THOUGHTFOXRECEIPT 005 · HANDOVER
- Source code
- yours
- Trained team
- yours
- Your data
- stays yours
- Vendor lock-in
- none
- Who checks its work
- named
100%owned by you
** BUILT TO RUN, NOT TO DEMO **
005 08 0000Custom AI Software: The software you couldn’t justify building. Now you can.
For businesses without a large technology team. AI now writes most of the code and plugs into the systems you run, so software that once cost too much is within reach. We build it, hand over the code and train your team to run it.
Not ready to talk? Take the 5-minute AI readiness check
Sound familiar?
“We’ve wanted our own system for years. The quotes always came back too high.”
“Our competitors can buy the same AI tools we can. Where’s the edge in that?”
“Whoever builds it, my team has to run it, secure it and answer for it.”
Find the constraint
What’s holding your growth back? Build to lift it.
AI Adoption and AI in Your Core Work start from the bottom up, with the people who do the work. This starts from the top. We walk your value chain with your leaders, the chain of work that turns an enquiry into income, and find the constraint holding back growth. Then we build to lift it. Try it on five businesses that make, move or build things.
Find the constraint. Build to lift it.
Your value chain
- Order in
- Plan productionThe constraint
- Make
- Quality check
- Ship
Plan production: The production plan lives in spreadsheets, and every change ripples through by hand.
The build
A planning tool that reads orders, stock and machine capacity, and suggests the schedule.
- AIAI drafts the plan and reworks it when orders change
- Your systemsOrders, stock and machine data
- Your know-howYour planners’ rules of thumb
- Your teamPlanners approve the plan
Examples written by ThoughtFox to show the idea.
Proof: built by ThoughtFox
Software that once cost too much. Built, and in daily use.
Until now you had two choices: pay for software built for everyone and use a fraction of it, or fund a development project few businesses could justify. Now there’s a third: software built around exactly how you work, at a cost that makes sense. Pick one to see what we built, what it connects to and what changed.
ConstructionProject controls monitoring
Clear, configurable views of project progress, replacing harder-to-use reporting software.
Read the case study →Vertical SaaSAgentic coding and reporting€6.1m in new annual value in year one, with 99% of code written by AI agents.
Read the case study →Venture capital firmsDue diligence and reportingSoftware for due diligence and reporting, with AI built in.
Read the case study →Facilities managementCase and client managementThe client management system that runs their casework.
Read the case study →Professional servicesAccounting softwareAccounting software built for Irish requirements.
Read the case study →Our own businessRunning ThoughtFoxOur CRM, sales and invoicing, expenses, VAT, payroll and project boards in one system, connected to AI.
Read the case study →What you get
What’s now within reach, built to run, not to demo.
Three things have changed. AI writes most of the code, it can plug straight into the systems you already run, and it can draw on everything your business knows. Software that once needed a large development team, a big budget and months of building is now a small team’s project, measured in weeks.
Your own system, built around how you work.
Business applications, reporting and dashboards, case and client management, shaped around your rules rather than a vendor’s.
Your systems joined up.
AI working across the systems you already run, so nobody copies information from one to the next, and old data comes across cleanly.
AI agents, if you want to explore them.
Agents that act on their own, built with you and kept within set limits.
Products that set you apart.
Internal or customer-facing, with AI built in, opening new revenue or setting you apart in your market.
How it works
A scoped project, ending at handover.
Each build is a scoped project. We help you pick the few worth building: leaders who get the most from AI pursue about half as many opportunities as others, and expect more than twice the return (BCG, 2024).
A custom build
For businesses with an idea worth building, or work no tool on the market does well.
Start where the work gets stuck.
From your AI Strategy, or a session of our own, we take the few points worth building for and test each one: build, buy or rent a tool, and what the build must return. You decide whether to go ahead, and the business case is yours either way.
Build it with your people.
In short rounds, tested on real work by the people who’ll use it, with your IT team involved from the first week.
Hand it over.
Source code, documents, tests and a team trained to run and change it without us.
- Time:
- the business case first, then a first working version in weeks, not months. Scoped and quoted for each build.
- You leave with:
- software in daily use, the figure it was built to hit measured once it’s live, and everything you need to run it.
Our part: the business case, the design, the build, testing and handover. Your part: a sponsor, the people who do the work, and access to your systems and IT team.
After handover, support is there if you want it. Clients with a run of builds ahead can keep a team on hand.
The same principles behind every build
A build is still a change in how people work. The expertise behind our other services runs through every one.
Change and adoption.
The people who’ll use it help shape it, managers lead the change, and we check it’s being used, not just installed.
AI Adoption →Governance.
Rules for data, access and who checks its work are built in from the start, the same rules as Safe AI Use.
Safe AI Use →Who leads this
Led by people who build and run AI.
Ben and Niki lead a hand-picked team of engineers, working hand in hand with our partners.
Ben Churchill
Co-founder & CEO. Twice a CEO, including taking a software company through its listing on the Australian stock exchange. Now Chief AI Officer at Ocuco.
Niki Hettema
Co-founder, Operations & Automation Lead. Finds work people do by hand, automates it and gets it adopted: he built the systems ThoughtFox itself runs on. Spent nearly fifteen years with Google across Ireland, Germany and the US.
What the team brings
- Agentic codingAI agents write the code; our engineers direct and check every change.
- CloudBuilt, hosted and run on the cloud you choose, and watched once live.
- Data modellingYour data shaped so reports, apps and AI all read it the same way.
- Predictive modelsForecasting demand, delays and risk before they show up.
- IntegrationConnecting your systems through MCP servers, APIs and command-line access.
- Company brainsYour know-how and data in one place, behind every AI tool.
Questions people ask
Before you book the call.
Hasn’t custom software always cost a fortune?
To build, much less than it did: AI writes most of the code, so the team is smaller and the time shorter. Running it still costs, so we cost that over several years and compare it with buying or renting first.
Where does it run, and who sees our data?
Where you choose, including your own cloud, under access rules your IT team sets. Your data stays yours.
What happens when the AI models change?
We build so the model can be swapped without rebuilding the rest, and test again before any change goes live.
Can you work with our IT team or supplier?
Yes. We build to their standards, involve them from the first week and hand over to them.
Something you’ve always wanted built? It may now be within reach.
Bring the idea that was shelved because the quote came back too high. We’ll tell you honestly whether to build it, buy it or rent it.