One screen, one decision
We build business intelligence dashboards for small and mid-size businesses: one screen that answers the question you came in with and marks the one thing that needs a decision this week.
Our AI assistant asks about your project and can build you a free plan.
The problem
In most businesses the trouble is that the same number lives in four places and none of them agree. Somebody exports from the accounting system, somebody else keeps the real version in a spreadsheet, and the weekly meeting spends twenty minutes arguing about whose figure is right before anyone decides anything.
The usual fix makes it worse. Someone buys a reporting tool, connects everything to it, and gets nine charts with no order of importance and no hint of what to do next. It looks good in the demo. By week three nobody opens it, because nobody can tell what to look at first.
How we approach it
We start with the decision the screen should make easier: reorder stock, chase an invoice, move someone between jobs, stop buying ads that don't work. If nobody can name one, a dashboard is the wrong purchase, and we'll say so before you spend anything.
Once the decision is clear, one number goes first: the one that tells you whether you need to act this week. Everything else on the screen has to explain that number or show what would change your mind. Six numbers is usually enough. A chart that wouldn't make anyone do something differently is decoration, and we take it out.
Then we mark the one thing that needs a decision. Only one, so that "needs attention" keeps meaning something.
What it costs to be wrong here
A dashboard nobody reads does damage. It teaches people to distrust reporting, and whoever proposes the next one has to get past that memory first. So we cap the first build at one decision and three sources. If it's wrong, it's wrong cheaply, and it's specific enough that you can tell within a week whether it worked.
We agree on the numbers before we design the screen. A report built before anyone has decided which numbers judge the process cannot be saved by design. Settle those first and the screen almost draws itself.
A worked example
Take a distributor with three warehouses. Its report is a grid of thirty product lines by three locations, updated monthly, and nobody reads it.
The decision underneath is the same every week: what do we reorder, and from where? So the screen leads with the number of lines that will run out before the next delivery window. Below that come those lines, ordered by how much revenue each one puts at risk. One line is marked because its supplier has been slower than usual for three weeks running, a pattern a person skims past.
It runs on the same data and the same warehouse system as the old grid.
Fixed scope
Dashboard Sprint
What you get
- One dashboard built around a single decision
- Up to three data sources connected
- Up to six numbers that drive that decision
- One round of revisions after you have used it for a few days
- A handover guide and a recorded walkthrough, so it keeps working while you're on vacation
What we need from you
- Access to the sources, or exports if access is slow to arrange
- Data in a usable state. Reasonable cleaning of up to three sources is included; if a source needs rebuilding first, we say so before continuing and quote that separately
- One person who can answer questions about what the numbers mean
- A clear answer to "what decision should this dashboard make easier?"
What is out of scope
- Building a data warehouse
- More than three sources
- Row-level security and per-user permissions
- Ongoing changes after handover, which is what the care plan is for
- How long it takes
- Three to four weeks, start to handover. Start dates depend on current availability.
- What happens after
- Thirty days of fixes are included, for bugs and small corrections; new scope isn't covered. After that, an optional monthly care plan covers monitoring, fixes and a set allowance of small changes, with a minimum term of three months.
- Price
- We give you a fixed price before we start, usually within two business days.
Need something bigger?
Some businesses need more: several areas working from the same data, access permissions for each person, or a data warehouse behind it. We do that work too, and if the project grows, we bring in the people it needs. Even so, we start with one dashboard, because requirements change once people see a real screen.
Every project is handled directly by a member of our team.
If you let us publish what we build together, you get a discount. The work has to be something we can publish, and you approve every word before it goes live. Our team applies the discount when we quote.
Questions people ask
How long until I see something?
Three to four weeks from start to handover, and start dates depend on current availability. You'll see a working draft well before the end, and it's normal for that first look to change what you asked for.
What if my data is a mess?
It usually is. Reasonable cleaning of up to three sources is included. If the data needs rebuilding before it can answer the question, we tell you before going further and quote that part separately, so you don't find out at the end. If it's too broken to answer your question at all, we tell you that too. Hearing it early costs less than a dashboard built on numbers nobody trusts.
Do I need a data warehouse first?
Almost certainly not, and please don't buy one to find out. Three sources connected directly are enough for a first dashboard built around a decision. A warehouse is what you build once you've outgrown that.
What does a custom dashboard cost?
It depends on how many sources you have and what state they're in, so we quote after the first call. A number here would be a guess. Nothing is owed until you accept it.
What happens when I need a change?
Thirty days of fixes are included. After that you're not locked in: take an optional monthly care plan, or contact us when something needs doing.
Can you connect the system we use?
Usually, yes. We connect through an API or a reliable export. If your system has neither, we'll tell you before you spend anything, and we won't build something fragile around it.
What decision should your dashboard make easier?
Tell us the decision you're trying to make. If we're not the right people, we'll say so.
Our AI assistant asks about your project and can build you a free plan.