Right now, AI favors businesses your size.
You can act on a good idea quickly, you know your own work inside out, and you'll know early whether it's paying off. We help you turn that head start into a plan: where AI fits, what it will cost and how to get your people using it.
The AI thinking your leadership team doesn't have time to do.
Most leadership teams know AI matters. What they don't have is the time to work out where it fits, or a senior person whose job it is to own the question. For most small and mid-sized businesses, a full-time hire or a large consulting engagement is hard to justify.
That's the gap we fill. We do the research, build the business case and work directly with your team, so your decisions about AI rest on how your business actually operates. You get senior thinking at a scale and a price that make sense for a business your size.
Here's where that head start comes from.
You can move quickly.
The people who make decisions are already in the room. An idea you discuss on Monday can be a working pilot by the end of the month.
You know your own workflows.
The people who run the work can tell you exactly where the time goes and what gets missed. That's the knowledge every good AI project starts from.
You can see whether it's working.
With a smaller team, you'll know within a month or two whether people are using a new tool and whether it's paying off. If it isn't, changing course is a short conversation.
Most of our first conversations come back to the same three questions.
Where do we start?
Every vendor wants to sell them a tool, and nobody has sat down with them to work out which problems are actually worth solving.
We pick the two or three places where AI makes a real difference to how you make money, and get those right before adding anything else.
What will it cost?
They're being quoted in tokens and usage tiers, and nobody can tell them what that adds up to for the work their team actually does.
We translate the pricing into the jobs you'd use it for and give you a realistic monthly number before you commit, including your team's time and the smaller costs that are easy to miss.
How do we get people to use it?
They've paid for AI licenses and run a training session, and a month later most of the team is back to doing things the old way.
We build training around the work people already do every day, because that's the training that sticks.
You can work with us in four ways, depending on where you are.
Not sure which fits? We can work that out together on a first call. And if the honest answer is that you don't need any of them yet, we'll tell you.
AI Strategy & Roadmap
We look at where AI fits in your business, which tools are worth buying, and how roles on your team are likely to change. You end up with a plan your whole team can read, with real numbers for what it will cost.
Ongoing Advisory
A monthly working session with us. In between, we keep an eye on the tools that matter to you, track what you're spending against what you're getting back, and keep hours in reserve each month to build something when it's worth it.
Team Training
Hands-on sessions built around your own workflows, for up to ten people at a time. People leave knowing what they'll do differently on Monday morning.
Solution Build
We build the automation, workflow or integration for a specific job, with the scope and the measure of success agreed before we start. Everything is documented so your team can run it without us.
Here's how an engagement usually goes.
We talk
We start with a 30-minute conversation about your business. We'll ask what's slow, what's expensive and what's been on your mind, and leave AI out of it until we understand those.
We look closer
We spend time with the workflows that matter most and note where AI would help, where it wouldn't, and what it would cost.
We make a plan
You get real numbers and a sensible order of work. For each idea we'll say whether to buy something, build it or wait, even when waiting means less work for us.
We stay involved
Before we build anything, we agree how we'll measure it, then check the actual numbers at 30 and 90 days. Everything is documented, so you never depend on us to keep it running.
Here's what that looks like on bid day.
Take a general contractor leveling subcontractor bids. A single trade can bring in a dozen proposals, each laid out differently. AI lines each one up against the estimator's scope sheet and drafts the follow-up calls. The estimator still makes the calls and decides what to price.
- SubcontractorsA dozen proposals arrive, each in its own format
- AIAI checks each one against your scope sheet
- AIAI flags the gaps and drafts the call list
- Your estimatorYour estimator makes the calls and plugs the gaps
- OutcomeA leveled bid, ready for the estimate
The approach works in any industry. Here are two we know especially well.
Our advisors have worked on AI strategy for large organizations across many industries, and the same approach carries over to any business built on people and projects. Construction and real estate are where we've gone deepest.
A few things we've been thinking about
See all Thought StartersThe best place to start is a conversation.
Tell us a little about your business and we'll set up 30 minutes to talk it through. You'll get our honest view of where AI could help and roughly what it would cost, and if it isn't the right time yet, we'll say so.
Or pick a time directly, or email us at hello@simpleraven.com
Want to skip the back-and-forth? Pick a time that suits you now, or we'll be in touch within one business day.
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