Who you’d be hiring.
Everyone else is selling you a login. I’m asking ten of you to hire me onto your leadership team — ten, and never more than ten.
Inside this industry
I’ve been here twice now — the same company both times, five years in total.
- 2018I moved what was then Emerald Roofing off an expensive “agency-hosted” website onto WordPress, and off an old Access database onto AccuLynx. It was a ton of work, and Emerald was only eight years old at the time.
- 2024I came back to help Emerald get to the next level, after record storms produced a record year. I started by making the data honest — processes, cost coding, the AccuLynx–QuickBooks gap.
- What came of itThat data is how Emerald Roofing reorganized into Emerald Exteriors, and it’s what got an SBA loan approved to fund the move. I stayed on as their integrator until the structure got strong enough that they no longer needed a full-time version of that role.
I worked myself out of a job. That outcome is this product.
Now I’d like to do it nine more times.
Outside this industry
The rest of the job came from everywhere else I’ve worked.
Years of middle management at big companies — Deloitte, ConAgra, AT&T, an MBA somewhere in there — and I suppose that’s the pedigree. What I mostly learned in those rooms was how many good ideas die in committee, which is a large part of why I’d rather answer to ten owners than to one more org chart.
Between my two runs at Emerald I was at mega-trucking company Werner Enterprises, responsible for their driver-facing technology and leading a SAFe Agile team (industry term) of product owners and the 40-plus developers behind them. That’s the most recent big-company experience on my résumé, and that SAFe Agile part is why I’m current on how good systems get built, regardless of how or what they are.
How I work
I’m a newly-minted empty-nester based in Omaha, often working out of my Starlink-equipped Sprinter while chasing sunsets. While my geography varies, my day-to-day does not: I generally love to plan my work, and work my plan. What this means for you is a lot of standing calls and due dates, although I am always available for urgent things.
I manage my AI developers with discipline, too, in the same way I managed my Werner team. The same processes, same reviews, same arguments about what done means — and I’ve built more in weeks than I shipped in years at Werner, some of it right from my literal driver’s seat, by voice. (This was mostly due to ideas dying in committee, not due to my team. They were rockstars.)
So yes, I do realize that one partner company per market means a lot of road. I deliberately went looking for that.
Michelle Cali LinkedIn →
Questions
Are you basically a custom AI developer?
No. A developer waits for somebody to hand them a spec. Most of my expertise is working out what the spec should be, and that takes sitting inside your business.
The building is real work though, and it’s a large part of what you’re paying for. But if all you needed was somebody to build what you already knew you wanted, you could hire that by the hour and it would be cheaper. What’s hard to buy is the person who finds the thing worth building, builds it, and then lives with the result.
Why not find one bigger company to work for?
I’ve had that job. The trouble with one company is that you only ever see one company’s problems, and you only ever build what that one company will fund this year. Once you know me a little, you’ll see that solving problems is closer to a hobby than a job for me.
So ten is better for me and better for you. None of you funds it all alone, and I get a steady stream of problems worth solving.
Does this replace my CPA?
No, and I’m not a CPA. Nothing here is tax advice or tax preparation, and your accountant keeps doing exactly what they do now.
What changes is what you hand them. Costs are coded to the job as they happen instead of reconstructed in March, and the two systems agree before anyone opens a return. That tends to make their job easier — and it means the conversation you have with them can be about next year instead of last.
How do I know you’ll still be doing this in three years?
Because it’s the job I went and built on purpose, after having the other ones. Ten owners, one per market, a steady supply of operating problems and nobody’s committee to get through — that is the arrangement I want, not a stop on the way to something else. Also, for as long as diesel is $6+ a gallon, I need the write off.
And the part that doesn’t depend on my intentions is on the pricing page: everything is built in your systems, documented, and yours from the day it’s built.
Ten partner companies. One per market. Seats open now: 9.
Contact me