AI-first operating systems · built by operators
See the whole business. Stop assembling it by hand.
Operating visibility for $3–20M owner-operated businesses. We spend a day learning how your business really runs, then build the system that ties your tools together, kills the manual data entry, and surfaces the numbers you can't see today — in 30 days.
We ran our own business on this system for years. Now we build it for yours.
What did we actually make on this customer?
revenue × time
Where did last week's hours actually go?
payroll × jobs
How much cash is already committed?
POs × AP
Which deals went quiet without anyone noticing?
CRM × email
Which unpaid invoice do we chase first?
AR × value
Each one bridged from two systems you already pay for — no new tools to buy.
The problem
You built this business. Now you can't see it clearly.
Someone asks you a question you should be able to answer in ten seconds — what did we actually make on the Delgado job? Is payroll covered next Friday? Which customer is quietly costing us money? — and instead of an answer, you hear yourself say "give me till Friday." Friday comes, and you're still exporting spreadsheets and asking three people.
Your business runs on four to ten systems that don't talk to each other — QuickBooks, a CRM, email, Slack, a vendor portal or two, and a stack of spreadsheets holding it together. Every week your people burn real hours re-keying the same invoice, the same customer, the same number out of one screen and into another. Someone keeps the real numbers in a Google Sheet only they know about. Someone else keeps them in their head. If either one leaves, part of the business walks out the door with them.
And the answers you actually need to run this thing — what each customer really earns you after the hours poured into them, where your engineers' hours are quietly going, which slow-paying invoice is worth chasing first, which deal went quiet without anyone noticing — every one of them lives in two systems at once. So nobody pulls them. Your gut is doing most of the strategic work. Sometimes your gut is right. Sometimes you find out at year-end that a customer you liked was a break-even account.
Too many systems. Too many people. No one sees the whole picture.
You've probably tried some of this before
Here's why this time is different.
What you've tried
A consultant wrote a 40-page report. It sat on the shared drive. Nothing changed.
Why this is different
We don't hand you a report. We ship working software wired to your real data, in weeks.
What you've tried
A dev shop built a custom tool to spec. They matched the spec. The spec was wrong. Now you own a tool nobody uses.
Why this is different
We embed for a day first and watch how work actually flows before we build anything. The spec comes from your reality, not a whiteboard.
What you've tried
A QuickBooks add-on, a CRM, or a dashboard product promised to fix it. It solved one piece. The other nine systems still don't talk.
Why this is different
We don't sell a product. We bridge the tools you already own so they finally act like one system — and we keep it working.
What we do
We find where the money and the hours leak. Then we build the system that stops it.
First — a day on-site
We shadow your team
We spend a day shadowing a handful of your people through normal work — watching where the same data gets entered twice, where the hours quietly disappear, and where a deal or an invoice slips through the cracks.
Then — we build it real
From your systems, not a template
A system wired to the tools you already use — bridging their data into the numbers you actually need, and automating the manual steps that eat your team's day. Built from your real data, so it matches reality and people trust it.
And — we ship fast
Weeks, not quarters
AI-assisted coding lets a small team ship in weeks what traditional consultancies quote in quarters. You don't wait three quarters to see the first number. You see it fast.
Why us
We built this for our own business before we built it for anyone else's.
I'm Jerry Eppler — I co-own Artek Integrated Solutions. Before we built any of this for a client, we built it to run our own shop.
Artek runs on the exact kind of system we're describing. We tied QuickBooks to our own CRM and connected Slack, Gmail, and our Read.ai meeting notes. We automated the late-invoice reminders so each one links straight to the actual invoice. We pulled in years of purchase orders, every daily time entry, and our staff records — then built a rich profile for every customer, so anyone can walk into a meeting already knowing the full story, instead of chasing down five people first.
We're not selling you a theory. We're handing you the same system that runs our business — rebuilt for yours.
There's a name for this model in the AI world — "forward-deployed engineering," where a senior engineer embeds in the business and builds against real data instead of configuring a template. Palantir invented it; OpenAI and Anthropic use it for their most important customers. We've quietly been doing the same thing for owner-operated businesses in the $3–20M range.
— Jerry · Artek
The offers
Start small. See it pay off. Decide from there.
Visibility Sprint
$12,000
The fastest way to hand one manual task to AI and see a number you couldn't get before.
- A day on-site, shadowing how your team really works
- Two of your systems bridged into one number you can't get today
- One AI-assisted workflow, live — the kind that reads your invoices or drafts your follow-ups, so your team stops doing it by hand
- A 90-day roadmap for the full operating system
- The built-in ROI tracker, live from day one
Operating System Build
Mid five figures
Everything connected and working for you — backed by the 2x guarantee.
- Everything in the Visibility Sprint
- 3–5 of your systems integrated and kept in sync
- Two live views: CEO Mode and Ops Mode
- Automated alerts — late invoices, stalled deals, capacity flags
- Multiple AI-assisted workflows — invoices read and filed, follow-ups drafted from your real numbers, and plain-English answers to questions about your own data
- Adoption program built in — ritual design plus automated weekly check-ins for the first 90 days, so the system actually gets used
- Ongoing evolution on a $2,000–$6,000/mo retainer
- Covered by the 2x ROI guarantee
Portfolio Operating System
Custom
For offices running more than one company who want the whole portfolio in one place.
- Cross-company KPI roll-up across 2+ portfolio companies
- One view of the entire portfolio's operating health
- Scoped to how your office actually invests and reports
The guarantee
If it doesn't land, we don't leave.
Most guarantees are theater. Ours is structured in two layers — one on the work we control, one on the outcome — because that's the honest way to stand behind this.
Layer 1 · what we control (hard promise)
Integrations live and accurate by day 30. One manual workflow decommissioned. Dashboards accepted by a named person on your team. Miss any of those, and we work free until they land.
Layer 2 · the outcome (service, not cash)
If measured 2x ROI isn't hit by month 12, we keep working — at our cost, capped at a set number of additional hours agreed at kickoff — until it is. The measurement methodology is defined jointly with you at kickoff and locked in writing. No cash refund. The system stays yours either way.
What we guarantee
- Integrations wired to your real systems
- Automations that kill the manual steps
- Dashboards your team accepts and signs off on
- Ritual design — how your weekly meeting uses it
- Automated weekly adoption check-ins for the first 90 days
What depends on your team
- Actually using the dashboards
- Following the ritual we design together
- Changing how decisions get made
We scope this into the engagement explicitly — but we can't guarantee it, because we don't do this part. You do. It only works if you're in the room with us.
Who this is not for
We'd rather tell you now.
That's machine-control work — the industrial automation half of what Artek does, not what we build on this side. If that's your need, we'll happily take a look at it with you. (Our automation side: artekis.io.)
The math doesn't work yet at that size. We'd just be taking your money, and we won't.
We can't find your blind spots from the outside. The wins come from you and your team walking us through where it actually hurts — the workarounds, the bottlenecks, the stuff everyone's just used to. If you're up for that, we're a fit.
Common questions
The questions owners actually ask.
How is this different from hiring a consultant or a dev shop?
Consultants deliver a report. Dev shops deliver software to a spec — usually the wrong spec, because the spec came from a whiteboard instead of your actual workflow. A forward-deployed engineer embeds in your business, learns how it actually runs, then builds against your real data. We ship in weeks because the person building is the same person who saw the problem.
What do you actually mean by an "AI-assisted workflow"?
An AI step wired into a real operating process — not a chatbot bolted on the side. It does one of three jobs: it turns messy input into clean data (reads invoices, emails, or POs and files the records, so nobody re-keys them), it drafts an action a human approves (the collections email or the quiet-deal follow-up, pre-filled with your real numbers), or it answers a plain-English question against your own data ("which customers are we losing money on?"). The Sprint includes one; a full build weaves in several.
What size businesses do you work with?
Owner-operated businesses between $3M and $20M in revenue. Below $3M the math doesn't work — the manual overhead we'd remove isn't big enough to justify the build. Above $20M you're usually better served by an internal team or a larger implementation partner.
What if we don't have technical staff?
You don't need any. We integrate against the tools you already use (QuickBooks, your CRM, email, Slack, and whatever else is in the stack). No new tools to buy, no engineer to hire on your side. Your team keeps working the way they work — the system does the connecting behind the scenes.
How does the 2x guarantee actually work?
Two layers. On the inputs we control — integrations live and accurate by day 30, one manual workflow decommissioned, dashboards accepted by a named user on your team — if we miss, we work free until we hit it. On the outcome — if measured 2x ROI isn't hit by month 12, we keep working at our cost until it is. Methodology is agreed at kickoff and written down. The system stays yours either way. We don't do cash refunds because refunds select for the least-committed buyers, and this only works if you're in the room with us.
What does the "adoption program" mean?
A system nobody uses is worth nothing, so we scope adoption in from day one. That means ritual design (how your weekly Ops meeting uses the dashboard), named owners for each surface, and automated weekly adoption check-ins for the first 90 days — the follow-up is built into the system, not another standing meeting. We treat behavior change as engineering work, not an afterthought.
Do you work with industrial or manufacturing businesses?
Yes — that's where we came from. Artek Integrated Solutions has run industrial automation projects for over a decade. If you need plant-floor SCADA or PLC integration, that's a different engagement (see artekis.io). Business operating systems — QuickBooks, CRM, email, POs, time — that's this offer.
What actually happens on the day you spend on-site?
We show up, ask you to point at the two or three people who touch the most systems, and shadow them through normal work. We watch what actually happens — not what the process document says happens. By end of day we've identified where the same data gets typed twice, where a number lives in someone's head, and where an invoice or a deal slips through the cracks. We leave with enough to build against; you don't have to prepare anything.
Let's talk
Let's find where your money and your hours are leaking.
Book a 20-minute call. If it's a fit, we'll talk about a Sprint. If it's not, we'll tell you that too.
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Or email
info@artekis.aiWho's behind it
Artek is a small, senior team led by Jerry — 11 years in industrial automation and a decade building software. We've run our own business on this system for years. Now we build it for yours.