Capabilities

Organized around problems, not a menu of services.

Ivylane can think, design, and build — strategy through shipped software, the same hands throughout. Each capability below states the problem it solves, what the work actually looks like, and where its honest boundary is. Every project gets a written, plain-English estimate before anything starts; the $499 Fix Sprint is the one flat-price package.

The problem: most software projects fail before a line of code — built for the wrong user, scoped ten times too large, or built at all when an off-the-shelf product already existed.

  • Turning a plain-English problem into a buildable definition
  • Finding the smallest version that's genuinely useful
  • Prototyping product concepts so an experiment stays a sensible size
  • Build / buy / don't-build recommendations — including "don't build this"

The boundary: we don't do strategy decks that never touch reality. Strategy here exists to be built — and the advice that a project shouldn't happen is free.

The problem: software that technically works but fights its users — and websites designed to impress other designers instead of the person trying to book, buy, or find a phone number.

  • Interface design for tools, portals, and products
  • Information architecture — what goes where, and why
  • Plain-English content and microcopy (often the real fix)
  • Accessibility and speed as defaults, not add-ons

The boundary: no decoration for its own sake. Every element earns its place, and if a page is finished with typography, whitespace, and one good image — it's finished.

The problem: sites bloated by page builders and plugins — slow to load, fragile to update, and owned in practice by whoever holds the login.

  • New builds, rebuilds, and landing pages — hand-coded, no page builders
  • Pages that load in under a second and score well without tricks
  • Structures ordinary people can update without breaking
  • Domains, hosting, and email set up in your name

The boundary: we don't build sites that need us forever. You own the domain, hosting, data, and code from day one — the work is judged by how well it survives without us.

The problem: the work your business does in spreadsheets, retyping, and "the way we've always done it" — because custom software used to be priced out of reach.

  • Internal tools: dashboards, calculators, admin panels
  • Customer portals, booking and intake systems
  • Integrations that make two systems finally talk to each other
  • Small software products, built to be operated — we run four of our own

The boundary: we build things a small organization can actually maintain. If a solution needs a platform team to babysit it, it's the wrong solution for you, and we'll say so.

The problem: real, repetitive work that software should be doing — and a market shouting "AI" at all of it, whether a model helps or not.

  • Workflow automation: reports, follow-ups, file wrangling, data entry
  • Retrieval and extraction over your own documents and data
  • Assistants that know your hours, prices, and policies
  • Audit and scoring engines — the kind that powers CloudPlus
  • Evaluation: measuring whether an AI feature actually works before trusting it

The boundary: AI is an engineering capability here, not a marketing word. When a deterministic script is the better tool — which is often — that's what you get, at deterministic-script cost. We wrote down the rule we use.

The problem: the aging database, the creaking WordPress install, the spreadsheet everyone's afraid to touch, the half-finished build a previous developer left behind. The business runs on it; nobody wants to look at it.

  • Rescue and stabilization of fragile or abandoned systems
  • Migrations with your data intact — and in your hands afterward
  • Aggregation pipelines that normalize scattered sources
  • Rebuilds onto foundations ordinary people can maintain

The boundary: we don't rewrite for rewriting's sake. If the old system has years left with modest fixes, that's the recommendation — modernization is a judgment call, not a reflex.

The problem: stores that launch well and then bleed — app bloat, messy product data, manual routines, and integrations nobody wired up.

  • Shopify theme work tuned for speed and clarity
  • Product catalog structure that survives growth
  • Storefront-to-backoffice integrations that end the retyping
  • Operational streamlining — we run a storefront ourselves, daily

The boundary: every app and plugin has to earn its monthly cost. Most stores need a fraction of what they install; restraint is the commerce capability nobody sells.

The problem: being invisible where customers actually look — which now means Google and ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google's AI answers.

  • Visibility audits: what search engines and AI assistants actually see
  • Schema markup, structured data, llms.txt, and listing consistency
  • Speed and structure fixes that move real scores
  • The Fix Sprint: top 10 audit findings, fixed in 5 business days, $499 flat

The boundary: no tricks, no "SEO magic," no chasing algorithms. Structure, clarity, and speed are what both search engines and AI reward — and they're checkable, so we prove improvement with before-and-after scores.

How every engagement works

The same rules, whatever we're building.

Written estimate first

A plain-English scope and a written estimate before any work starts. Nothing begins until it's approved, and if scope changes along the way, we talk first.

You own everything

Domain, hosting, data, and code in your name from day one. You're never locked in — to us or to anyone.

No handoffs

A direct line to the person doing the work. No account managers, no telephone game between you and the code.

Honest "no" included

If an off-the-shelf product solves it, or the idea isn't worth building, we say so before you spend money. That advice is free.