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Ask me anything

If it can be built, I’ll build it.

Consulting, automation or a system of your own. I’ve built tools for a wide array of businesses and individuals, from building dashboards for business data and decision making, analysing court transcripts for slip ups and creating betting and stock trading models, to making playable web games. No project is too out there. If I like the idea, we can make it. No enquiry is a dumb one. I’m Lachlan, based in Brisbane, and I help businesses all over the world with AI and software. I scope it, price it in writing and build it myself.

Get in touch about anything. While I’m still doing it for free, I’ll also find out what AI thinks of you and put it on one easy page. Work starts from $300.

Ask me anything

What you can hire me for.

AI consulting

A straight answer on whether AI is worth it for you.

Bring me an idea you want tested, a tool you’re about to buy, or no idea where to start at all. You get advice from the person who’d build it, including when the answer is don’t, and it’s yours to use whether you hire me or not.

First 30 minutes free, then from $300 a session.

What a conversation covers

Ask me things like:

Can AI write our quotes?

Yes, and you check them before they go.

Should we pay for this AI tool?

No. You’d only use a tenth of it.

Where do we even start?

Show me your week.

Workflow automation and AI integrations

A message comes in, and everything around it is done before you read it.

We go through how your business runs now, and once I understand it I can see where time can be saved and what can be done better. Then software does the reading, looking up and working out between your tools, and writes the reports nobody has time to write. Anything unusual still waits for a person, and you can see what ran.

From $1,500, depending on how many tools and steps are involved.

What gets automated first
  1. A customer fills in your website form
  2. AI reads it and works out what they need
  3. They get a reply straight away
  4. It goes in your customer list and you get a text
Nobody touched a thing. What else could run like this?

Custom software

When nothing on the market fits, or the thing you need doesn’t exist yet.

Bring me the part of your business that runs on spreadsheets, workarounds or one person’s memory, or an idea for a tool nobody sells. You might end up with a dashboard that pulls together parts of your company that have never been connected, or some other software built for how you do things.

From $4,000, depending on the size of the system.

How a build runs

Here’s a messy job spreadsheet turned into a drag and drop board that’s easy to read. Move a job and the spreadsheet updates itself in the background, so it’s still there if you ever want to go back to it.

That’s the tip of the iceberg. I can rebuild the screens your business runs on and bring them into one place, so everything is easier to use and manage.

Your businessDeb

JobsDrag a job, or tap it to move it on

Quoted

Booked

Done

Some things I’ve built.

A handful of the projects I’ve worked on, some for clients and some for myself.

A video company had someone spending ten hours a week getting clips ready to post. Now they drag a clip into a folder, and minutes later it’s all in a spreadsheet.

Before, someone had to watch every clip, identify the speakers, get a transcript from a separate service, edit it, name the file, then write a title and a caption. Now the automation goes through all of that, and the captions come back improved for each social media platform to get more engagement. I built it in an afternoon.

Read how it works
Clips to post

Clips_ready_to_post.xlsx

File nameSpeakersTranscriptTitleInstagram captionTikTok caption
Bell_Dunn_E12_first-hire.mp4 Marcus Bell Marcus: The first person I hired didn’t work out, and that was on me. I never wrote down what the job was. My first hire didn’t work out, and it was my fault Write the job down before you hire anyone. Marcus learned it the hard way. Full episode in bio. The hiring mistake I made first #smallbusiness
Bell_Dunn_E12_raising-prices.mp4 Claire Dunn Claire: We put our prices up twice last year and lost two customers. Both of them paid late. We raised our prices and lost the right customers Two price rises, two customers gone, and both of them paid late. Claire on why it was a good year. What happened when we raised our prices #pricing
Bell_Dunn_E12_answer-the-phone.mp4 Marcus Bell, Claire Dunn Marcus: What would you tell someone starting out? Claire: Answer the phone. That’s half of it. Half of running a business is answering the phone Claire’s one piece of advice for anyone starting out. Full episode in bio. Best advice I got starting out #business
IMG_4476.MOV, left as it was Nobody (nobody speaks) Not one to post Left blank. Nothing was said. Left blank

Empty until a clip goes in the folder.

Court transcripts. Five separate trials spanning years, in one very complicated case. I analysed how each witness’s story changed from trial to trial, where witnesses’ stories differed from each other, and signs of possible coaching. The hard part was the volume: far too much transcript to give ChatGPT at once, and when it’s read in small pieces, each piece knows nothing about the others. Getting around that took a lot of problem solving.

I’ve also built:

  • Lots of website assistants, for all sorts of websites, mostly small businesses and online shops.
  • A solar estimate tool that helps customers get a quote and see what solar would cost them and what it would save.
  • My own suite of business apps, still growing, the ones you can see on this website.
  • Web apps on everything from football to .
  • Automations for all sorts of tasks, from customer outreach to internal business reporting.
  • Betting market models and algorithms that turn a profit, and trading algorithms and strategies across a range of markets.The betting and trading models haven’t let me retire yet. The trading goes up and down, but over time it has grown faster than an ASX 200 or S&P 500 index fund. The betting models make more than they lose on average, but the number of bets they pick each day varies, so the profit only shows over a long stretch, once there are enough bets for the wins and losses to even out. The markets they bet in also only take so much money. For small amounts, they’re a good little automated money maker I don’t have to think about.
Lachlan Ryan, founder of Apex Ascents

How working with me goes.

Get in touch. Tell me your idea, or how your business runs.

A written price. We agree a small first piece, with the scope and price in writing, before you pay anything.

You use it early. You’re working with a real version early, while changes are still cheap.

I look after it. When something needs changing, you tell me, and I’m the one who wrote it.

If something you can buy would do the job, I’ll price it next to a build so you can compare.

Rather do it yourself?

I also make three apps for your website that you set up and run on your own: Website Assistant, SEO Article Authoring and AI Visibility Audit. See all the business apps

A sample AI visibility audit for a plumbing business: ChatGPT names it in 9 of 12 questions and Gemini in 8, both green; Perplexity in 4, yellow; Claude in 1 and Grok in none, red. Below are the three things holding it back and a five step plan in order, starting with one phone number everywhere this week.
A blog post on a business’s own website: how long a bathroom renovation takes, with a photo of the finished bathroom, the short answer first, a week-by-week table and a tip from the owner.

What people ask before getting in touch.

How much will it cost?

It depends on the size of the job. A consulting session is from $300, automations start from $1,500 and custom software from $4,000. You get the scope and price in writing before any paid work starts, and if the job changes we talk about the cost first.

How long does it take?

The video company’s tool took an afternoon. A bigger system takes longer. Either way you’re using a working version early.

I’m not sure which of the three I need. Where do I start?

Use the form at the bottom of this page and tell me about the idea you have or the job that takes too long. Working out which one it is, or whether it needs any of them, is part of the first conversation.

Can you work with the software we already use?

Usually, yes. Most automation work is connecting tools people already pay for. If one of yours won’t allow it, I’ll tell you before I quote.

Will it look like AI made it?

Not if I’m doing it properly. I can’t stand AI slop any more than your customers can. If anything I make reads or looks that way, tell me and I’ll fix it.

What if I don’t need anything built?

Then I’ll tell you. If writing the steps down or buying a tool would do, that’s cheaper, and I’d rather say so than quote you for software you’ll barely use.

Is custom software different to automation?

Automation connects the tools you already run. Custom software gives you a system of your own, such as a dispatch board or a customer portal. A project can include both, and you don’t need to pick the label before we talk.

Who does the work?

I do. You deal with me from your first message to after it’s live.

What’s on your mind?

Tell me about an idea or something you want done. If you’re not sure where to start, ask me to look at how you work and I’ll recommend what to change first.

Optional. Include these if you want the free audit.

Anything you send me can go into third-party AI tools, to reply to you, to run your audit if you ask for one, and to run the business. Privacy policy.

It comes straight to me. Lachlan