No upfront development fee · Billing starts at launch
Generic softwareBuilt around your workflow
Illustration
LeadQuoteWorkInvoiceReport
LeadQuoteWorkInvoiceReport
A business’s workflow, from lead to quote, work, invoice and report, is first forced onto a grid of generic software boxes, with right angles and detours. Then the grid is set aside and the system is laid along the workflow’s own path.Your workflow, bent to fit generic softwareSoftware built around your workflow
The technology gap
Your business has outgrown the technology behind it.
Every business already runs on an operating system. Most just never designed theirs. Successful businesses outgrow theirs long before anyone notices: the numbers live in someone’s spreadsheet, the same information gets typed into three tools, and every jump in volume means another administrative hire.
Your businessYour technologyYour businessYour technology+ Spreadsheets+ CRM+ SchedulingThe gapTime
Illustration: the business and its technology start level. Over time the business climbs on a steepening curve while the technology steps up a little with each tool added (spreadsheets, a CRM, a scheduling app), leaving a widening gap between them.
If you run on spreadsheets
Turn the way your business actually works into your company’s OS.
Spreadsheets, email and a few people's memories got you here. They are excellent tools; they just weren’t designed to become the company’s operating system.
Sounds likeThe pain
“Everything is in spreadsheets.”Scattered data
“Every Friday someone has to manually put this report together.”Admin overhead
“Only one person here knows how this works.”Workflow friction
“I don’t actually know how profitable each job is.”No visibility
Stop adding tools. Start running on one OS built around your business.
Every tool made sense when you bought it. Together they’re a patchwork: the same information in several places, reports that disagree, and people copying data between them.
Sounds likeThe pain
“I wish these things talked to each other.”Scattered data
“We have to enter this in three places.”Manual entry
“We’re paying for all these tools and still doing half of this manually.”Redundant tools
Either way, the problem isn’t the spreadsheet or the software. It’s that nobody is continuously responsible for improving the technology behind the business. That’s the job we take on.
Selected work
Different industries. The same pattern.
An advertising agency and a sales-education business have little in common, except what we found and what we built: disconnected tools and manual work, replaced by one system built around how each business actually runs. We haven’t worked in every industry, but the pattern was never about the industry.
Digital & print advertising
SpreadsheetsEmailManual reportsA CRM nobody used
Custom CRM
SpreadsheetsEmailManual reportsA CRM nobody used
Custom CRM
Medical device sales education
CalendlyZoomPaymentsLinkedIn outreach
One platform
CalendlyZoomPaymentsLinkedIn outreach
One platform
Your business
SpreadsheetsEmailSchedulingInvoicing
Yours
SpreadsheetsEmailSchedulingInvoicing
Yours
Digital & print advertising · Custom CRM
Medical device sales education · One platform
Your business
Digital & print advertising: Spreadsheets, Email, Manual reports, A CRM nobody used, with work copied between them by hand, brought into custom crm. Medical device sales education: Calendly, Zoom, Payments, LinkedIn outreach, with work copied between them by hand, brought into one platform. Your business: Spreadsheets, Email, Scheduling, Invoicing, which could become yours the same way.
Reported by the owner, over the same period. He attributes a meaningful part of that growth to tooling that removed friction and multiplied his capacity.
Build what should be custom. Integrate what shouldn’t. Make it your company’s OS.
We don’t rebuild software that already works. Sometimes the right answer is a product you can buy today, and we’ll tell you so. The value is usually between your tools and above them, where the details of your business live.
Your system · built around how you workExample record · Harper & Co.
Quote sentMar 03
Email
Visit bookedMar 05
Calendar
Call recordedMar 05
Video calls
Contract signedMar 09
E-signature
Deposit paidMar 09
Payments
Invoice syncedMar 31
Accounting
Standard tools · connected, not rebuilt
Email
Calendar
Video calls
E-signature
Payments
Accounting
Your systemExample record
Quote sentMar 03
Visit bookedMar 05
Call recordedMar 05
Contract signedMar 09
Deposit paidMar 09
Invoice syncedMar 31
Standard tools · connected, not rebuilt
Illustration: your system, the part we build, spans above the standard tools you already use, which stay as they are. One example customer, Harper & Co., moves through them in order, and each tool feeds the same customer record: quote sent from email, visit booked from calendar, call recorded from video calls, contract signed from e-signature, deposit paid from payments, invoice synced from accounting.
What we buildThe parts no product sells you
Your workflows, the way your team actually runs them
One record of every customer, job and conversation
Reporting you can trust without reconciling it first
The automation that moves work between your tools
What we connectThe tools that already do their job
Accounting
Email, calendar and video calls
Payments and e-signature
Anything else that works well as it is
There’s no reason to rebuild your email or your accounting software. There’s real value in a system that knows which customer, job and conversation every email and invoice belongs to. Use standardized software where your needs are standardized. Build around the parts of your business that aren’t.
A freelancer asks what you want built. A new hire needs someone to decide it for them. We help you work out what should be built, then build it, run it and keep improving it. You bring the business; you never have to write the specification.
Same meeting, a developer asksWe ask
A developer asks: “What’s a change order?”
We ask: Do you bill change orders cost-plus or at a fixed markup, and who can approve one from the field?
A developer asks: “Who are your users?”
We ask: Who signs, who can override the signature, and what does that do to the invoice?
A developer asks: “What reports do you need?”
We ask: Which number do you actually manage the business on, and how often is it wrong today?
A developer asks: “Can you integrate with our accounting system?”
We ask: When does revenue get recognized, and does this system have to agree with the books or just feed them?
A developer asks: “What’s your budget?”
We ask: What is this costing you a month right now, in subscriptions and in hours nobody bills for?
None of that makes us better engineers than the shop down the street. It means the discovery you’d pay for elsewhere is a conversation we can already have, and one accountable partner holds the business, the product and the engineering together.
Continuous improvement
Your software evolves with your business.
Launch is where the work changes, not where it stops. When the business changes, you tell us and the system changes with it: no new quote, no new project. This is one client’s log since launch, in the order it shipped.
120+120+
releases since August
$0
billed beyond the monthly fee
MedSalesCoach
Medical device sales education
Students needed to reach the people doing the hiring
Contact enrichment that finds decision-makers for each student's job applications, since extended to Canada.
Selling the program with video
A video sales letter and new marketing content on the site, with engagement tracked for every viewer.
Applications that weren't ready to buy
A reworked apply flow that sets expectations up front and qualifies applicants before they book a call.
Hiring a first salesperson
Roles, permissions and multiple users in the CRM, with every action attributed to whoever took it.
Needing to know which marketing actually works
Tracking from first visit to enrollment, so every application, call and sale traces back to the channel that produced it.
Next
Whatever changes next, as part of the same monthly service.
We carry the build. You start paying when it launches.Wecarrythebuild.Youstartpayingwhenitlaunches.
Traditional custom development puts nearly all of the risk on you: a large payment before anything exists, months of waiting, a developer who moves on at launch, and a new bill every time something needs to change. We reverse that. We invest in building your system first, you start paying when it’s ready to launch, and we stay responsible for it from there.
AgreementBuildLaunchThe years after
BuildLaunchAfter
A traditional custom project
You pay before anything exists
The developer moves on
Every change is a new quote
You pay before anything existsThe developer moves onEvery change is a new quote
Gemstone
We carry the build
Billing starts at launch
Same partner, still improving it
We carry the buildBilling starts at launchSame partner, still improving it
What you pay, and whenWho stays accountable
Illustration: a traditional custom project takes a large payment before anything exists and more during the build; its developer moves on at launch, and every later change is a new quote. With Gemstone you pay nothing during the build, which we carry; billing starts at launch as an even monthly fee, and the same partner keeps improving the system in the years after.
No deposit, no milestone invoices, no discovery fee. Your subscription begins when the system is ready to launch.
So why keep paying?
You’re not continuing to pay for something that was already built. You’re paying for the team responsible for keeping your technology working and improving as your business changes.
The terms
First
The agreement.The agreement and a detailed specification are signed before any development starts. Nothing is built on a handshake.
12 mo
Minimum term.Long enough to launch the system and settle it into the business, short enough that we have to keep earning it.
Flat
Monthly fee.Covers hosting, maintenance, support, and continued development within a scope we agree on in writing. Scoped to the system, not charged per seat: add users without adding cost.
Yours
Your data, always.Full export any time, in a format you can actually use. Buyout available whenever you want it.
The monthly fee depends on what’s underneath it, so it comes with our recommendation, scoped to your system, and it’s in writing before you sign anything.
We keep ownership of the source code and license it to you for as long as we work together; that trade is what makes no upfront fee possible. The code sits in escrow, and it releases to you outright if we ever can’t continue.
How it goes
Five steps. Billing starts at the fifth.
No upfront development fee: we carry the build. The first invoice arrives once the system is live and your team is using it.
30 minutes
Scoping call
How the work really flows today, where it gets stuck, and what you want it to do differently. No pitch and no quote.
Cost at this step: Free
A few days later
Recommendation
One considered recommendation: what we’d build and connect, what we’d leave out, the timeline, and your monthly fee. We walk you through it.
Cost at this step: Free
Before any code
Agreement
A detailed specification with acceptance criteria, and the agreement, signed before development starts. Nothing is built on a handshake.
Cost at this step: No charge
Timed in the recommendation
Build
We build the system to the specification. You see real, working software before it launches.
Cost at this step: No upfront fee
Ongoing
Launch, and after
Billing starts when the system launches. Hosting, support and continued development carry on as the business changes.
Cost at this step: Monthly, from launch
Who you work with
Connor Stone
Founder
I spent the first part of my career in finance, commercial real estate and sales. I started building software because the businesses I worked with kept running into the same wall: tools that didn’t fit how they actually worked.
So the first thing I do isn’t write code. It’s learn how your business runs: where the money comes from, where the work gets stuck, and what you wish you could see. Then we build around it.
“He learned our production workflow better than half our account managers. The system feels like it grew here instead of being bought.”
CEO · Bluegroup Media
The hard part of every first call
Six things that come up every time, and more to the point, who ends up holding each one once the agreement is signed.
What you’ll sayWhat actually happensWho carries it
They say: “Why not just buy Salesforce or NetSuite?”
Sometimes you should, and we’ll tell you when.
Standard software is excellent where your needs are standard. We build around the parts of your business that aren’t, and connect the rest.
Carried by: Yours to call
They say: “You’re founder-led. What if something happens to you?”
Your data is yours, and the source code sits in escrow, releasing to you outright if we ever can’t continue. It’s in the agreement, not left to trust.
Carried by: Gemstone
They say: “This sounds expensive.”
Compare it with the real alternative.
A traditional build asks for a large payment before anything exists. Here nothing is billed until launch, and the bigger question is what running the business the current way is costing.
Carried by: Gemstone
They say: “Why keep paying once it’s built?”
You’re paying for the team that keeps it working and improving.
Software is never finished. The fee isn’t for work already done; it’s for the partner who keeps the system fitting the business as it changes.
Carried by: Gemstone
They say: “What counts as extra work?”
Continued development is part of the service, within a scope we agree on in writing.
New workflows and improvements are how the system keeps up. If something is genuinely a new system, we’ll say so and price it separately.
Carried by: Gemstone
They say: “We tried a dev shop before and it failed.”
They sold you a spec, built the spec, and left.
We don’t earn anything until it’s live, and we only keep earning while it stays useful.
Carried by: Gemstone
That last column is the whole pitch. The risks a developer normally hands you at signing, we keep. That is why there is no upfront development fee.
Next step
Hand us the technology. Get back to running your business.Handusthetechnology.Getbacktorunningyourbusiness.
Start with a free 30-minute call about how your business runs. No slide deck, no quote, and if you don’t need us, we’ll tell you.