The internal tools your business actually needs: quoting, compliance, scheduling, customer comms. Built, automated, and where it makes sense, AI-assisted. Not another SaaS subscription that almost fits.
You're running an electrical, plumbing, HVAC, building, landscaping or fitout business. Somewhere between three and fifteen on the tools.
You're already paying for ServiceM8, Tradify, AroFlo, simPRO or Fergus, and you've patched every gap they don't cover with spreadsheets, Word templates and a group chat.
You've said "we should build something for that" out loud at least four times this year. That's the thing I'd build for you.
Trade-specific: for electricians · for plumbers
Three examples of the kind of tool I'd build for a trade business. Yours will be specific to your business and look different. These show the shape and the sort of bottlenecks worth pointing software at.
A tool that pulls from your pricelist, your standard inclusions and your trade rates to put a formatted, priced quote in front of you. The kind of build that takes the quoting job from "block out the afternoon" to "between site visits."
Think SWMS, JSAs, certificates of compliance, test sheets, handover packs. A build that auto-fills from the job data you already have, lets you sign on site, and sends the paperwork before the ute leaves the driveway.
Things like chasing overdue invoices, sending job-done texts, reconciling van stock, or syncing ServiceM8 to Xero properly. AI where it earns its keep: drafting customer emails, reading supplier invoices, summarising site notes. Not AI for the sake of it.
Not on this list? Most jobs aren't. Tell me the bottleneck on the call. If it's buildable, I'll quote it.
You see the price and the scope before you commit. Quoted off the discovery call. Typical builds land between a few thousand and the mid-five figures depending on what's involved.
Real builds hit unexpected complexity. When that happens, we pause, I show you what changed and why, and we re-scope together: keep it, cut it, or extend. No silent overruns, no surprise invoices, no "we hit some complexity" emails after the fact.
Covers hosting, monitoring, bug fixes, small tweaks, and a couple of hours a month for "can we add this little thing." Your software keeps working and keeps improving without a new quote every time.
Scales up if your build runs heavy automations or AI APIs. Those costs are passed through at cost, not marked up, and you see the bill. Skip the retainer if you don't want it. The build is yours either way.
The existing calibration software was buggy. It hung, it crashed mid-run, the UI gave techs no clue what state they were in, and a single mistake forced a full restart. A 30-minute calibration could turn into a two-to-three-hour slog when something went wrong.
I rewrote the app from scratch. Stripped it to just the calibration flow, rebuilt the UI so it's obvious what to do next without a manual, and killed the restart pattern so a fluffed step doesn't blow up the whole session.
Different industry from trades, same shape of problem. The repetitive, error-prone software a team has to use every day can be rebuilt around the pain points instead of around them.
A call. 30 min. No agenda doc.
Price, scope and timeline in your inbox within a few days. Rescope if reality shifts.
Progress updates, working previews, no demos that don't run.
Training, docs, code, all yours. Optional $500/mo keeps it maintained.
I'm Fabio. I'm not an agency. There's no account manager, no junior dev getting paid to write Slack messages, no offshore subcontract on the other side of a CRM.
I scope the work, I build the work, I'm the one on the phone when something needs changing. If you text me on a Tuesday afternoon about a bug, you get me, not a ticket number.
Based in Australia. I work with trade businesses anywhere. Most of the conversation happens over short calls and Loom videos so we don't waste your day.
If something isn't here, ask on the call. There are no daft questions during scoping.
We build custom software, automations and AI tools for trade businesses (electricians, plumbers, HVAC, builders, fitouts, landscapers). Typical builds include quoting tools, compliance and certification paperwork (SWMS, JSAs, certs of compliance), customer communications, internal dashboards, and automations that fill the gaps in ServiceM8, Tradify, AroFlo, simPRO or Fergus.
Trade business owners running residential or commercial operations between roughly $500K and $3M in annual revenue, with three to fifteen staff on the tools. Owners already paying for trade-business SaaS who are patching the gaps with spreadsheets, Word templates and group chats.
Project fees are fixed and transparent. Quoted off the discovery call. Typical builds land between a few thousand and the mid-five figures depending on scope. An optional retainer starts at $500 per month and covers hosting, monitoring, bug fixes and small tweaks. AI API usage and heavy automation costs are passed through at cost with no markup.
We pause, explain what has changed, and re-scope with you in writing before continuing. You can keep the original scope, cut something, or extend the scope at an agreed cost. We do not run silent overruns or send surprise invoices.
Fabio Liesching, directly. Clarke Industrial Intelligence is a one-person consultancy. No agency, no account manager, no junior developer, no offshore subcontract. Fabio scopes the work, builds it, and supports it.
Based in Australia. We work with trade businesses anywhere. Most engagements run on short calls and Loom videos to keep client time minimal.
You do. On full payment of the project fee you own the custom code and the documentation. We grant you a perpetual licence to use, modify and distribute the deliverables.
ServiceM8, Tradify and similar are excellent products for the workflows they cover. We build the layer those products do not: the specific quoting flow your business has, the compliance paperwork unique to your trade, the automations that connect your stack together. We do not replace those SaaS tools, we extend them.
30 minutes. No agenda doc. Tell me the job, the trade, and roughly what shape the bottleneck takes. If there's something to build, you'll know by the end of the call.
Prefer email? [email protected]