I learn the business before I suggest anything.
Whether it's a customer at a branch or an owner running a small business, the job is the same: understand what they're actually dealing with, and earn the right to have an opinion about it.
I'm not the most technical person in the room, and I'm not trying to be. What I'm good at is people — getting someone to tell me how the work really goes, which is usually different from how it's written down.
So I enjoy the part most people skip: spending time with someone and learning how their business actually runs. Not the version on the website — the real one, where the owner keeps a spreadsheet on the side because the system doesn't do what they need, and nobody has had time to think about it.
That's relationship work more than anything else. Once someone trusts you enough to tell you what's really going on, the useful suggestion is often simpler than either of you expected. Getting to that point is the part I'm good at.
Anzures Boxing
A local boxing gym running on paper, text messages, and memory.
The useful part of this wasn't building anything. It was the conversations first: how new people found the gym, how membership was tracked, how interested visitors got followed up with, and where information was quietly getting lost. Most of what I ended up making came from listening to the answers, not from having an idea in advance.
What exists today
- A live public website answering the basic questions people ask about the gym, at anzuresboxing.com.
- A private admin dashboard for members and leads, with a foundation for payment tracking. It's built and private — not something you can go look at.
What's planned, not built
- Event management and ticketing
- Online payments
- Reporting
To be straight about it: I'm not a developer. This came together through AI help and a lot of trial and error, and the valuable part was understanding the gym, not writing the code. I also list the unfinished pieces on purpose — being clear about what's actually live is the same honesty I brought to recommending products to customers, and it's what makes the rest believable.
And the honest scope: this is one gym. I've started talking with a few other people in my community about doing something similar, but it's early and small right now. I'd rather tell you that than make it sound like more than it is.
Questions before suggestions.
The gym is the one place I've done this from start to finish. These are the steps I took there, and what I'd do again.
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Listen first, and long enough
People will tell you how the work really goes if you give them room to. The version I get in the first ten minutes is rarely the whole story, so I stay curious past the point where it would be polite to stop.
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Find what it's actually costing them
Time lost, customers confused, staff frustrated, money left on the table. If I can't describe the problem in terms the owner would use, I don't understand it well enough yet.
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Earn the right to suggest something
Nobody takes advice from someone who hasn't shown they understand the situation. That trust is built before the recommendation, not with it — the same way it worked with customers at the bank.
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Keep the suggestion small
The fix is often removing a step or deciding who owns something — no software required. When a tool genuinely is the answer, keep it as simple as the problem allows.
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Circle back
A suggestion nobody used didn't help. I'd rather come back and hear that something didn't work than assume it did — and staying in touch afterward is how a one-time favor turns into a relationship.
Tell me about the customers you want to keep.
If your team needs someone who will learn your business and look after the people in it, I'd enjoy that conversation.