Bespoke operations · Done for you
Right now, the business only works because you are holding it together.
We fix how your business actually runs. Process first, then the tools to hold it in place. Sometimes that is custom software, sometimes better use of what you already have. Once it is in, your team can run it, or we stay on to keep it running and improving.
It starts with a full discovery of your operation.
Where it slips
The job nobody scheduled. The customer chasing you for an update. The same mistake, twice in a month. Nobody sure what good looks like. Good people leaving. All of it routed through you.
What we do
There is no fixed package. We look at how your business runs, find where it leaks, and build what is missing. For some businesses that is mostly software. For others it is processes, standards and people. Anyone can build software now. Knowing what to build, and making it stick, is the work.
Processes and standards
Written down, scored and enforced, so the quality of the work does not depend on who happens to be on shift.
Software and automation
Built around your operation rather than adapted from someone else's. The follow-ups, the reporting and the steps that get forgotten stop depending on anyone remembering.
People where you need them
Trained operators running the day-to-day to that standard. One option among several, not the answer to everything.
Capacity to grow
More work moving through the business, without more of it landing on you.
Not every role needs a full-time local salary. Where it makes sense, we place trained virtual assistants, so you get the capacity you need without carrying the cost of a large local team.
How it works
One test for everything we build: it has to work without anyone remembering to do it.
Teardown
A full discovery. We pull your systems and data apart and walk every process end to end. You get a written report naming each leak, what it costs you a year, and what fixing it would take, in order.
Build
Fixed fee, fixed scope, quoted from your Teardown. Processes, standards, SOPs, coaching, automation or custom software, in whatever mix your operation actually needs.
Embed
We put it in and make it stick. Implementation, coaching your existing team, and trained operators behind it where you need them.
Run
Optional. If you want us to stay on, we keep it running month after month. Reviewed, reported, improved. Plenty of clients take the build and run it themselves, and every build is handed over documented either way.
Alex Davis · Founder | Operations builder
Alex Davis
Operations builder
Most small businesses run on the owner remembering everything. The follow-up that slips, the job that gets missed, the promise nobody wrote down. It is not a lack of effort. Too much runs through one person, and things fall through the cracks.
For a long time that role only existed inside big companies who could afford a full-time one.
Here is how I ended up doing it for everyone else. I began my career in the police service, bringing order to other people's worst moments. Fast decisions with real consequences, staying calm when nobody else could. I left the service and moved to Toronto, where I ran operations for a fast-growing business with a team of fifty, and I was the person everything ran through. In time I came home to the UK and returned to the police service.
Then, in January last year, my body gave out. I am alive today because of a liver transplant. Someone I never met, and never can, is the reason I am still here.
You do not come through that unchanged. It left me with one question: what do I want to do with time I very nearly did not have? The answer was the thing I have always been best at. Solving problems. Bringing order to chaos. Being the steady hand when it matters most.
I have been working at full pace since May 2026. The method does not change from one business to the next. What goes into it does, and that is what makes it repeatable rather than reinvented every time.
So that is what I do now. I take businesses that only work because the owner is holding them together, and I build the thing that holds them together instead.
In practice · The Pool Mechanic
They were renting an off-the-shelf platform that did half of what they needed. We replaced it with a system built for them, then took on their recruitment.
- $40,000 a year saved on back-office headcount alone.
- Every job scored against a standard. Nothing left to memory.
- We fixed their recruitment and now run it. Less revenue, more output.
- The owner stopped firefighting and started planning expansion.
Free, monthly
One email a month
On automation, VAs, and why they work. A new free resource in every issue.
Fit
Who this is for
- Founders whose business runs entirely on them, and leaks time and money because of it.
- Businesses with something real to run, and more coming at them than one person can hold.
- Owners genuinely ready to build a business that runs without them for the day-to-day.
Who this is not for
- Anyone who wants a consultant's report and a handshake.
- Anyone shopping for an off the shelf license rather than something built around them.
- Founders who are not ready to let go of any of it yet.
Questions
What is an operations builder?
Someone who gets in and rebuilds how the day-to-day actually runs. We put processes and standards in first, use software and automation where they earn their place, and place trained operators where you need them. You get the role without carrying a full-time hire.
How is this different from hiring someone?
Hiring an operations manager costs far more than the salary once employer taxes, benefits and recruitment are counted, and you carry the paid time off, the cover and the risk they leave. With us you get the systems, the operator and the cover instead of one person, and your number is fixed before you commit.
How is this different from a consultant?
A consultant hands you a recommendation. We stay and build the thing with you, week by week, until the day-to-day runs reliably without you chasing it.
How much of my time does it take?
A conversation to start, then a short standing session each week. Everything else is built to take work off you, not to add to it.
Do I have to take the ongoing retainer?
No. The build is a project in its own right, and it ends with a documented handover your team can run. Bespoke software carries a minimum monthly charge for hosting and upkeep, and beyond that the Run is entirely your choice.
Which industries do you work in?
The role does not change with the industry. What changes is the detail, and that is what the first weeks are for.
What happens first?
We talk. If it is a fit, we set out what we would take on first and how we would work together.
What does it cost?
A full discovery is $4,000, credited in full against any build that follows. Everything after that is quoted as a fixed price from what the discovery finds, with a ceiling on it, so you see the number before you commit. The pricing page sets out how it works.
If the business still needs you for everything, that can be fixed.
A short conversation is the whole first step. If I am not the right person, I will say so.
We work with businesses across the UK, the US and Canada.