A collection of veteran operators designing automated workflows for SMBs
Blueprint
+2
Aug 1, 2026
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8 min read
The servicing was 6 weeks overdue. The spreadsheet had 40 tabs. The operations manager hadn't checked that one in a month.
+1
Jul 25, 2026
7 min read
672 warranty-eligible repairs. 268 claims filed. The rest expired while service managers ran the shop floor.
Jul 18, 2026
A Nashville restaurant group's food cost monitoring was a bank balance, a gut feeling, and a P&L that arrived 25 days after the month closed.
Jul 11, 2026
Lisa texts Mike. Mike replies 2 hours later. The invoice waits. This happens 12 times a day across 14 plumbers.
Jul 4, 2026
150 renewals a month. Printed. Distributed. Forgotten. The lapsed ones show up 30 days later in the commission report.
Jun 27, 2026
The others go back in the pile. Next Monday, the list is longer. It's always longer.
Jun 19, 2026
9 min read
Three founding partners. Two senior engineers. Five retirements within five years. A Birmingham consultancy's most valuable asset walks out the door at 5pm every day.
Jun 13, 2026
By then the damage is done. A Glasgow CS manager's sentiment system was a weekly meeting where four agents reported from memory.
Jun 6, 2026
6 min read
Exit interviews said "I didn't feel set up properly." The onboarding spreadsheet disagreed. The spreadsheet was wrong.
May 30, 2026
The average churned client had been declining for four months. The commercial team spotted 7 of 25. The other 18 left without warning.
May 21, 2026
The signals were in five tools. Nobody was connecting them. £414,000 walked out while the team monitored from memory.
May 14, 2026
Revenue recognition across 14 concurrent projects. One finance director. One spreadsheet. Three days of month-end archaeology.
May 11, 2026
The work was done. Proving it takes six weeks of one person's year, every year, from seven different systems.
May 4, 2026
A New York agency's expense policy was a 14-page PDF nobody reads, enforced by a finance director working from recall.
Apr 27, 2026
Not a targeting problem. The prospects were right. The message was wrong: the same template with a swapped first name.
Apr 20, 2026
QuickBooks told him what happened. Nothing told him what was about to happen. He found out the hard way last quarter.
Apr 13, 2026
12 min read
Not because the work was bad. Because they couldn't prove it was good. A Denver roofer had the photos. Somewhere.
Apr 6, 2026
11 min read
60 subcontractors. 20 years of knowledge. Zero documentation. The company's biggest asset walked on two legs.
Mar 30, 2026
A Chicago property manager grew from 3 buildings to 12. His tracking system stayed at 3 buildings.
Mar 23, 2026
One overdue appraisal. Nobody flagged it. Three families left scrambling for somewhere to live.
Compliance
Mar 16, 2026
47 agent deployments. The ones that succeeded all answered one question the same way. The failures didn't ask it.
Nobody at the clinic noticed until the GP asked for an update. An Edinburgh practice fixed the gap.
Mar 9, 2026
A recruitment agency's CRM was full of ghosts. The pipeline looked healthy. It was rotting from the inside.
Mar 2, 2026
Not the ones clients caught. The ones nobody noticed. That's the number that should worry you.
Tax season hadn't started yet. A Portland accounting firm was already buried in engagement letter admin.
...because too much AI rots your brain
