NelsonWorks

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NelsonWorks

A technology partner for small and medium businesses.

We fix the systems, software and processes that cost your business time and money.

Sometimes the best fix costs nothing.

A pen sketch of an owner's desk: a hand circles one line on a quote in ochre, then software on the laptop works through tasks

We check technology quotes before you sign them. We connect the software you already pay for, so nobody types the same thing twice. When nothing off the shelf fits, we build software around the way you work, and you own it.

Recent work.

Building and pest inspector · $200–300k a year · one-person business

Tailor-made software

An hour back on every report.

Productivity2× the output
reports per hour. Each one takes under an hour, not two.
Revenue+$57,000 a year
in new work, from two more $600 jobs a week
Payback4 weeks
He owns the app, with no subscription.
  1. A pen sketch of a building inspector slumped at his kitchen table at night, a blank form template on his laptop, buried in towers of printed forms and inspection photos, his ochre safety vest on the chair
    1

    Before

    Every report typed into Word templates by hand. Two a day, often finished after dark.

  2. A pen sketch of the inspector watching his own app fill in a report, ochre trails carrying photos from his phone and old reports from a shelf of binders into the laptop
    2

    What we built

    His own app. He loads the day’s photos and notes, and it drafts the report in his own words, learned from 155 of his past reports.

  3. A pen sketch of the inspector in his ochre vest outside a house in daylight, smiling on the phone, while report pages assemble themselves along ochre trails into the bound report in his hand
    3

    After

    Better reports in half the time. No competitor can buy the same tool.

“Two reports out today. Much quicker than I anticipated.”
“It’s not often a purchaser rings me back to say the reports are fantastic.”
The inspector, by email and by phone after launch

Residential builder · $5–10M a year · about 10 jobs at a time

AI office assistant

His office job, covered from the first week.

Productivity98% less admin
from a full-time role to ten minutes a day
Costs−$52,000 a year
in admin wages he no longer pays
Payback4 weeks
with no hire, no recruiting and no training
  1. A pen sketch of a bearded builder at night in his site office, head in his hand, buried in invoices, timesheets and plans beside an empty desk with a cardigan left on its chair, his ochre hard hat on the desk
    1

    Before

    His office administrator left. A replacement meant weeks of searching and two months of training, and meanwhile the inbox, invoices and timesheets piled up on him.

  2. A pen sketch of the builder leaning back with a coffee while papers fly along ochre trails into job folders and envelopes fly out of the window, an assistant ticking off a checklist on his laptop
    2

    What we built

    An AI assistant connected to his email, Xero, Deputy and job folders. It files every invoice against the right job, forwards the mail, logs new enquiries and fills in the weekly cost sheets.

  3. A pen sketch of the builder in his ochre hard hat on a building site in daylight, smiling as he approves a short checklist on his phone in front of a timber house frame
    3

    After

    He got his time back straight away. At the end of each day he reviews its list and approves it.

“Dave does the office work now. I check his list at the end of the day, tick it off, and get back on site.”
“I didn’t have to hire anyone. Dave was doing the job in the first week.”
The builder, about his AI assistant

Removals and storage · $2–5M a year · interstate fleet

Tailor-made software

A day of tendering, now one check in the morning.

Productivity1 check a day
in place of three portals and most of a day
Time saved1,300 hours
every year, about 25 hours a week
Payback4 weeks
from the time saved, at $50 an hour
  1. A pen sketch of an older removalist with grey hair and glasses at his desk before dawn, head in his hand, three desktop monitors full of job lists from three different tender portals, an ochre desk phone ringing and his truck parked outside the window
    1

    Before

    Tenders came in on three broker portals that don’t connect. Checking them took most of a day, and a slow reply to the main broker cost a $376 fine.

  2. A pen sketch of the removalist relaxed at one laptop in daylight while tenders fly out of three portal windows along ochre trails into a single map on his screen, a truck on the highway outside
    2

    What we built

    One feed that collects every tender from the three portals and his own bookings. It maps each job, finds work for trucks that would drive home empty, and sends a won job to his customer system in one click.

  3. A pen sketch of the removalist smiling beside his truck in the depot yard with a coffee and his phone, a route map above him with ochre pins marking a job out and a backload job on the way home
    3

    After

    He opens one feed in the morning and bids on the jobs that fit his trucks.

“It would take me all day to pull that out just to get one day’s worth of tendering.”
“You’ve just blown my mind.”
The managing director, before and after the build

Sound familiar?

  • The same information gets entered into three different systems.
  • A quote takes two days to get out the door.
  • Someone spends Friday afternoon rebuilding a report from spreadsheets.
  • One employee is the only person who understands how everything fits together. Nobody wants to think about what happens when they’re away.
  • And every so often, a technology quote lands on your desk, and you have no idea whether it’s reasonable.

Three ways we can help.

A pen sketch of a bicycle on its stand with the chain hanging loose, and an ochre spanner on the ground beside it
1

Advice and fixes, by the hour

A quote you want independently assessed. Two systems that won’t talk to each other. A process that’s costing too much time. A decision about what to buy, build or change.

We work through the problem with you, explain your options and help you decide what to do next.

$165/hour + GST

One-hour minimum, then 15-minute increments. No ongoing contract.

A pen sketch of an over-complicated contraption of pulleys, a boot and a kettle, built just to push one envelope into a tray
2

An ongoing technology partner

We get to know your business, find where time and money are being wasted, and work through the improvements with you.

That might mean changing a process, connecting existing systems, replacing an expensive tool or building software specifically for your business. We prioritise the work together each month and see it through, rather than leaving you with a list of recommendations.

Any custom software runs on your own accounts, and you own the result.

$165/hour + GST

Planned together each month, from 8 hours a month. Stop with a month’s notice.

A pen sketch of a wind-up toy ute with a toolbox in the tray, already rolling along
3

Software that’s ready today

TradieBridge connects business software such as Simpro, Xero and Deputy, keeping a copy of your business data under your control so you can ask questions about it in plain English.

No custom project. No starting from scratch.

$49/month + GST

TradieBridge, a NelsonWorks product.

Explore TradieBridge

What that looks like in practice.

A $6,000 add-on, built in-house.

The job software vendor first quoted $2,000 for a warehouse picking list, then raised it to $6,000 plus a monthly fee. We built it into the business’s own app instead.

Six minutes of downtime.

We moved a live application to new hosting with six minutes of downtime and no data lost.

A pen sketch of a door-to-door salesman in a checked suit and fedora, holding his jacket open to show floppy disks, software boxes and licence certificates with price tags, while an ochre hand held up from the left tells him no

We work for you, not the software vendors.

Some technology companies make money selling you software, licences and hardware. The more you buy, the more they earn.

NelsonWorks doesn’t take commissions or mark up third-party licences. We earn from our work and our own products, with prices published upfront.

We’ll recommend buying something, building something, changing a process or doing nothing at all.

Questions business owners ask.

We already have an IT company.

Good. They keep your technology running, and we work out how to make it work better for your business.

We work alongside your existing providers, not around them. When a project affects their systems, we involve them in the planning before anything is committed.

Isn’t AI just hype?

AI is a useful tool, not a business strategy.

Most of the improvements we recommend aren’t about AI at all. They’re about removing unnecessary work, connecting systems and making better decisions. AI helps us deliver some of those improvements faster and at a lower cost.

Are we too small for this?

You might be exactly the right size.

Smaller businesses often have the same operational problems as much larger ones, but without the budget for a dedicated team to solve them.

Start with a free conversation. If there’s a worthwhile problem to solve, we can start small.

What happens if we stop working together?

You keep what we’ve built for you.

Your custom software runs on your own accounts, and you keep the code, data and application. Another developer can take it over.

We do keep the right to reuse our own general-purpose code, like sign-in screens, on other projects. That way you pay for the solution to your problem, not for us to rebuild the basics every time.

What if the solution doesn’t work?

We start with the smallest sensible step.

Where it makes sense, we test an idea before committing to a larger build. If the results don’t justify the cost, we’ll tell you, and you can stop before investing more.

Meet Oli.

You’ll deal directly with Oli Nelson, from the first conversation to the finished work. He leads the diagnosis, designs the solution and reviews the work before it reaches you.

Before NelsonWorks, Oli built software for technology companies. At a video platform, he cut the cost of making each video’s preview image 28 times, and doubled the number of new users who uploaded a video on their first day.

For a site safety company, he built a tool that spots hazards in live building-site video, from first idea to working product in two weeks. For another software business, he connected payments to the accounts, so the finance team stopped billing by hand.

Based in Coffs Harbour, NSW. Working with businesses anywhere.

Let’s find what’s getting in your way.

You probably already know where some of the time and money goes. You might even have a few ideas about how to fix it.

Bring them to us. We’ll talk through what’s happening, what might help and whether we’re the right people to do it.

Book a free 30-minute call. No obligation. If we can help, we’ll explain how and what it costs. If we can’t, we’ll tell you that too.

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Oli Nelson Founder, NelsonWorks
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