AI for owner-operators scaling $5M → $20M+
Turn AI into operating leverage.
Revenue is growing — gross profit should be too. I find the workflows where AI can remove operational bottlenecks, then build software around your data, your rules, and your edge cases.
The $5M → $20M problem
Growth exposes every workaround.
At this stage the business still delivers — but only because good people keep compensating for systems that no longer fit the volume. That’s an operating-leverage problem, and it shows up four ways:
Systems stop talking
Employees shuttle information between tools and compensate for broken workflows with more effort.
Spreadsheets become infrastructure
Rules, statuses, and decisions live in files that were never meant to run a business.
Key employees become the operating system
The business depends on what only one or two key people can remember and do.
Revenue outruns gross profit
More volume means more manual work, so every new dollar costs more to deliver — and gross profit falls behind.
Solutions built around your business
Your business shouldn’t have to fit your software.
Off-the-shelf tools are built for the average workflow. Your advantage lives in the exceptions — your data, your rules, your customers, your way of operating. I build around that reality. Our goal isn’t “AI everywhere” or a platform replacement. We start with the one workflow where AI-native software creates capacity.
The first step
Find the smallest AI investment worth making.
In one working session, we will pinpoint the workflow where AI has the clearest path to reducing costs or creating capacity.
Map the work
People, systems, data, rules, handoffs, delays, edge cases.
Test the economics
What the workflow costs today, what gets worse as volume grows, what more capacity would be worth.
Make the call
AI, custom software, or no build. You leave with a recommendation and the smallest valuable next step. If there isn’t a credible path to lower costs or more capacity, I’ll tell you.
How I work
Four principles, every engagement.
Start with the bottleneck
Every engagement begins with the work and its economics — one expensive problem, solved well. Anything that doesn’t serve that outcome waits.
One builder, start to finish
No account managers, no handoffs, no team to manage on your end. I do the discovery, the design, and the build. One person accountable for whether your software works.
You own what I build
It’s your software, your data, your business logic. Not a platform you rent and can’t leave when the renewal price jumps. When we’re done, it’s built around how you work — and it’s yours.
Weeks, not quarters
AI collapsed the timeline for custom software. What used to take an agency a year, I ship in weeks — while a competitor is still filling out the agency’s discovery doc.
Expertise in growth
A decade inside scaling software companies.
Before founding Product One, I built and led multi-product SaaS portfolios inside high-growth companies — a front-row view of what breaks as a business scales, and what to do about it.
$10M → $40M revenue
$70M → $120M revenue
$100M → IPO
Apps I’ve shipped
The software I build for clients is theirs — not mine to show. So I built my own portfolio of consumer apps, live in the App Store, that you can download and check out for yourself — built with the same process I run with scaling businesses: find the problem, cut the list, ship, listen, improve.
Where should AI be creating capacity in your business?
Bring one workflow that gets more expensive as volume grows. We’ll figure out whether AI, simpler software, or no build is the right answer. I read and reply to every message.