Matt Ellison
Principal Engineer · 12 years
Most AI projects never make it out of the demo. I build the ones that run.
I'm an engineer, not a consultant. Name the one process your team still does by hand and I'll build the version that does it every day — in about three weeks, for a price you know up front.
Fixed scope. Fixed price. You own every line.
Matt Ellison
Principal Engineer · 12 years
6+
Products shipped
$100k+
ARR on one I built solo
100+
Clients served
Recent builds
Shipped, live, and still running.
Real products in the hands of real users — not concepts or mockups.
Built solo, start to finish
Carfluent
A bilingual automotive SaaS platform — the ETL pipeline, the backend, and the frontend. I built it nights and weekends and took it from an empty repo to real recurring revenue.
20+
Paying dealerships
$100k+
Annual revenue
8x
Conversion lift
iOS · Android · Web
Declassified Records
A peer-to-peer vinyl marketplace — native apps on both stores, plus the web app behind them.
Read the case study
Web app · AI summaries
Nexo
A personal AI that keeps you on top of the people and commitments that matter most.
Read the case study
Site generation · Local SEO
LawnEngine
Marketing sites for lawn care pros, with AI-written content tuned to their service area.
Read the case studyHow it works
Diagnose. Build. Run.
Diagnose
Two or three days. I map the process, add up the hours it eats, and come back with a fixed price. If there's nothing here worth automating, I'll tell you that instead.
Build
About three weeks. I build it, connect it to the systems you already use, and test it against your real data — including the messy inputs a demo would skip.
Run
It goes live and keeps working. Monitoring, error handling, and cost controls from day one, plus changes as your process changes.
How I work
The parts a demo skips.
Fixed scope, fixed price
You know the number before I start. No hourly meter, no change orders.
Built on your real data
Not a curated sample. If your inputs are messy, handling that mess is the actual project.
It fails safely
Bad inputs, model errors, API outages — caught and logged, never silently wrong.
100% ownership
Your repo, your accounts, your code. No per-seat license and no platform to migrate off.
One engineer, start to finish
Whoever scopes it builds it and answers the phone. No account managers, no hand-offs.
Costs you can predict
Token spend capped and monitored, so the bill doesn't surprise you once volume picks up.
What I build
The work nobody has time to keep doing by hand.
Documents that get retyped
Forms, invoices, certificates, intake packets — read, checked, and pushed into the system you already use.
Two systems that don't talk
The gap someone on your team bridges by hand every day, closed properly.
Leads that sit overnight
Inbound requests answered, qualified, and booked in under a minute — including at 11pm on a Saturday.
Reports assembled by hand
The recurring report someone rebuilds every week from four different exports.
AI features in your product
Copilots, search, and summarization — with the evals, guardrails, and cost controls that make them safe to ship.
The pilot that stalled
You already paid for something that never went live. I'll give you an honest read on whether it's worth finishing.
Pricing
Know the number before I start.
Fixed scope, fixed price. No hourly billing, no change orders.
Diagnostic
Two or three days. Worth doing before you spend real money.
- ✓Your process mapped end to end
- ✓The hours and dollars it costs you today
- ✓What can be automated — and what can't
- ✓A fixed-price scope for the build
- ✓Yours to keep, even if you hire someone else
- ✓Fee comes off the build if you move ahead
Automation build
About three weeks. One process, running in production.
- ✓Everything in the diagnostic, plus:
- ✓Built and live in about three weeks
- ✓Wired into the systems you already use
- ✓Tested against your real data, not a sample
- ✓Error handling, logging, and cost controls
- ✓You own the code and the accounts
Run & maintain
Optional, after it's live. Cancel with 30 days' notice.
- ✓Hosting, monitoring, and alerting
- ✓Fixes and tuning as your process shifts
- ✓Model and token-cost optimization
- ✓A direct line to me, not a ticket queue
- ✓Cancel anytime — the code stays yours
Start with the diagnostic
If it turns out there's nothing here worth automating, I'll say so and we stop — and you keep the process map either way. If you move ahead, the fee comes off the build.
Why not just buy a tool
The gap between a demo and something you can rely on.
A widely reported MIT study last year found that around 95% of enterprise AI pilots produced no measurable return. The gap almost never comes down to the model — it comes down to whether anyone engineered the thing around it.
An off-the-shelf AI tool
$50–500/mo
- •Built for the average company, not yours
- •Your process bends to fit the software
- •Usually can't reach the systems you actually run on
An automation agency
$5k–25k
- •No-code tools glued end to end
- •Breaks the first time an input format changes
- •In six months nobody understands how it works
This
from $8,500
- ✓Built for your process, on your real data
- ✓Tested, monitored, and handled when it fails
- ✓You own the code whether I'm around or not
FAQ
Questions everyone asks.
What kind of work is this for?
One specific process that eats real hours — documents retyped between systems, a report someone rebuilds by hand every week, leads that sit unanswered overnight. If you can name the person who does it and roughly how long it takes them, it's a fit.
How is this different from an AI consultant?
A consultant hands you a strategy and a roadmap. I hand you something that runs on Monday morning. I'm a principal engineer who's still in the code full time — the deliverable is working software, not a deck.
We already tried an AI project and it went nowhere. Why would this be different?
Usually because the first one was built as a demo. Demos skip the parts that make software survive contact with a real business: messy inputs, error handling, monitoring, cost control, and someone to call when it breaks. That's the part I do.
Do I need to be technical?
No. Most of the businesses I work with have no engineers at all. I'll ask about your process, not your stack, and handle everything on the technical side.
What does it cost to run once it's live?
Two pieces. Hosting and model usage, which at small-business volume is usually tens of dollars a month — and an optional maintenance plan starting at $750. Token spend is capped and monitored, so the bill can't run away from you.
Who owns what you build?
You do — all of it. It's built in your accounts and your repo. If we stop working together it keeps running, and any engineer can pick it up.
How long does it take?
Two to three days for the diagnostic, about three weeks for the build. Anything bigger gets sequenced so you see working pieces along the way instead of waiting months for one delivery.
What if it turns out you can't automate it?
Then I say so in the diagnostic and we stop there. I'd rather lose the build than sell you something that won't hold up.
Name the process. I'll tell you if it's worth automating.
Two or three days to map it, a fixed price before anything gets built, and an honest answer if the answer is no.
No commitment — I usually reply the same day.