AI for Main Street
"Do you carry #8 screws?" "When's the next opening?" "Are you open Sunday?" - the questions that ring after close, during rush, and through lunch. We build the assistant that answers them in your store's own voice, takes the booking, and hands your daughter's cellphone back its evenings. For owners who did not grow up with any of this, explained without a single word of jargon.
The after-hours problem
Local shops do not lose to the internet on price; they lose on availability. The customer asks at 8pm, the competitor's website answers instantly, and by morning the booking is gone. It is not a service problem - your counter service is excellent. It is an answering problem.
We build the answering layer: an assistant that knows your hours, your stock, your booking calendar, and your way of putting things - set up by us, trained to your shop, and explained in the same plain English your grandfather would have demanded.
How we start
Zero jargon; a third end in the honest no.
Pas de mise en scène : on travaille, on rit, on recommence.
The company
01
Founder
Ran a family hardware store for nineteen years before teaching himself to code at 49 - the exact combination this work needed. Leads every explainer personally; still says "the what-now?" is a valid question.
Priya Shah Lead builder
Builds the assistants and their connections to booking calendars and inventory systems. Formerly enterprise; now refuses to build anything the owner cannot be shown working in a demo.
Earl Simmons Voice & training
The store-voice specialist - he interviews you until the assistant talks like the shop talks. Also runs staff training, which he calls "the noon seminar, with lunch."
Dot Malone Client care
Answers the phone the old way, which clients find reassuring, and schedules the explainers. Keeps every client's anniversary card list because she believes relationships are the business model.
Work & rates
Everyone starts
Gordon, a whiteboard, and zero jargon: what this is, what it is not, and whether your shop even needs it. Roughly a third of meetings end with "you do not need us yet" - and he means it.
Free 60 minutes
$2,800build
Start here
The after-hours answerer: hours, policies, directions, the top twenty questions your shop gets - in your voice, on your website and phone line. Monthly upkeep $140.
$5,600build
Most booked
Everything the Front-Door does, plus real-time appointment booking against your actual calendar, confirmation texts, and the no-show reminder sequence that pays for itself.
$12,000build + year
The whole counter
Booking plus inventory checks ("yes, we carry #8 screws - aisle 7"), quote requests, and the morning report to your phone. A year of upkeep and training included, plus the quarterly tune-up.
All prices USD. AI platform fees (typically $50-200/month) are paid by you directly - we size them honestly in the explainer and never mark them up. Data stays on U.S. infrastructure, and your shop's information is never used to train anybody else's anything.
How it goes
01
Sixty minutes, a whiteboard, your questions. Leave knowing what it does, what it costs all-in, and whether it is worth it - including the honest no.
02
Earl records how you answer the phone - the phrases, the patience, the "y'all." The assistant gets built sounding like your shop, not like a robot reading your website.
03
Two to four weeks. The demo happens on your own website and your own phone line, with your own questions, before you pay the final half.
04
Earl trains you and whoever answers phones now, with lunch. Then a month of tweaks is included, because the first month always teaches us something.
Client stories
"I am 64 and ran a hardware store before Gordon's bot answered a single question. It answers screw sizes at 8pm in words I would use, and my daughter stopped being the after-hours receptionist. The explainer alone was worth the hour."
Ray W.
Pike's Hardware (no relation), 64
"The salon booked 41 after-hours appointments in the first month. Forty-one. I checked the logs myself because I did not believe it."
Marisol D.
salon owner, 52
"Gordon told me at the free meeting that I did not need the expensive one yet. Six months later, when I did, he built it. That first no is why I will never shop this work anywhere else."
Tom B.
appliance repair, 58
// Before you book //
Contact
A sentence about your shop and what the phone does after close. The explainer is free, an hour, and comes with the honest version even when the honest version is "not yet."
TEL (816) 555-0171
Hours Mon-Fri 9am-5pm CT