Systems, digital and commercial problem-solver
Computer scientist by training. I've run my own businesses for nearly twenty years, and I keep one or two days a week for other people's, as a consultant or on the board.
What I do
Systems and data
When the ERP, Shopify, Amazon and the accounts all give different answers, I work out which one is right and fix the others. If the tool you need doesn't exist, I'll build it.
Recent: Shopify and ERP stock sync forensics for a sports nutrition brand
Websites, SEO, digital
Rebuilds and migrations that don't lose traffic, technical SEO, and getting more out of the online shop. I run my own portfolio of content sites, so I've already made most of the mistakes.
Recent: 13,718-page migration for a large content site
Commercial diagnostics
Margins, stock valuation, VAT, pricing, discount codes. I read the P&L next to the systems that feed it, because that's usually where the gap is.
Recent: Amazon VAT reconciliation for a contract manufacturer
Board and governance
Sometimes that's a seat on the board. Sometimes it's getting a weekly scorecard going and making sure the Monday meeting actually decides something.
Recent: Change control and KPI registers for a consumer brand
Ways to work
| Way | What it involves | Fee |
|---|---|---|
| Diagnostic | Two to four weeks on a fixed question. You get a written report with every figure sourced, and a plan. | From £5,000 |
| Advisory | Half-day sessions with the MD or leadership team, booked as needed. | Ask |
| Fractional | One or two days a week, working inside the team. Three-month minimum. | From £3,500 a month |
| Non-executive | A board seat, for companies where systems and digital should have a voice at the table. | Ask |
| Equity partner | Building and running something together. A lower fee plus equity or a profit share. | Ask |
Fees exclude VAT. Diagnostics are priced on scope once we've talked.
Recent findings
| Business | Work | Finding |
|---|---|---|
| Contract manufacturerNutrition and supplements | Amazon VAT reconciliation across invoices, settlements and the ERP | Six-figure VAT reclaim identifiedV |
| Contract manufacturerNutrition and supplements | Cost review across 2,000+ SKUs | Six-figure stock undervaluation foundV |
| Consumer brandSports nutrition, direct to consumer | Checkout audit, with live tests of 11 discount codes | Five-figure leak through one codeV |
| Consumer brandSports nutrition, direct to consumer | Diagnosed a Shopify to ERP order outage | Verified all 1,300+ orders imported, none missedV |
| Specialist manufacturerLaboratory furniture | Website, search and systems review | In progress |
V means checked against the source system. Clients are described rather than named.
Things I've built
| Project | What it is | Built with | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| PlanPostOwn product | Planning applications from 389 councils, classified, matched to builders and turned into posted letters. | Next.jsPostgreSQLBullMQStannp | → |
| Specialist property sourcing engineOwn product | Geospatial search for off-market property opportunities across England and Wales, built from open data. | PostGISGeoPandasFastAPIMapLibre | → |
| House sourcing and valuationBuilt for property investors | Undervalued-house finder and valuation reports, joining a dozen open government datasets. | Open government dataUPRN matchingNext.jsPostgreSQL | → |
| LSP ManagerOwn portfolio | Property management and month-end for 7 companies and 66 units, pushing to Xero and FreeAgent. | Next.jsPostgreSQLXero APIFreeAgent API | → |
| Amazon operations and VATClient work | Amazon SP-API tooling: stockout-aware forecasting, restock sizing, and a three-way VAT reconciliation. | PythonAmazon SP-APINetSuite SuiteQLFastAPI | → |
| Shopify Plus, subscriptions and ERP syncClient work | Shopify Plus fixes by API under change control, subscription clean-up and inventory sync forensics. | Shopify Admin GraphQLRechargeNetSuiteCeligo | → |
| Cold email outbound engineBuilt for a SaaS business | Finds prospects, verifies them, writes a factual opener from local data, and triages the replies. | DataForSEOCompanies HouseClaude HaikuInstantly | → |
| WordPress to CloudflareOwn sites and client sites | 13 WordPress sites rebuilt as static sites on Cloudflare, with URLs and search rankings kept. | AstroCloudflare PagesWorkersPagefind | → |
Read every spec sheet: what each one does, what made it hard, and the full stack.
My own ventures
City-centre apartments, freehold apartment blocks, family homes and shared houses. 66 lettable units, managed with software I built.
Four holiday lets in Portinscale, by Derwentwater, bought in 2020. We did a full back-to-brick refurbishment, split the title and sold the flats in 2022, after sorting out a Land Registry map with the party wall in the wrong place and a boiler that also heated the house next door.
High-spec family homes on two sites: a pair of detached houses on a green-belt plot at Mill Lane, near Lymm, and two 240 m² semis on Manchester Road, Altrincham.
Turns planning applications from 389 councils into direct mail for builders. The map is drawn from its data.
A 13,718-page reference site that's been online for about thirty years. I own it with a partner, and we rebuilt it in 2026.
How I work
About
I've run my own businesses since 2007. These days that's Living Smart, my property business, and Solid Digital Marketing, which owns a handful of websites and PlanPost.
Living Smart owns a mix of city-centre apartments, freehold apartment blocks, family homes and shared houses: 66 lettable units, managed with software I built.
Before that, I got a First in Computer Science from the University of Manchester in 2006, with an internship at Sun Microsystems along the way. I did Accenture's grad scheme, then left to work for myself, and I haven't had a boss since.
I grew up in St Bees, on the Cumbrian coast where the Coast to Coast walk starts, and I live in Altrincham. The mark is a cross-section of Mellbreak, a quiet fell above Crummock Water.
Contact
If I can help, I'll say so. If I can't, I'll probably know someone who can.