The spreadsheet tax
AI gets you 80% of a working sheet. Then you change one column and every formula downstream breaks, and now you're debugging a spreadsheet instead of running your business. The 80% was never the hard part.
Operations systems for owner-operators
The one screen that runs your business.
I build custom operations dashboards for owner-operators — the people running two locations, two jobs, and no ops team. Due dates, task capture, cash flow, recurring bills. One place. Built for you, not configured by you.
Working software in 14 days · fixed fee · you don't build a single spreadsheet
- Engagement
- Fixed price, named up front
- First build
- Two weeks to something real
- Your input
- Two conversations, no homework
- After launch
- Optional monthly, cancel anytime
Why this keeps failing
You have already tried the tools.
That was never the problem.
Every project-management platform on the market assumes you have someone whose job is to run the project-management platform. You don't. You have a business to run.
Jargon as a moat
Sprints, epics, story points, workspaces, custom field dependencies. Consulting vocabulary invented for software teams, sold to people who make physical things. If you have to learn a new language to see your own numbers, the tool failed.
Setup you can't finish
The platform is capable. It is also empty, and it stays empty, because populating it is a second job. Nobody tells you the license is the cheap part and the setup is the expensive part.
“For all the hype around these AI systems, I haven't been able to get anything functional out of any of them. I don't want to spend days trying to build something that is never going to work.”
— a small business owner, publicly, this month
What I build
Four things, done properly.
Not a platform I resell. Not a template I recolour. A system built around how your business actually runs, using AI where it earns its place and boring reliable software everywhere else.
The operations dashboard
One screen. Everything with a deadline, everything with a dollar sign, across every location you operate.
- Due dates across all sites in one view
- Per-location and consolidated roll-up
- What's due this week, what's overdue, what's coming
- Opens on your phone behind the bar
Task capture that survives real life
The to-do that arrives while you're mid-shift with wet hands has to land somewhere in under five seconds, or the system is already dead.
- Text it, say it, or type it — one inbox
- AI sorts, tags and dates it automatically
- No forms, no required fields, no friction
- Nothing to remember to file later
Cash flow & recurring bills
Recurring obligations auto-populate themselves. You should never hand-enter the same bill twelve times a year.
- Recurring bills generate on schedule, per location
- Compliance and licence deadlines built in
- Forward cash view, not a backward-looking report
- Reads from the accounting system you already use
Fractional operations partner
The technical operations person you can't justify hiring full-time, for a fraction of the salary.
- The system changes as the business changes
- New reports and automations on request
- I handle the upkeep, you never touch code
- Month to month — no lock-in, no notice period
How it works
Two conversations.
Then working software.
Your total time investment is about three hours. I do not send homework, I do not ask you to fill in a template, and I do not need you to "get your data ready" first. Messy is fine. Messy is expected.
The teardown
We walk through how the business actually runs today — every recurring obligation, every deadline, every place a number currently lives. I map it. You keep the map whether or not you hire me.
I build the sheets
This is the part that stops everyone else. You do not build the data structure — that's the actual work, and it's mine. I set up the underlying system, migrate what you already have, and wire the pieces together.
You see it early and often
You get something clickable in the first week, not at the end. You will know whether this is going to work long before the money is fully spent — which is the entire point.
Live, in your hands
Real data, on your phone, in daily use. One walkthrough session. Plain language, no jargon, and written notes you can hand to a manager. Then you decide about ongoing support — with the thing already working.
Pricing
The price is on the page.
You should not have to sit through a discovery call to find out what something costs. Fixed fee, agreed before anything starts. No hourly billing, no scope surprises, no invoice you didn't see coming.
01 — Teardown
Free
45 minutes · no obligation
A working map of your operation and an honest answer about whether software would actually help.
- Full operations walkthrough
- Written map of every recurring obligation
- A straight yes or no on whether to build
- Yours to keep either way
Start here
02 — The build
$2,400 fixed
14 days · one working system
Your dashboard, your real data, live and in daily use inside two weeks.
- Operations dashboard across all locations
- Task capture wired in and working
- Cash flow + auto-populating recurring bills
- Migration of what you already have
- Walkthrough session and plain-language notes
- 30 days of fixes included, free
03 — Standing
$850 / month
Optional · cancel anytime
I keep it alive and keep it useful as the business changes underneath it.
- Changes and new features on request
- New reports and automations
- All maintenance and upkeep handled
- Priority response
- No contract, no notice period
You pay half at the start. The rest only after it's running.
$1,200 to begin, $1,200 once the system is live and you've used it for a full week. If it isn't working by then, you don't owe the second half and you keep everything built so far. The risk of this not working is mine to carry, not yours.
Who you'd be working with
I build AI systems.
Then I make them boring.
I'm an engineer who builds AI-driven software: multi-agent orchestration systems, voice-controlled desktop applications, and the connective tooling that lets AI models actually operate real software rather than just describe it. That's my day-to-day work, not a certificate I picked up.
Which is exactly why I'm cautious about it. I know precisely where these models are genuinely useful and where they quietly produce confident nonsense. In an operations system, AI belongs in a few specific places — reading messy input, sorting and categorising, drafting, catching what you'd miss. Everything else should be plain, predictable software that works the same way every single time. Most AI consultants have that backwards, which is why their builds fall over in month two.
I work with owner-operators: the people who are simultaneously the CEO, the ops manager, the bookkeeper and the person unlocking the door. You are not short on capability. You are short on hours and on someone who will do the unglamorous structural work for you.
Norok is my own practice, and I'm deliberately taking a small number of clients right now so each one gets built properly. If you're reading this, you're early — and priced accordingly.
Start here
Forty-five minutes, and you'll know.
Tell me what's currently living in your head, on a whiteboard, or in a spreadsheet you're afraid to touch. If I don't think software will help, I'll tell you that — it's a faster answer and a cheaper one.