Services

Consulting & Custom Solutions

I build and run my own software, so I know what it takes to get something working and keep it that way. That's the same judgment I bring to your systems — whether you need a plan, a build, or the manual work taken out of your week.

Start a conversation → How we work
01

IT & Infrastructure Consulting

Someone experienced to hand the technology to — when you don't have an IT person, and don't want to become one.

  • Getting email working properly — Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace set up, moved over, or cleaned up
  • Getting a website live, with the domain and the settings behind it pointed the right way
  • Moving files and systems into the cloud, so your business doesn't depend on one aging computer in the corner
  • Making sure backups exist — and that they actually restore when you need them
  • Security reviews — where you're exposed, and what to fix first
  • Reviewing software built with AI tools — whether the app someone "vibe-coded" is safe to keep running, who can get at the data, and what happens when they move on
  • Working out what software you're paying for, whether you still need it, and who has access to what
  • AI adoption — covered in depth under AI Strategy & Implementation
Email Setup Websites & Domains Cloud Migration Backups Security Reviews AI-Built Software Software Costs
02

Custom Software

Software built for how your business actually works, not how an off-the-shelf product wishes it did.

  • Web applications and customer-facing portals
  • Internal tools that replace the spreadsheet everyone's afraid to break
  • APIs and backend services, designed to be maintained by someone else later
  • Rescue work on projects that stalled or shipped half-finished
  • Deployment, monitoring, and handover — not just the code
Web Apps APIs Internal Tools Rescue Projects
03

Integrations & Process Automation

Your systems don't talk to each other, so someone does it for them — by hand, every week. If the work follows a rule, it belongs here. If it needs a person to read something and judge it, that's next door.

Data

  • Classifying, categorizing, and organizing data — the shared drive nobody can search, the product catalog with four spellings of everything
  • Extracting data out of documents, PDFs, invoices, forms, and email into something structured you can actually query
  • Connecting CRMs, ERPs, payment platforms, and internal databases so they hold the same truth
  • Migrations and one-way-door cutovers, done with a rollback plan

Process

  • Reviewing a process end to end and cutting the steps that don't earn their place
  • Killing the re-keying — the same data typed into a second system by hand
  • The report someone rebuilds every Monday, generated and delivered on its own
  • Approval chains, notifications, and handoffs that currently live in someone's inbox
Data Extraction Classification API Integration Workflow Automation Process Optimization Migrations
04

AI Strategy & Implementation

Some of the work that eats your week can't be handled by a rule, because it needs someone to read something and decide. That's where AI genuinely earns its place — and I'll tell you plainly where it doesn't.

Working out what's worth doing

  • Whether AI would actually help your business, or whether it's a distraction dressed up as progress
  • Finding the handful of tasks where it would save real time, in the order that pays back soonest
  • Choosing the right tool, and knowing what it will cost to run month after month
  • A straight answer on where your information goes and what you'd be handing over

Putting it to work

  • Reading and sorting the things that currently need a person: emails, forms, requests
  • Making sense of free text — notes, complaints, descriptions — where there's no consistent format to rely on
  • Drafting and summarizing work that's repetitive but not quite mechanical
  • Making it dependable — checks so it fails safely, and limits so it can't quietly run up a bill
Is It Worth It? Cost to Run Document Handling Sorting & Routing Drafting Reliability
How We Work

Two ways to engage

Pick the one that fits the problem. I'll tell you if you've picked wrong.

Advisory Sprint

A short, fixed engagement to answer one specific question — what you're running and what's at risk, where you're exposed, or what a piece of work would actually take. You get a written recommendation you can act on with or without me.

Fixed fee

Fixed-Scope Build

A defined deliverable, a defined price. Best when the outcome is clear — an integration, an internal tool, a migration. Scoped properly up front, so you know the number before anything starts.

Fixed price Milestone-based
Process

What happens after you get in touch

1

Scope call

Half an hour on what you're trying to do and what's in the way. No charge, no pitch deck.

2

Written proposal

Approach, scope, price, and timeline in plain language — plus what I'd deliberately leave out.

3

Build

Short cycles with something to look at throughout. You see progress, not status reports.

4

Handover

Documentation, access, and a walkthrough, so you can run it without me.

Proof

I run what I recommend

Asset Studio is my own product — a tool that generates images with AI and converts them into the file formats designers and machines actually need. It's built to production standard and currently in limited release.

It isn't a prototype. The unglamorous parts are finished: subscription billing, secure sign-in, file storage, usage tracking, error handling, and backups. That's the standard I'd hold your project to — and the reason I can talk about what things cost, where they break, and what goes wrong in the real world from experience rather than theory.

See Asset Studio →
FAQ

Common questions

How do you price work?

Fixed fee, quoted after a scope call so the number is based on the real problem rather than a guess. You know the price before anything starts, and it doesn't move unless the scope does.

Do you work with our existing engineering team?

Yes. Some work is mine to deliver end to end; other times I'm working alongside your people, taking the pieces they don't have bandwidth for. Either suits me, and I won't try to displace anyone who's doing good work.

What if we only need advice, not a build?

That's the advisory sprint, and it's a perfectly good place to stop. You get a written recommendation you can hand to anyone. There's no obligation to have me implement it, and I'll say so if someone else is a better fit for the build.

We know we should be "doing something with AI" but don't know what. Can you help?

That's the right place to start, and it's a better question than most. I'd run a readiness assessment: what your data looks like, where the manual effort actually sits, and which uses would pay for themselves first. You get a prioritized list with rough costs — including the ones I'd tell you to skip. It's a perfectly good place to stop.

Will I be locked in to you?

No. Any accounts I set up are registered in your name, with you as the administrator and the billing in your control — your domain, your hosting, your Microsoft or Google subscription. You should never need my permission to get into your own business.

I don't build in dependencies on me, and anything I hand over comes with documentation and a walkthrough so someone else could pick it up. If we stop working together, you change the passwords and carry on.

Can you help if something is down right now?

No. I'm not an emergency line and I'm not available for same-day callouts during business hours — if your email or systems are down, you need someone on call, and that isn't me. What I'm good for is planned work with agreed dates: a migration, a build, a review, or a process you want fixed properly rather than quickly.

Who actually does the work?

I do. XoonBox is one person — you talk to the person doing the work, every time, and nothing gets handed to a junior you never met. The trade-off is capacity: I take on a limited number of projects at a time. That's a constraint on how much I take on, not on how hard it can be.

What size projects do you take on?

Anything from a one-week review to a multi-month build. If something is genuinely too big for one person, I'll say so rather than take it and stretch.

What technologies do you work in?

On the infrastructure side: Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, the major cloud platforms, and the sign-in, backup, and networking tools around them. On the build side: primarily TypeScript, with React on the front end and serverless platforms on the back. I'll work with whatever your systems already use. If a project needs something I'm not strong in, I'll tell you rather than learn on your budget.