One operator, not a dev shop.
I am Carlos Franco. I run a fractional operating practice from Fort Myers called SMB Startups. This site covers the part of that practice that started the whole career: building the tool a business needs when nobody sells it.
I read every one and reply within the day. When an off-the-shelf product covers it, I tell you which one and stop there.
- Twenty years in luxury goods and precious metals
- Twelve companies operated, six of them mine
- COO of a private vault, family owned since 1983
- Fort Myers, Florida. English and Spanish.
Twelve
companies operated, six of them his own, on software he built
790+
products in a catalogue that started at 105, run from one internal tool
15,868
records synced between two systems every run, zero failures
Thirty
live sites generated and shipped from one engine
Why a software site
Somewhere in the middle of twenty years in luxury goods and metals, I stopped waiting for engineering capacity and started building it myself. The operating system that runs a private vault, the platform behind a jeweler with three codebases, the tool that runs a catalogue of hundreds of products across a render farm: none of those existed to buy, and each one is why the business that runs on it works.
The same gap sits inside most owner-operated businesses in Southwest Florida. There is one process, usually the one that makes the money, that no off-the-shelf tool fits. The owner has priced a custom build, seen a number with a comma in it, and gone back to the spreadsheet. This site exists for that one process.
The way I build has changed the number. AI writes most of the code; I direct, review and reject every line. A scope that used to be months is now weeks, and the result is yours: your repository, your servers, your documentation. If the tool is the smallest of your problems, the wider practice covers operations, automation and demand. Same person. Say so on the form.
What I will not build
A tool that replaces something you can buy for a fraction of the price. A system without a written process behind it. Anything that runs on my servers so that you depend on me. Code without a runbook and tests where they matter. And I do not resell software or take fees from vendors, so the build-or-buy answer is not for sale.
Tell me what is in the way.
A short form and a same-day reply from the person who would write the code. When buying covers it, the reply says what to buy.