I find where AI actually helps your business, then I build it.
Most small businesses don't need an AI strategy. They need two or three jobs done faster. Start with a free 30-minute call about your business. No jargon, no pitch, and no obligation to buy anything.
I'm Dylan Chavez, an independent product engineer with more than ten years building software. I've shipped production work for Fabletics, MessageMedia, the BuyNothing Project, High Output Ventures and Nexusbond Asia. I'm not a consultant with slides. I write the code.
Why this is hard
Everyone tells you to use AI. Nobody tells you where to start.
You are not behind, and you are not being slow. You are being asked to make a technical decision with no way to check the answer.
There are forty tools for every job
New ones launch every week, they all demo well, and none of them tell you which problem in your business they are actually worth pointing at.
The advice is written for big companies
Case studies about a bank with a data team don't tell you what to do when there are six of you and everyone already has a full day.
You have paid for software nobody uses
It has happened before. A subscription, a setup fee, two weeks of disruption, and the team quietly went back to the spreadsheet.
Nobody will tell you what it costs
Quotes arrive as a day rate and a shrug. It's hard to say yes to a number that can move after you sign.
The answer is not more tools. It is knowing which one or two things in your business are worth changing, what they cost, and whether the change pays for itself. That is a question someone can answer for you in about a week.
How it works
Three steps, and you can stop after any of them.
Step 1: A free 30-minute call
We talk about your business, not about AI. What takes too long, what gets dropped, where the same mistake keeps happening. If I can't see anything worth doing, I'll say so on the call and we'll leave it there.
Step 2: A fixed-price AI Opportunity Audit
I go through how your business actually runs and write it up: roughly the three places AI genuinely saves you time or money, what tool does each job, what it costs to run, and what it will not fix. Plain English, ranked by payoff. The report is yours to keep and to take to anyone else.
Step 3: I build what's worth building
This is where most consultants hand you the report and leave. I'm an engineer. If something on that list is worth doing, I quote it as a project, build it, connect it to the tools you already use, and show your team how to run it.
How pricing works
The first call is free. The audit is one fixed price, agreed in writing before I start. Anything I build afterwards is quoted per project, also upfront. I don't bill by the hour, so there is no meter running while you think it over, and the invoice is never larger than the number we agreed.
Examples
The kind of thing I actually build
Nothing here is a science project. Each one takes a job somebody currently does by hand and makes it take a fraction of the time.
Answer the same customer questions automatically
An assistant that knows your products, prices and policies and replies at 10pm on a Sunday. Your team only picks up the ones that need a person.
Hours a week back on the front desk
Get numbers off paper and into your system
Invoices, receipts, delivery dockets, forms. Read, checked and entered without anyone typing the same figures twice.
Fewer typos, and no more Friday data entry
Turn job details into a draft quote
Give it the details and your past quotes, and get a proposal in your own format, ready to check and send. You edit instead of starting from a blank page.
Quotes out the same day, not next week
Follow up with every enquiry, not just the ones you remember
New leads get a fast, personal reply, then a nudge if they go quiet. Nothing sits unread in a shared inbox over the weekend.
Fewer leads lost to silence
Ask your own files a question
Contracts, manuals, procedures, years of email. Ask in plain English, get the answer and the document it came from.
Answers in seconds, without interrupting anyone
The weekly report, written for you
Sales, jobs, tickets, whatever you already track, pulled together and summarised in your inbox on Monday morning.
Two minutes of reading instead of an afternoon
You almost certainly don't need all six. Most businesses have one or two that are obviously worth it and four that are not. Working out which is which is the whole point of the audit.
About
Who you would be working with
I'm Dylan Chavez. I have spent over ten years building software full-time: web applications, APIs, and the cloud infrastructure underneath them. Most of that work was the unglamorous kind that simply has to keep running.
That work was for real companies with real customers: retail, messaging, and startup products that had to stay up and stay correct. All of it had to work on a Monday morning. That is the same standard I bring to a five-person business.
I work on my own. When you hire me, I am the person who takes the call, writes the report and writes the code. There is no team behind me, no account manager, and no junior quietly doing the work.
I would rather tell you AI is not the answer than sell you a project that won't pay for itself. I only have my reputation to trade on, so I am careful with it.
Shipped production work for
- Fabletics
- MessageMedia
- BuyNothing Project (SwissPine Tech)
- High Output Ventures
- Nexusbond Asia
Based in Cebu, Philippines. Working with small businesses anywhere.
Questions
Fair questions, answered straight
How much does it cost?
The first 30-minute call is free. The audit is a single fixed price, agreed in writing before I start any work. If you then want me to build something, I quote that project upfront as well.
I don't bill by the hour. You will never get an invoice larger than the number you already said yes to, and you will never be charged for the time it takes me to answer an email.
Is my business too small for AI?
Almost certainly not. Small businesses often get more out of this than large ones, because a single repetitive job can eat a big share of somebody's week.
If you have a task that takes hours and follows roughly the same steps every time, there is usually something worth doing. A team of three is fine.
What if AI isn't right for my business?
Then I will tell you, and I will tell you early. It happens more often than the marketing suggests.
Sometimes the real fix is a tidier process, a tool you already pay for, or hiring one person. I would rather say that on the free call than take money for a project that will not pay for itself.
Do I need technical staff to use this?
No. If your team can use email and a web browser, they can use what I build. I set it up, connect it to the tools you already use, and walk your people through it.
You get short, plain-language instructions written for the person who has to use it on a busy day, not a technical diagram.
How long does it take?
The first call is 30 minutes. The audit takes about a week, and often less if the scope is small. It depends on how much of your process I need to see and how quickly we can get time with your team.
Build projects vary, but I scope them so you have something working in weeks. You get a date before we start, and I tell you as soon as anything threatens it.
Is my data safe?
It is the right question to ask, and the honest answer is that it depends on how the system is set up, so I put it in writing.
You will know which services can see your information, where it is stored, and whether it can be used to train anyone's model. I choose options where it cannot. If your data is not allowed to leave your own systems, tell me on the call and I will design around that or tell you it isn't practical.
I already tried ChatGPT and it didn't really help. Why is this different?
A chat window with no access to your business can only make educated guesses. It doesn't know your prices, your customers, or how you actually do the work.
The useful version is connected to your real documents and systems and does one specific job properly. That is the difference between an impressive demo and something your team still uses six months later.
Next step
Book a free 30-minute call
Nothing to prepare. Bring the part of your week that takes too long and we will look at it together. If there is nothing here worth building, I will tell you on the call and you will have lost half an hour.
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