Where I work
Six cities across three counties, all within an hour of my office in Fort Myers. Each one changes what a custom tool has to do, and the city pages say how.
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.
Fort MyersFort Myers businesses run at two speeds, a winter where every screen is under load and a summer where the office is one person, so a custom tool here is built for the peak and left to be the second employee through the quiet, which is the opposite of how the software gets bought.NaplesA Naples business sells fewer, larger transactions to clients who notice a wrong name on a certificate, so a custom tool here is not about volume, it is about a single record that every document, invoice and message is produced from, entered once and never retyped.Cape CoralCape Coral is trades country, with the owner on a job site across a city of canals most of the day, so a custom tool here starts from what a phone can do in a driveway, a photo, a text, a tap, and the office end of it does the typing that there is no office to do.Bonita SpringsA Bonita Springs business works both sides of the county line, two permit offices, two tax treatments, two customer expectations, so every record in a custom tool here carries the county as a field and every checklist, invoice and report forks on it, or half the jobs get the wrong paperwork.EsteroEstero's businesses are mostly younger than the village's big retail centres, arrived with a scheduling app, a mailing tool, a form builder, a project tracker and a spreadsheet, and the custom-software job here is nearly always consolidation, one tool that does the two or three things those five were bought for, written to how the business actually works.Punta GordaPunta Gorda owners are often closer to selling the business than starting it, and a buyer pays for operations that run without the founder, so a custom tool here is built as documentation first: every process in the system, every step with a named owner, readable by someone who has never met the owner.
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.