I never thought it was a skill. I thought everybody saw this stuff.
For most of my career, fixing broken systems was my side quest. The thing I did because I literally could not stop myself. I’d walk into a paper operation and think this could run itself — and then I’d make it run itself. Not because anyone asked. Because the puzzle was right there and I can’t leave a puzzle unsolved. I genuinely assumed everyone thought this way. They don’t. (Turns out that’s the whole thing.)
New hire. No training manual. So I built one.
I walked into my first real job and discovered there was no onboarding documentation. New hires learned by shadowing and hoping. That made zero sense to me. So I built the training manual — structured it, wrote it, got it into use — and moved on like it was nothing.
Because to me, it was nothing. It was just obvious. That’s been the through-line my whole career: I see the gap, I fill it, I move on. The fact that nobody else filled it first is still genuinely confusing to me.
Top sales. Every district. Every time. Because I sold the “why,” not the feature.
I hit the top of the board at US Cellular — and I'll tell you exactly why, because it matters to what I do now. I loved the tech. I knew every feature, every spec, every use case. But I figured out early that knowing the tech wasn't what got people to buy. What got them to buy was finding the one thing that would actually matter to them — and being honest about it. The grandmother who came in wanting to see her grandkids didn't need a data plan explained to her. She needed someone to show her picture messaging and explain it in a way that made sense to her life. The businessman rushing through the door didn't need a feature list. He needed a Blackberry and a clear-eyed explanation of exactly how it would change the way he worked. So that's what I gave them — no sugar-coating, no overselling, just an honest case for the real value. That grandmother came back. And she brought her friends.
That instinct is the through-line in everything I've done since. The tools changed — phones became websites, websites became AI workflows — but the move has always been the same: read the person, find the human reason underneath what they're asking for, and connect the technology to that. Be straight about what it costs and what it's worth. I don't promise what I can't deliver, because I'm the one who has to show up and deliver it. I don't sell features. I sell value. And the reason people come back — and send their friends — is that they always get exactly what I said they would.
By 2007, I could see that the phone market was changing in a way that didn't interest me anymore. “New” was becoming just “faster,” and the work that had been genuinely fun was starting to feel like a ceiling. So I made a calculated decision, walked away from a winning streak on purpose, and went back to school. I’ve made that kind of call more than once. I haven’t been wrong yet.
Dean’s list. President of the chapter. And yes — I digitized those too.
Went back to school. Top of my class — Dean’s list, student of the month, teacher’s assistant. Founded the student paralegal association chapter and served as president. Then president of the local professional chapter after graduation, where I built their digital infrastructure because obviously I did.
Then private law offices. Firm after firm, same pattern: walk in on paper, walk out fully digital. Every time. Not because it was in my job description — because I was a good paralegal who physically couldn’t look at a broken system and leave it alone. It wasn’t heroic. It was just me being incapable of doing otherwise.
I never once thought it was marketable. Then we found out we were expecting, and suddenly the side quest needed to become something more.
You have the skills. I’ll sell them. I’ll learn the rest along the way.
Michael had been building DNN websites since version 4. He is exceptionally good at what he does. He is not, by his own admission, a sales or client communication person — and he’d be the first to tell you that. When we found out we were expecting, I left my paralegal career and we made a decision: we’d build the studio together, on his technical foundation, with me running everything client-facing. I told him: you have the skills, I’ll sell them. I’ll learn what I need to along the way. We weren’t betting on blind confidence — we were betting on a real combination of skills that complemented each other. We wanted to work from home and build something of our own, so we did.
What I didn’t expect was how quickly the work evolved. As we built websites, clients started venting about their internal systems — the chaos behind the scenes, the stuff that was slowing their teams down and costing them money. I started making suggestions. They started taking me up on them. So I started building internal systems for them using Zoho — CRM pipelines, automations, document flows. That work grew until it was bigger than the website projects. Clients weren’t just hiring us to build their digital front door anymore. They were hiring us to fix how their business actually ran.
Then AI entered the picture — and for me, it clicked immediately and differently from anything before it. It fits the way I think. Michael is a coder; AI is my domain, because it works the way my brain works: pattern recognition, systems logic, translating intent into output. Looking back, the studio has always had exactly what the work required — just in different forms at different times. The skills didn’t change. They kept growing to meet what was needed. And right now, what’s needed is everything we’ve been building toward.
I know what you’re thinking. “Paralegal, sales, project manager, Zoho consultant, now AI — which one is the actual expertise?”
All of them. Because every single chapter was built on the same underlying skill: read what’s broken, figure out what’s needed, and build it. The label kept changing. The work didn’t. And AI isn’t a pivot — it’s the thing that finally removes every ceiling I used to run up against. I can go deeper, move faster, and take on complexity that would have taken months to build manually. Same instinct. Dramatically different capability.
Traditional web development is heading where telecom went in 2007. I saw that ceiling before most people said it out loud. So I’m not reacting to AI — I’m positioned for it. MCP integration. Claude and OpenAI API. AI-powered workflows. Custom apps that replace subscription stacks. Automation that runs entire operations without a human touching it.
I’ve made calculated moves my whole career. I’ve walked away from winning streaks when I saw the ceiling coming. This is not that. This is the one I’ve been building toward. And I’m just getting started.
Two founders. Both in the work. Every project.
I’m the one who sits between you and the technical chaos and makes it make sense — which means I run discovery, map your workflows, figure out what actually needs to be built, and then build it, direct Michael to build it, or tell you honestly when something off-the-shelf is the right call. No agenda either way. The right answer is the right answer.
I have a paralegal background, which means I’m wired for research, precision, and making complex things legible to the people who need to understand them. I pick up new platforms fast — genuinely fast — and I don’t just learn them, I learn them well enough to teach them. That matters because my goal isn’t to make you dependent on me. Clients walk away understanding how their own systems work, not just trusting that they do.
I won’t disappear after delivery. And I won’t walk away from a puzzle that isn’t solved yet — it’s genuinely not in my nature.
Michael is the builder. A DNN developer since 2004, he handles front-end development, platform architecture, and the deep technical work that keeps everything running. His contributions are in the DNN community codebase — he’s been building at that level long enough that other developers recognize his name.
When Michelle designs the system, Michael builds the parts that need to be built from scratch. When a client needs something that doesn’t exist yet, he writes it. He doesn’t implement tools — he writes the functionality those tools run on.
Quiet. Precise. Highly capable. Exactly who you want when the work actually matters.
We work in whatever tool fits your business.
We don’t push a preferred platform. The tool always follows the business need. If none of the existing tools fit, we build something you won’t have to pay subscriptions for forever.
Clients have included ShootATA (the digital platform for competitive archery and shooting sports), government agencies at the state and federal level, international wine and hospitality brands, national agricultural distributors, and small businesses across nearly every industry — from medical practices to nonprofits to solo founders who needed a system and didn't know where to start.
Tell me where you are.
I’ll take it from there.
Pen and paper or already on Salesforce — it genuinely doesn’t matter. I’ve started from worse. Tell me what’s broken, what’s slow, or what you’re tired of doing by hand — and I’ll tell you what’s possible. No fluff. No 40-page strategy doc. Just a real conversation.