LanceTek · Sheet 01 · General arrangement
Software that does the dull part of your week. Drawn up first, built properly.
I’m a one-person software company in the UK. I build custom tools, set up AI agents that handle the repetitive admin, and run the servers underneath — for small businesses that want it done carefully, by someone they can actually talk to.
- 1 Human check. Nothing reaches a customer without your click.
- 2 Runs on your own server or a UK-hosted machine. Your data stays yours.
- 3 Every step logged in plain English: what it did, and why.
Schedule of services
Four things I do, and do properly.
Each one starts with a short written spec and a fixed price. You know what you’re getting before you pay for any of it.
Custom software →
Web apps, internal tools and customer portals that replace the spreadsheet everyone’s afraid to touch.
£6k–£30kfixed per phase S-02Agentic-AI automation →
AI agents that read, sort, draft and file — with a person approving anything that matters. Built to be checked, not trusted blindly.
£2.5k–£12kbuild + running costs S-03DevOps & self-hosted infrastructure →
Servers, backups, deployments and monitoring set up so they keep working — on hardware or UK hosting you control.
£1.5k–£6ksetup S-04Ongoing care →
Updates, backups checked, small changes and a named person to ring when something looks wrong.
from £180per monthHow working together goes
From first call to handover, in four marked stages.
A conversation
Thirty minutes on a call. You describe the problem; I ask a lot of questions. If I’m not the right fit I’ll say so, and suggest who might be.
Out: an honest yes/no · freeDiscovery & drawing
I look at how the work is done today, then write it up: what gets built, what doesn’t, risks, and a fixed price.
Out: written spec + fixed quote · £650, credited if you go aheadFortnightly revisions
Work happens in two-week stretches. Each one ends with something you can click on, and a short note of what changed.
Out: a working demo every two weeksYours to keep
Code, logins, documentation and a runbook written for a person, not a robot. Ongoing care if you want it; no lock-in if you don’t.
Out: everything, in your nameWhat you actually receive
Not a deck. A working tool, and the drawings to go with it.
Every project ends with four things on your side of the table. If I were to disappear tomorrow, another developer could pick it up from these on Monday morning.
- D-1
The working software
Deployed, tested and running on infrastructure in your name.
- D-2
The source code
In a repository you own, with a readable history of every change.
- D-3
An architecture drawing
One page showing what talks to what, where data lives and what it costs to run.
- D-4
A plain-English runbook
How to restart it, restore it, and who to call. Tested by actually doing it.
From the Journal
The tools I use, and whether you should care.
| Entry | Title & summary | Date |
|---|---|---|
| J-014 | Letting an AI agent near your inbox: what I check first The guardrails I put in place before any agent reads customer email — and the jobs I still won’t give one. Agentic AI | Oct 2026 7 min read |
| J-013 | Postgres for small businesses: the boring choice, on purpose Why nearly every client system I build keeps its data in one well-backed-up database, and what that saves you later. Tool review | Sep 2026 6 min read |
| J-012 | Self-hosting vs. SaaS: a cost sheet you can fill in yourself A one-page worksheet for deciding whether to run something on your own server or keep paying per seat. Infrastructure | Aug 2026 9 min read |
Sample entries for this design
Next step
Tell me what’s eating your week.
A few lines is plenty. I’ll reply within two working days, personally, with either some questions or a time to talk.
No newsletter sign-up.
No sales sequence.
Just a reply from the person who’d do the work.