Here is everything I do, what it costs, and how I do it. No gate, no form, no "book a call to learn more." If you read this and go fix your own business without me, that is a fine outcome — most of what I sell is execution, not secrets.
Who I am
I'm JD Kemp. JAK Labs is me — one senior engineer, not an agency with a project manager and three juniors. That's deliberate, and it's the thing I'd tell you to look for in anyone you hire: ask who is actually writing the code, and how many other projects they're on this month.
I build the software that lets a small service business run without its owner holding everything in their head.
What I actually build
Three things, and they're all the same thing wearing different clothes:
- Getting work in. Lead capture, quoting, follow-up that happens whether or not you remember. Most small businesses lose more money to un-chased quotes than to anything else.
- Running the work. Scheduling, dispatch, job tracking, what got done and who did it. The stuff currently living in a group chat and your memory.
- Getting paid. Invoicing, payment, who owes you what and for how long. If you cannot answer "how much am I owed right now" in ten seconds, this is where your money is hiding.
Stack: AWS, React, and a lot of automation. That matters less than you think — pick the person, not the technology.
What it costs
Most builds land between $2,500 and $10,000, depending on how much of the above you need and how messy the current process is. I'll quote fixed where I can and tell you honestly where I can't.
I publish this because the alternative is you spending three calls trying to find out. If that number is wrong for you, we've both saved a week.
The free part: what I'd tell you before you hire anyone
Check your website on a phone. Right now.
I audited 456 Michigan business websites in August 2026. 47% had a JavaScript error on the homepage. 33% had a phone number you could not tap. The owners did not know, because the page looks fine on the laptop it was built on.
Tap your phone number. Try to book. Try to send an enquiry and check it actually arrives. There's a free tool on this site that runs seven of these checks for you in thirty seconds.
Count the places your business lives
Write down every place a piece of information about a job exists: the group chat, the notebook, the calendar, the spreadsheet, three inboxes, and your head. Every one of those is a place something gets lost.
The goal is not "one system for everything" — that's a consultant's fantasy. The goal is that each kind of information has exactly one home. Jobs live in one place. Money lives in one place. Whether that's software or a single shared spreadsheet matters less than that there is only one.
Automate the thing you do most, not the thing that annoys you most
Everyone wants to automate the annoying quarterly task. The money is in the boring thing you do forty times a week. Forty small frictions cost more than one large one.
Your follow-up is worth more than your marketing
Most small businesses I look at have a decent flow of enquiries and a terrible flow of follow-up. Doubling your leads is expensive. Chasing the quotes you already sent is free, and almost nobody does it consistently, because it requires remembering.
That's the single highest-return automation available to a service business, and it is not complicated.
Know your three numbers
What you're owed right now. What a job actually costs you to deliver. Where leads come from. If any of those takes more than a minute to answer, that's the first thing to fix — before any software.
Don't buy a platform for a problem you can describe in a sentence
If your problem is "I forget to send invoices", you do not need a $600/month platform. You need a reminder and a template. I've told people to buy nothing more than once. Software should be the last resort, not the first.
Why I work this way
I built this stuff for my own business first. Haslett Handyman runs on a CRM I wrote — email comes in, tickets get created, jobs get scheduled, invoices go out, and I can see what's owed without asking anyone. It handles six figures of work a year and I am not the bottleneck in it.
That's the whole thesis: I'm not selling you a tool, I'm selling you the version of your business that runs when you're not in the room. I know it works because I did it to myself first, and I'll show you the actual system rather than a slide about it.
And I publish the method because the method isn't the scarce part. Knowing that your follow-up matters more than your marketing doesn't build the follow-up system. Most owners read this, agree, and still don't have time — which is exactly when it makes sense to call someone.
How to work with me
Start with the free 30-minute Operations Audit. I walk your site and your process the way a customer would, and tell you what I find — including "you don't need me" when that's the answer. No charge, no pitch, no obligation.
I'm in the Lansing area and I'd rather meet local businesses in person. If you're further out, a call works fine.
Get in touch, or run the free website check first and bring me the results.
