Employer national insurance and pension at 2026/27 rates, shown before any Employment Allowance, which most businesses with existing staff have already used elsewhere. Recruitment at a conservative 10%. Hours are indicative: a full-time role of 37.5 a week, less statutory holiday and average sickness, against a system available around the clock once built. Every figure is an estimate to make the comparison honest, not a quote.
Nobody should build software before somebody has properly understood how the work actually gets done, including all the workarounds people are too embarrassed to mention. So that is what we do first.
You can skip it if your processes are already documented and your data is clean. In almost every business we look at, they are not. Not ready for a paid blueprint? Start with our free AI strategy overview.
Even if you never build anything with us, you finish with your processes documented and a specification you could hand to anyone.
Plenty of people are selling AI who have never run a business. We have, from Essex, for over a decade.
One account manager who knows your business and who you can actually ring. You never explain yourself twice.
Websites, stores, CRMs and reporting are our day job. Plenty of firms will sell you a build. Far fewer are still answering the phone about it three years later.
Cyber Essentials Plus certified, a decade of building and running business-critical systems, and clients we started with years ago. AI is new. Answering for the outcome is not.
Some processes should not be automated and some businesses are not ready. The blueprint exists so we can say so early.
Two questions come up in every single conversation: what happens to our data, and what happens if we leave. Here are both answers up front.
No lock-in and no hostage-taking. If we are worth keeping, it will be because the work is good.
Where AI is involved, the model and processing arrangements are covered in writing before anything touches live data, and we go through them in the blueprint.
Can’t see yours? Ask us anything on a quick call, no obligation.
Thirty minutes, no hard sell, and an honest answer either way.
