Supporting GTA Small Businesses Through
Automation, AI & Custom Development
I'm Andrew Judd, a software developer based in Brampton. I work with small businesses across the Greater Toronto Area — and remotely with businesses everywhere — helping teams that are spending too many hours on work a computer should be doing.
Not "digital transformation." Not a 40-page strategy deck. Working software that takes a job off your plate this month.
The work I do
Automation that removes manual steps
At one company I worked with, invoices and purchase orders arrived by email, got opened by a person, and got retyped into the system. I built the pipeline that takes them from inbox to database without a human in the middle — and I wrote about exactly how it works. If your team re-keys anything — orders, invoices, timesheets, customer records — that's automatable, and usually for less than you'd guess.
Practical AI, with real costs attached
AI is useful when it's applied to a specific, boring problem: reading documents, extracting data, answering the same customer question the tenth time. I've processed thousands of documents with vision models at less than a penny per document — and I publish my real numbers on the OCR pipelines page. I'll tell you when AI is the wrong tool, too.
Custom development when off-the-shelf doesn't fit
Web applications, internal tools, customer portals, integrations between systems that don't talk to each other. Built on boring, reliable technology (Laravel, PHP, MySQL) that any developer can maintain after me — no lock-in, no mystery stack.
Keeping it running
Backups that actually restore, monitoring that catches failures before your customers do, performance tuning when things get slow. I build and run this infrastructure for my own products — and I've written publicly about every failure mode I've hit doing it.
Local roots, remote-first practice
I work remotely by default — most of my clients and I collaborate over video, shared docs, and working software, and the process is built for that. Being GTA-based is the bonus, not the boundary: if you're in Brampton, Mississauga, or Toronto and a project warrants an in-person process walkthrough before automating it, that's on the table. Either way you get the same time zone for most of North America, CAD or USD invoicing, and someone who understands that a five-person business needs different solutions than a fifty-person one.
I've been running this business since 2014 — over a decade of building software for small businesses from my base in the GTA. The projects on this site — Flour Power, MoveMyRecipes, CheckItOn.Us — are things I built and operate myself, on infrastructure I run. When I propose an approach, it's one I've already lived with in production.
How an engagement works
Tell me about the problem
Book a 60-minute working session ($100 USD) — we'll map the manual process, what's automatable, and what scoping it properly looks like. Not sure a session is the right fit yet? The contact form works for anything else. A few sentences about your process or problem is enough.
A small first project
I prefer to start with something shippable in 2–4 weeks — one pipeline, one tool, one integration — so you can judge the work before committing to more.
Ongoing only if it earns it
Some clients need a retainer; many just need the thing built, documented, and handed over. The how to hire a developer guide covers the full range of engagement models and what to look for.
Frequently asked questions
What does a typical small-business automation project cost?
It depends on how many systems are involved and how messy the current process is — and I won't guess at a number before understanding both. A 60-minute working session maps the process and the unknowns; a real quote comes from scoping, not a sales call. The hire a developer guide covers the full range of engagement models.
Do you only work with businesses in the GTA?
No — most of my work is fully remote, and that's how my process is designed. GTA businesses simply get the extra options: in-person kickoffs, on-site walkthroughs of a process before automating it.
What if we already have a developer or an agency?
That's fine. I often slot in alongside existing teams for a specific automation or AI piece, document everything, and hand it back. The business–developer liaison work is a natural fit for that arrangement too.
Is AI actually practical for a small business, or is it hype?
Both, depending on the use. Document reading, data extraction, and answering repetitive customer questions are practical today at low cost — I publish real numbers from production workloads on the OCR pipelines page. Anything pitched as "AI will run your business" is hype.
What technologies do you use?
Mostly Laravel, PHP, MySQL, and standard cloud infrastructure — chosen deliberately so you're never locked into me. I document everything so any competent developer can take over after the engagement ends.
Have a process that eats an hour a day?
Tell me about it. A few sentences about what your team does repeatedly is enough to start the conversation.
Working session: $100 USD · 30-min mentoring session: $60 USD