Custom Apps & Internal Tools for Traverse City Businesses

The problem

Every business has some part of its operation that no off-the-shelf software quite fits. So it runs on a spreadsheet that has grown for years, a whiteboard, a paper form, or one person who just knows how it works. That’s fine until the spreadsheet breaks, the whiteboard gets erased, or that person goes on vacation.

The usual alternatives are bending your process to fit a subscription that does most of the job, or paying agency prices meant for much larger companies.

What I do

I build small, focused software that does the job you need done, the way your business actually does it. Typical projects look like this:

• Internal tools. Job tracking, scheduling boards, production checklists, equipment logs. The spreadsheet everyone depends on, turned into something a stray keystroke can’t break.
• Customer portals. A place for customers to place repeat orders, check on a job, or find their documents without calling the office.
• Apps that work on a phone. For people in a truck, on a shop floor, or out on a job site, where a laptop isn’t practical.
• Integrations. The custom connection between systems that don’t have a ready-made one, so a new tool works with everything you already run.

Before anything gets built, we get specific about what the tool has to do and, just as important, what it doesn’t. A tight scope gets you something useful sooner. It’s far easier to add to a tool that works than to rescue one that tried to do everything at once.

Everything I build ships with documentation written in layers: how it works, for everyone who touches it; what to do when something looks wrong, for the staff using it day to day; and a technical reference for whoever maintains it next.

And if an existing product would serve you better than custom software, I’ll tell you that instead. Custom work only makes sense when it pays for itself.

Who it’s for

• Manufacturers and fabrication shops tracking jobs, parts, and production steps
• Contractors and service companies managing crews, schedules, and job sites
• Food producers, wineries, and seasonal businesses whose busy months don’t fit a standard template
• Offices that have outgrown shared spreadsheets and long email threads
• Nonprofits that need a simple, dependable tool without an enterprise price tag

If you’ve ever said “there has to be a better way to do this” about one specific task, that task is usually where a custom tool starts.

What it costs

A small internal tool starts around $3,000. Full applications start around $7,000 and always begin with a paid discovery.

The gap between what a tool sounds like and what it needs to do is widest here, which is exactly why I scope it properly before quoting.