a Houston-area wholesale distributor
I built it with the owner. Then he took over the changes.
A new website, then a back office for reorders, purchasing, pricing, delivery and sales. In the month after handoff, the owner made 55 of the 56 changes himself, with Claude. I made one.
- 55 of 56
- changes after handoff, made by the owner (Aug 18 – Sep 11, 2026)
- 59
- back-office screens
- 24
- chapters in a staff guide built into the app
Before
When we met in April, a lot of the daily work was done by hand.
Someone worked out each reorder. Purchase orders were spread across email and vendor web forms. Proof-of-delivery photos were moved into each order one by one. Customers ordered from a PDF catalog.
What I said in April
We can even set you up with AI-powered tools so you can make simple changes yourself — without calling a developer.
I wrote that before there was any code. The rest of this page is how it went.
What was built
I built the new website. The owner and I built the back office together, and he was building alongside me from June.
The website
A new site for their customers, with main content in 3.2s, down from 21.0 (launch-week lab test, May 2026).
The back office, built alongside the owner
- Reorder monitor
- Shows what is running low and what to reorder, based on what sells.
- Purchasing run
- Turns the reorder list into a purchase order for each vendor.
- Pricing and margin
- Shows the cost and the margin behind every price.
- Delivery routing
- Sends each day's stops to their routing software. Pulls the delivery photos from each stop into the back office.
- Sales inbox and quotes
- Customer requests land in one inbox, and quotes go out from there.
- Roles
- Each person sees the screens their job needs.
- Staff guide
- A 24-chapter how-to guide built into the app, so anyone can look up how a screen works.
Timeline
- April–May: new website.
- Mid-May to mid-August: the back office, with the owner building alongside from June.
- August 17: handoff.
The handoff
Before August 17, I made most of the changes. After it, the owner made nearly all of them. Of his 70 changes since June, 69 were made with Claude.
From April to July I made most of the changes, and the owner joined in from June. After handoff on August 17 that flipped. From September 1 to 11 the owner made 52 changes and I made 1.
| Month | The owner | Me |
|---|---|---|
| Apr | 0 | 16 |
| May | 0 | 31 |
| Jun | 6 | 38 |
| Jul | 9 | 45 |
| Aug | 3 | 24 |
| Sep 1–11 | 52 | 1 |
Each bar is a month of changes. The software is the website and back office of a Houston-area wholesale distributor. The last bar is September 1 to 11.
What he's shipped since
He made these himself, with Claude, in the weeks after handoff.
Delivery rescheduling
A missed or partial delivery can be moved to a new day.
In-place order updates
When their ordering platform sends an order again with changes, the back office updates the one it has.
Reorganized vendor matching
He reworked how each product is matched to its vendors.
- 43
- of his 55 changes after handoff also updated the staff guide (Aug 18 – Sep 11, 2026)
Still on call
The owner makes the everyday changes. I stay on call for anything that breaks.
How on call works
When something breaks, you text me and I pick it up. If the cause is in my work, there's no invoice.
Let's see if this fits your business.
Answer a few questions, then book a 30-minute call. We'll talk through how your business runs today, what's worth building and what isn't. You'll leave with a clear next step, whether or not it's me.