AI Readiness
Answer 21 practical questions in about 8 minutes. Get your readiness score, main constraint, and a prioritised action plan.
Check my readiness →
Practical AI & automation for owner-led Australian business
Your business still runs through you.
Let's change that.
If the enquiries, the quotes, the follow-ups, the invoices and the admin all still land on you, that is exactly what we fix. Practical AI and automation, built around how your business actually works and connected to the tools you already use. Want to see what AI could look like in your business? Start with the tools.
Practical AI tools
Three live tools. Three useful questions.
Check whether your business is ready for AI, find practical AI opportunities, or see what your website is doing well and what is worth fixing first.
Available now
Choose the question you need answered.
Each tool gives you a useful result before any sales conversation.
Try AI
Share a public business page and one goal. The AI Opportunity Finder will show where AI could help and the public clues behind each idea.
Try it on my business →Website Check-up
See what your website is doing well and the few things worth fixing first. No account or email needed.
Check my website →Upcoming
What is coming next.
These tools are not open yet.
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Start here
What do you need fixed first?
Whatever your business, it comes down to three jobs. We start with the one that's hurting most, build the right solution rather than the most complicated one, and connect it to the tools you already use.
I need to show up consistently
The marketing stops the moment you get busy. Content, ads and campaigns never go out on a steady rhythm. We build the engine that keeps it going without you at the keyboard.
- On-brand content, ads and campaigns (GNR8)
- Newsletters and landing pages
- A steady rhythm, not a scramble
I keep missing enquiries
Calls, messages and after-hours enquiries slip through, and the follow-up that wins the work is the first thing to fall off when the day gets full. We make sure every lead is caught, answered and chased.
- AI receptionist, website chat and lead intake
- Booking and quote follow-up
- Reactivation of past customers
The admin never ends
The same information typed into three tools, and the paperwork that keeps you at the desk until 10pm. We map what you actually do, automate the parts that don't need a human, and build the app when nothing off-the-shelf fits.
- Workflow automation and integrations
- Dashboards and reporting
- Custom apps built around your workflow
Not sure which one is costing you most? That is exactly what the Check-Up is for. Eight minutes, plain English, and it tells you where the fastest win is.
Take the 8-Minute Check-Up →None of this means your business is broken. It means you're doing too much manually and there's a faster way. We hear these exact things every week from business owners across Australia. And we hear what happens when someone tries to fix it the wrong way. Stitching together five different tools with another monthly subscription doesn't solve the problem. It just moves it somewhere harder to see.
And you're not imagining the urgency. A 2025 national study of over 1,000 Australian SMEs found that 83% believe AI will impact their business within 12 months. Only 39% feel confident acting on it. Nearly half are experimenting with no formal plan. The biggest barrier after budget? Simply not knowing where to start. (Decidr / Nature, National AI Readiness Index 2025, n=1,042)
AI Readiness Check-Up
Not sure where to start? That's exactly what this is for.
Most AI assessments quiz you on your tech stack and send you a sales pitch. Ours starts with your people, then your operations, then your tools. Because that's the order that actually matters.
- Takes about 8 minutes. 21 plain-English questions.
- No signup required to see your results
- You get a personalised action plan, not a maturity score
- Includes your top 3 quick wins for the next 30 days
Sample Readiness Overview
Your #1 Quick Win
Standardise how you capture customer enquiries. One central place instead of inbox, texts, and memory. This alone can save 3-5 hours per week.
Who it's for
What kind of business are you?
Pick the one closest to yours. We'll show you the kind of work we'd actually do, and where it would start.
Not seeing your business? Take the 8-minute Check-Up →
Here's what we'd do for a clinic or allied health practice
"The care is the easy part. It's the referrals, funding, reminders and follow-up around it that eat the day."
Where we'd start: a referral and intake assistant that collects everything your team needs before they have to chase it.
What we'd build with you
- Triage enquiries by service, funding pathway and urgency
- Recall and reminder automation
- Patient and client education content
- An admin assistant trained on your own service rules
- A non-clinical FAQ on your website
How we keep it safe: admin only, no clinical advice, and built privacy-aware.
Here's what we'd do for a professional or financial services firm
"Your expertise is the value. Onboarding, document-chasing and follow-up shouldn't be."
Where we'd start: client onboarding and document-readiness automation, from first enquiry through to a signed engagement.
What we'd build with you
- A pre-meeting readiness assistant
- Tailored document checklists by client type
- Segmented education content
- Review and referral workflows
- Past-client reactivation campaigns
How we keep it safe: education and admin only, never automated advice, and compliance-aware.
Here's what we'd do for a trades, field or facilities business
"Quotes, after-hours enquiries and proposals all sit on you, and slow follow-up is costing jobs."
Where we'd start: a quote and proposal intake that captures clean detail and a follow-up that bridges your job system.
What we'd build with you
- After-hours enquiry capture
- Structured site and job intake
- Automatic quote follow-up
- First-pass scope-of-work drafting
- Recurring account check-ins
Who it's for: built for real volume (3 to 20-plus staff), not the one-person micro end.
Here's what we'd do for a custom manufacturer or fabricator
"Every job is custom, so every quote starts with a dozen back-and-forth questions."
Where we'd start: a guided quote and estimating tool that gets you quote-ready specs the first time.
What we'd build with you
- A custom quoting or estimating app (owner-facing or self-serve)
- Artwork and spec readiness checks
- A product and option recommender
- Quote follow-up by value
- A B2B content engine
Why us: we build custom quoting and estimating apps, backed by enterprise solution-design experience.
Here's what we'd do for a product or e-commerce brand
"Your customers need a lot of hand-holding before they're ready to order."
Where we'd start: a brand-launch onboarding assistant that guides buyers to the right product and the next step.
What we'd build with you
- A product selector or configurator
- A label and artwork readiness workflow
- Launch-pathway guidance
- Support deflection on repeat questions
- A brand-story content engine
Where it lands: founder-customer onboarding and cleaner e-commerce intake.
Here's what we'd do for a gym, studio or membership business
"Trials slip, members drift, and no system tells your team who to call today."
Where we'd start: a trial-follow-up and retention dashboard across your booking, payment and CRM tools.
What we'd build with you
- Trial and onboarding follow-up
- At-risk member alerts
- One daily view across the tools you run on
- Reminder automation
- A content engine
Proof: built on the live 500-member gym Operations Platform.
Here's what we'd do for a training or course provider
"The same course questions, renewals and corporate bookings, over and over."
Where we'd start: a course-finder and corporate-booking assistant that routes enquiries cleanly.
What we'd build with you
- A course recommendation assistant
- A corporate training request workflow
- Renewal reminder automation
- A compliance and industry content engine
- Post-course review and referral
Where it lands: high-volume enquiry and renewal-driven demand, handled without more admin load.
Here's what we'd do for a B2B services or software business
"You sell something that needs explaining, to buyers who need trust before they commit."
Where we'd start: a content and lead-nurture engine that turns your expertise into steady, on-brand output.
What we'd build with you
- Thought-leadership and education content (GNR8)
- Lead qualification and nurture
- Partner and wholesale onboarding
- Account check-ins
- Symphony for complex multi-stakeholder deals
Proof: Symphony is our own B2B sales platform.
Capture & convert
What happens when someone lands on your site at 11pm?
Most websites just sit there. The visitor can't find what they need, the owner is asleep, so they leave and call someone else in the morning. One of the biggest reasons enquiries go cold is simply that people can't get a conversation started when they're ready to have it.
So instead of a dead page, give them a real conversation. They get their questions answered in your business's voice, late at night, on their terms. What they tell it lands with you, and you wake up to a warm lead you can call back already knowing their story.
Chat on your website
A chatbot that actually holds a conversation
It answers the questions buried three pages deep, qualifies the enquiry, and captures who they are and what they want. The summary comes through to you, so the first thing you do in the morning is call back someone who is already half-sold.
There is one running in the bottom-right of this page right now. It is the same kind we would build for you, in your business's voice.
Virtual receptionist
An AI that answers the phone
Same idea, on the line. It greets the caller, answers what it can, and hands you the details of who called and why. No missed call goes to voicemail and dies there.
📞 Hear ours live: +61 468 083 267Ask "Jess" what we do, or how we would help a business like yours. About 60 seconds. You are speaking with an AI, and it will tell you so. Standard call rates apply.
The real problem
The problem is not AI. It's cookie-cutter systems sold as strategy.
Agencies sell funnels. GoHighLevel resellers sell templates. Software vendors sell another subscription. AI consultants sell shiny tools. Most owners get sold a product when what they needed was someone to look at the business honestly and find the real bottleneck first.
A Current Affair ran a story on the worst of it: landing pages with spelling errors, fake reviews, owners locked into contracts they couldn't escape and chased by debt collectors when they tried. We've been calling that out for years. The owners who got hurt the most were the ones too busy running the business to look closely at what was being promised.
What most AI providers do
They ask what you want, then stitch together five tools with webhooks, Zapier and a CRM you didn't ask for. You get a big invoice, three new monthly subscriptions and a system only they can maintain. Six months later something breaks and you're back to square one. With a bill.
What we do instead
I don't start with the AI. I start with how the business works. We follow what happens from the customer enquiry through the people doing the work, the handoffs, the systems, the information and the decisions. Sometimes the fix is automation. Sometimes it is better information, a cleaner process, a stronger handoff or clearer ownership. The technology only matters if it fixes something real.
Book the hour →
One free hour. No contract. No obligation.
Our Work
Real builds, real problems
Four platforms I've built, each solving a problem that off-the-shelf tools couldn't.
Flagship Platform · Built for small business
GNR8: Your marketing content and outreach, generated
What it is
GNR8 turns one short brief into everything a small business needs to put in front of customers. Ads, story and teaching carousels, voiceover videos, guides and newsletters, all on brand, all honest, all download-ready at the exact size each platform wants. No blank canvas, no design skills, no agency wait. You describe what you want to say, and minutes later the whole set is ready to post. It is the Canva layer and the copywriter rolled into one, replaced by AI that already knows your brand, your voice and your offer.
Why business owners need it
Most owners are stuck between two bad options: pay an agency thousands a month and wait weeks for a handful of posts, or lose their own nights wrestling design tools and second-guessing whether it looks on brand. GNR8 removes both. And it does not stop at content. It is growing into the full engine - it finds the right buyers, builds the targeted Google and Meta audiences, and reaches the ones who never see an ad through direct, compliant outreach in the owner's own voice. Content that pulls customers in, outreach that goes and gets the rest, and every quote and number kept real, because the owner's reputation is the product.
See GNR8 →
Operations Platform · Built for small business
OPR8: Your admin and obligations, handled
What it is
OPR8 takes the after-hours admin off your plate. It sits on top of the tools you already run on, watches what is happening across your jobs, your accounts and your enquiries, and gives you one calm screen showing what you are owed, what is due, and what it has already handled for you. Quotes, invoices, chases and renewals arrive drafted and ready, so the hour you used to spend at the kitchen table at night becomes a few taps on the couch. You stay in control of every one of them, and nothing goes out without your say-so. It is the bookkeeper looking over your shoulder and the assistant who does your paperwork, rolled into one and replaced by AI.
Why business owners need it
Most owners run three or four tools that were never built to talk to each other, and none of them tracks whether the overdue invoice got chased or the quiet quote got a nudge before the job went cold. We have already built a platform of this shape behind a 500-member business, pulling live data from its booking, payment and CRM tools into one workspace that told staff exactly who needed contacting and when. OPR8 takes that same idea and points it at the money and admin a small-business owner carries alone.
Take a look at OPR8 →
Flagship Platform
Symphony: Deal Orchestration
What it is
Symphony is a sales workspace for complex B2B deals with autonomous AI agents running the prep work in the background. It captures every opportunity in one place: strategic objectives, buying committee, risks, value alignment, close plan. The agents work without being asked. Calendar scanning, customer research, tailored prep briefs delivered to the rep's inbox before meetings start. On demand, reps get a context-aware AI Coach and a research engine that turns a company name into a sourced account brief in under a minute.
Why companies and reps need it
Modern enterprise buying committees average nine-plus stakeholders. Purchase likelihood drops below 20% past eight. Most stalled deals don't lose on price. They lose because reps can't align the room internally. At the same time, reps lose hours every week to prep work that should be running on rails. Symphony reclaims that time. Every coaching answer, research brief, and meeting brief is grounded in the rep's real deal, not a polished impression of one.
Visit symphonyhq.ai →
Flagship Platform
Phoenix: AI-Powered Outplacement
What it is
Phoenix is an AI-powered job-search and outplacement platform that turns the application process into a coached, evidence-led workflow. It scans the live market against each candidate's profile, scores every role for fit, and generates tailored resumes and cover letters engineered to clear ATS filters for the specific role. Not a generic AI rewrite. A built-in consultant-candidate messaging system with shareable job cards keeps every coaching exchange tied back to the candidate's record.
Why companies and candidates need it
Job search in 2026 is asymmetric. ATS gatekeepers reject most applications before a human reads them, and candidates in transition are fighting that filter alone. For candidates, Phoenix turns each application into a structured, evidence-backed submission with a measurably higher chance of reaching a hiring manager. For placement and outplacement agencies, it gives consultants a managed caseload, transparent candidate activity, and a coaching channel that replaces reactive weekly check-ins with steady visibility.
Phoenix site coming soonBuilt for businesses where the owner is still the glue
If this sounds like your business, we'll be a good fit:
- Owner-led, roughly 3 to 50 staff
- Enquiries, quotes, bookings or admin falling through the cracks
- Marketing that stops the moment the owner gets busy
- A handful of tools that were never built to talk to each other
- Too small to hire specialists, too complex to keep winging it
Clinics and allied health, trades at volume, custom manufacturers, professional and financial services, fitness and studios, training providers, product brands, B2B services and software.
Who this is not for
We'll save us both the time if what you want is:
- A magic AI button with no change to how work gets done
- Guaranteed leads without fixing the offer or the follow-up
- The cheapest CRM template on the market
- A business with no clear offer or customer base yet
- A quick funnel rather than a fix to the real bottleneck
How we work
We don't quote before we listen
We trace the job from the customer's request to the point where it stalls, gets repeated or falls back on you. Then we agree what is worth fixing before we choose the tool.
01
Diagnose
We start by understanding where your time and money are actually going. What's manual, what's repetitive, what's falling through the cracks.
02
Align
We agree on what's worth solving first and what success actually looks like. Before anything gets built.
03
Design
We map the solution. The right tools, the right integrations, built around how your business actually operates.
04
Coach
We don't disappear after launch. We stay close, refine what needs adjusting, and make sure you're getting the outcome we promised.
Rick has a passion for getting it right. The added bonus is the technical background. He thinks through strategically how best to help the client.
Steve H.
Chief Product Officer, IMS
Rick has the unique ability to see the whole picture. He connects with users to understand the business problem and shape the best solution.
Andrew M.
Partner, Elysium Digital
Rick has excellent sales and entrepreneurial skills. We have been able to do a lot of good business together.
Martin M.
Owner, Meier Business Systems
Why This Matters
I know what it costs when your business takes all your time
I spent almost 25 years on the road. Enterprise sales across Asia Pacific. Designing solutions, delivering them, helping businesses grow.
What I didn't do was make it to enough birthdays. Enough family dinners. Enough walks on the beach. Enough movie nights on the couch where nobody needed me to be anywhere else.
I know the value of time more than most. Not in a productivity sense. In a life sense. The normal moments and the special ones. I missed too many of both.
That's why this work matters to me. When I help a business owner automate the admin that keeps them at their desk until 10pm, I'm not just saving them hours. I'm giving them back the things that actually matter. The things you can't invoice for and can't get back.
About
Built by someone who runs a business, not just builds technology
I've spent more than 35 years working across the whole chain, from customer need and sales through to the people, systems and day-to-day work that deliver the result.
I started in operations, managing workshops, budgets, assets and the work that had to get done. I then spent 27 years across implementation, solution design, consulting, enterprise sales and leadership, including running a 30-person consulting firm across Asia Pacific.
That work covered asset management, inventory, field service, finance and quoting systems for organisations from small operators to hospitals, transport, utilities and government. It included the first mobile experience for three enterprise applications used by field teams, plus maintenance and quoting systems used across state housing networks.
I have also run some of the operations those systems were meant to support. That taught me to look at the whole flow: what the customer needs, what the team does next, where information is lost, what the systems make harder and who owns the decision.
For 15 years, I designed and shaped solutions with development teams. AI now lets me build many of those practical tools myself, at a size and cost that suits a small or mid-sized business.
That breadth is useful only if it helps solve the problem in front of you. If the answer is automation, I will build it. If the real issue is the information, the process, the handoff or the responsibility between people, we fix that first.
At TEAMSolutions, I use the same breadth to work on commercial systems in larger and more complex organisations. Here, the focus stays practical: the bottleneck in front of an owner and the simplest fix that will hold.
I'm based on the Mornington Peninsula. I work with small and mid-sized business owners across Australia, in person locally and on video everywhere else. If you're not sure where to start, or whether AI is even the right answer, that is exactly the kind of conversation I want to have.
Rick van Driel, Automation Expert
Investment
Straight talk on what things cost
Every business is different, so every solution is different. A chatbot for a physio clinic looks nothing like workflow automation for a trades company with 15 staff. Neither looks like a custom estimating app for a quoting business. It shouldn't cost the same either.
- We scope before we price. Always.
- We build to suit your budget, not ours
- Most clients start small and expand as they see results
- No lock-in contracts. No hidden fees. No surprises.
- We'll never recommend something you don't need
- If AI isn't the right answer for your problem, we'll tell you
Why does pricing vary?
The honest answer: because the work varies. A simple FAQ chatbot is a very different build than a fully automated quoting and invoicing workflow.
Pricing depends on the complexity of what you need, how much customisation is involved, whether it's a one-off project or an ongoing service, and the level of support and refinement you want after launch.
We'll always walk you through what things cost and why before you commit to anything. No surprises. That's a promise, not a tagline.
Want to know what's actually possible for your business?
Let's have a straight conversation about where AI can help and where it can't. No pitch deck. No pressure. Just practical answers.
Or leave your details and we'll reach out.
No spam. No sales scripts. Just a real conversation when the time suits you.
