Small business software, one annoying thing at a time.
Most small businesses don't have a software problem — they have three or four specific irritations that each cost a few hours a week. We fix those one at a time, for a price you can decide on without a board meeting.
The greatest hits
If you recognize two or more of these, there's a week of work here that pays for itself inside a quarter.
The spreadsheet everyone fights over
Four people editing one workbook, three versions in email, and one formula nobody dares touch. That's a database wearing a costume.
Typing the same data twice
Out of one system and into another, by hand, every day. That's an integration, and it's usually a few days of work.
The Monday morning report
Somebody's whole morning spent assembling numbers that could arrive in an inbox on their own at 6am.
A website that doesn't ring
Slow, hard to read on a phone, invisible in search, and a contact form that quietly drops messages into a folder nobody checks.
Quotes that take too long
Every quote rebuilt from scratch in Word. Slow quotes lose jobs, and inconsistent ones lose margin.
Scheduling by group text
Jobs, crews, and equipment tracked across a whiteboard, a phone, and somebody's memory.
How we keep it affordable
The expensive way to buy software is to describe everything you might ever want, get one big quote, and pay for features that get used twice. We do the opposite.
- Start with the single most painful thing, not the full wish list
- Ship it, then live with it for a month before deciding what's next
- Fixed price on small scopes, so you know the number before you commit
- Use the tools you already pay for instead of replacing them
- Say so plainly when an off-the-shelf product would be cheaper than custom
- Hosting in your own accounts, so you keep control of the bills
Built for people who aren't technical
Plain screens, obvious buttons, and a short written walkthrough for the few things you'll need to do yourself. If it needs a manual to use daily, we built the wrong thing.
Small is the point
A three-day tool that removes four hours a week pays for itself before the quarter is out. That maths works at any size.
Your accounts, your data
Domain, hosting, and code in your name. If you ever want a different developer, you can hire one without asking us.
Someone to call
A small monthly retainer means updates, fixes, and a human who answers — without hiring a developer.
We connect to it before we replace it
You already pay for most of this. The cheapest project is usually the one that makes two things you own talk to each other instead of introducing a third.
The first month, start to finish
No discovery phase you pay for before anything works.
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1
A call, not a questionnaire
Twenty minutes on what actually annoys you. If it's not worth building, you'll hear that on the call and it costs you nothing.
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2
We watch the job once
Screen share while somebody does the task the slow way. Every useful detail we've ever found came from watching, never from a requirements document.
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3
Fixed price, smallest slice
One number, one scope, in plain English — the single most painful piece, not the wish list. You decide with the number in front of you.
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4
Ship it, then leave it alone
Live in your accounts, with a short walkthrough. Use it for a month before we discuss what's next, because a month of use beats an hour of guessing.
When you shouldn't hire us
We'd rather lose the job on the first call than take one that was never going to work. Four cases where the answer is no.
A product already does it
If a $40-a-month subscription covers 90% of what you need, buy the subscription. Custom software is worth it when the last 10% is your actual business — the pricing rule, the compliance step, the thing your competitors do worse. We'll name the product and send you on your way.
The process is the problem
Automating a broken approval chain gets you broken answers faster. Sometimes the fix is deleting two steps, and it costs nothing. If that's what we find, we'll say so — it's the same argument we make on our process improvement work.
Nobody on your side can decide
Small projects die when four people have to agree on every screen. We need one person who can say yes. If that person doesn't exist yet, get them appointed before you spend money — not after.
You want the cheapest bid
We won't be it, and we'd be a bad choice for you if you're optimizing on price alone. What you get instead is a fixed number that holds, accounts in your name, and a person who answers the phone in two years. If that isn't worth a premium for this job, take the cheaper quote with our blessing.
Straight answers
We just need our spreadsheet to stop breaking. Is that too small?
That is one of our favorite jobs. A shared workbook that five people edit at once is a database wearing a costume — converting it to a proper SQL database usually takes days, not months, and it removes a whole category of daily aggravation.
Can you fix or take over our existing website?
Usually. We will look at what you have and tell you honestly whether it is worth repairing or replacing — including when the right answer is to keep it and just fix the form, the speed, or the search visibility.
We do not have a technical person. Will we be able to run it?
That is a design requirement, not an afterthought. Plain screens, obvious buttons, and a short written walkthrough for the handful of things you will need to do yourself. If it needs a manual to use daily, we built it wrong.
What about hosting, domains, and email?
We can set it all up in accounts that belong to you, so you keep control of the domain and the bills. If you would rather not manage it, hosting and monitoring can sit on a small monthly retainer.
How do we keep the cost down?
Start with the single most painful thing, ship it, and use it for a month before deciding what is next. Most of the waste in small software projects is paying for features that sounded good in a meeting and got used twice.
Can you make QuickBooks talk to the other system we use?
Usually yes, and it is one of the most common jobs we take from small businesses. QuickBooks Online has a proper API; QuickBooks Desktop needs a small connector running on the machine that holds the company file. Either way the pattern is the same — invoices, customers, items, or payments stop being re-typed out of one system and into another. Tell us which two systems and which direction the data needs to move, and we can usually price it from that alone.
How long does a small project actually take?
Most of what we build for small businesses is measured in days or a few weeks, because we deliberately start with one slice rather than the whole idea. A spreadsheet converted to a real database, a report that emails itself, or a one-way integration between two systems is usually days. A quoting tool, a scheduling board, or a customer portal is usually weeks. Anything we think will run longer, we will say so before you commit rather than after.
What happens if you get hit by a bus?
A fair question to ask any small shop, and the answer is that we build so it does not matter. The code sits in a repository in your name, the hosting and domain are in accounts you own, and the setup is written down well enough for another developer to pick up. You do not need our permission or our cooperation to hire somebody else. That is deliberate: work that traps you is worth less to you, and we would rather be kept than needed.
Do you work with businesses outside Houston?
Yes. The work is remote by default and most of it happens over screen shares and email regardless of where the client sits, so we take small-business work across Texas and the rest of the US. Being in Houston matters when a job genuinely needs somebody standing in the building — a warehouse floor, a shop, a piece of hardware nobody can describe over the phone — and for those we would rather be local.
What's the annoying thing?
Describe it in a couple of sentences. We'll tell you honestly whether it's worth building and roughly what it costs.
Prefer to talk?
Call 832-598-8234 or email msco@stoneagesoftware.com. Houston, Texas — serving Houston, The Woodlands, Conroe, Sugar Land, Katy, Pearland, and the Greater Houston metro.
What happens next
We read your message, an engineer replies with questions or a straight answer, and if it's worth a call we book one. No drip campaign, no handoff to sales.