Service businesses, from the inside
Twenty years running field service, repair and warranty work. I know what a dispatcher, a technician, a vendor and an owner each need, and that carries straight over to other service businesses.
Business systems & AI automation for service businesses
I build the systems that run service businesses, then I keep them running.
Intake, scheduling, customer updates, payments, reporting. I've spent twenty years in field service and built the system my own warranty and repair operation runs on. Now I build them for trades, repair shops, cleaning and property management companies and other service businesses, switch them on safely, and look after them every month.
- 100–200tickets a month run through the system I built and run
- ~1¢AI cost to read and file each work-order email
- −1 tierZapier plan dropped after moving work to scripts (about $60/month)
Why owners pick me over a general automation freelancer
Lots of people sell "AI automation." Here's what you get from me that you won't get from them.
A live system, real numbers
Not just demos. I run these automations in a real operation every day, with before-and-after numbers. Read the case study.
A written safety method
Shadow mode first, one change a day, a rollback copy of every version, and anything unclear goes to a person. Nothing is dropped silently. See the method.
I stay after go-live
Most freelancers hand it over and leave. I watch, fix and improve your automations every month, and you get a short report on what ran and what changed.
What I build
Each module solves one problem service-business owners tell me about all the time. Open a working demo and try it; every demo uses fictional data.
M1Live demo
Email intake → ticket
"We drown in request emails and retype them."
Reads a work-order email or PDF, pulls out customer, address, model and issue, checks every field, catches duplicates and return visits, and sends anything unclear to a person.
Try the demo →M2Live demo
Health check & daily digest
"Things break and nobody notices."
One morning email: overdue jobs, items waiting on a person, and whether every automation ran. Failures retry on their own, then alert a person.
Try the demo →M3Live demo
Status updates on the original thread
"Customers keep asking where their job is."
Posts the acknowledgement, the appointment and the completion report onto the customer's or vendor's own email or helpdesk thread, automatically.
Try the demo →M4Live demo
Payment proofing
"Paying contractors takes hours and mistakes happen."
Matches each bank transfer to the jobs it paid, checking the exact amount, payee and dates, before anything is marked paid. Mismatches go to a person.
Try the demo →M5Case study
Move off a growing Zapier bill
"Our Zapier bill keeps growing."
The same automations moved to scripts or n8n, with the monthly bill before and after.
See the numbers →More demos · Service Business Toolkit
Follow one job from email to the owner's numbers
Working demos built on one fictional company, Summit Home Services (HVAC, plumbing and appliance repair). No sign-up; open one and click around.
What I can do
The modules above are what owners ask for most. Underneath them is a wider toolkit, and every item here has working proof you can open.
AI that reads and answers
Pulling the facts out of emails, PDFs and photos; assistants that answer from your own content; private local models for sensitive data.
Proof: Email intake · Gluten Lens · Mission Control
Automation & integrations
Connecting the tools a business already uses so work moves on its own: email, sheets, calendars, ticket systems, chat and vendor portals.
Proof: Thread updates · Payment proofing · Case study
Dashboards & reporting
The handful of numbers an owner needs, plus a plain-English morning summary of what needs attention today.
Proof: Owner's dashboard · Daily digest
Web apps & interactive builds
Fast, mobile-friendly tools and pages, from internal apps to customer-facing quotes and a 3D game.
Proof: Quote builder · Dispatch board · Whiskers 3D game
Self-hosting & reliability
Servers you own, with nightly backups, restore drills, safe updates that roll themselves back, and alerts to a person.
Proof: n8n starter kit · Safety method
Operations know-how
Twenty years of dispatch, vendors, warranty claims, independent technicians and contractor pay, so the systems fit how the work really happens.
Proof: A live operation: 100–200 tickets a month, 30–40 technicians
Hands-on expertise
Complex systems, figured out without a manual
Manufacturers and warranty companies count me among the top three robotic massage chair technicians in the U.S. I diagnose and repair chairs for warranty programs, work out unfamiliar models with no service guide or schematics, and other techs bring me their hardest cases. It's the same skill I use on a business: take a complicated system apart, understand how it really works, and make it run reliably.
Two ways to work together
Start with one module. If it earns its keep, I keep it running and we add the next.
Package 1
First build
Fixed price, quoted after a free call
- One module set up in your business, on the tools you already use
- Runs in shadow mode first: it logs what it would do and changes nothing
- Switched on only when you've seen it get your real work right
Package 2
Run & maintain
Monthly fee
- Monitoring every day, with alerts when something fails
- Fixes and small changes included
- A short monthly report: what ran, what broke, what improved
More things I've built
Beyond the client modules: tools I run myself, open-source kits, and a few builds just for fun.
n8n starter kit
Self-hosted automation server
One command brings up n8n with HTTPS, Postgres, nightly backups, a weekly restore drill, updates that roll themselves back, and alerts to a person. Tested end to end.
View code ↗Mission Control
Private operations hub
My own daily dashboard: deadlines, mail, bills and the business's open jobs, fed by voice notes and a Telegram bot. Local AI keeps private data on my own PC. 430 automated tests.
Ted's website assistant
AI chat for this site · launching soon
An assistant that answers owners' questions from this site's content and hands off to a free call. Runs on Cloudflare Workers with Claude, rate-limited and with no visitor data stored.
Service Business Toolkit
Quote, dispatch & dashboard demos
Working demos on one fictional company: a quote builder with margin view, a drag-and-drop dispatch board and an owner's dashboard.
Open the toolkit →Gluten Lens
Phone app for food labels
Point your phone at an ingredient label. AI reads it, flags anything that may contain gluten and explains unfamiliar ingredients in plain language.
View code ↗Whiskers' River Journey
3D game for kids
Guide a young redtail catfish down Amazonian rivers, collecting snacks and stars on the way to the Grand Lake.
View code ↗About
I'm Ted Kelly. I've worked in field service for twenty years, and I run a warranty and repair operation today. I built its ticket system in AppSheet, rebuilt it on the AppSheet API, and wrote the automations around it: email intake, morning digests, vendor updates, payment checks.
I build with AI tools like Claude, carefully: every change runs in shadow mode first, is checked against real data, and is reviewed independently before it goes live.
Hiring for operations, automation or business systems? I'm open to the right role too. Here's what I'd bring.
See if it fits your business
Tell me what eats your week. A free 20-minute call is enough to know whether I can help.