01
How long is this actually going to take?
One named improvement lands in month one - promised in writing at the start, shown working live at the end. Your side of it is one half-hour call a month. We do the rest.
AI Systems for Owner-Run Businesses
COLD LAVA
Your Business, On One System
The tech team you didn't even have to employ.
We take the repetitive work that eats your week and build it out of your business until everything runs on one system. Keeping up with AI is our job, not yours.
Construction · Trades · Renewables · Recruitment
Oliver Tatler · Jacob Stray
Cold Lava AI Ltd · Chichester, UK
coldlava.ai
01The Problem
You're the Bottleneck. And You Know It.
You've watched the videos. Opened ChatGPT a few times. Maybe paid for a tool that's still sitting there. And the quotes still go out at midnight. Owner-run businesses don't stall for lack of opportunity - they stall because every quote, every chase and every decision still routes through one person.
01
Quotes that live in one person's head - so pricing stops when that person does
02
The owner answering every WhatsApp, including the ones a system should catch
03
Leads going cold in the CRM - money you already earned the hard way, sitting dormant
04
The weekly spreadsheet ritual: the retyping, the version confusion, the formula nobody trusts
05
Software everywhere and nothing joined up - every tool another login, another export, another gap
06
New starters on paper forms, documents chased by hand
07
Hiring your way out of it, then watching the bottleneck move down the org chart and multiply
“You're not behind. You're just where every owner gets to on their own.”
02What We Build
Your Business, Running on One System
We don't sell software off the shelf. We build your business its own operating system - projects, people, money and comms in one place - and grow it month by month around how you actually work. One client runs 81 live projects through theirs. Stop buying tools. Start getting work done.
Hire an AI Employee
Not a chatbot. A round-the-clock team member that answers, chases, books and files while you sleep. The conversation in the phone is real - an AI recruiter from one of our live client systems, qualifying a candidate, requesting documents and filing them, with no human involved until judgement is needed. Yours gets designed around your business.
And One for Your Team
That one faces the outside world. A second kind faces your team: ask in plain English - who is free this week, which documents expire this month, where did that job get to - and it answers from your live data.
G
Gemma
online · 24/7
A real conversation from a live client system - tap the link the AI sends
EnquiryAnsweredQualifiedDocuments filedBookedOn one screen
Every step that used to be a phone call, a notepad or an email chain now runs automatically - and your team sees all of it in one place.
03What We Build
What It Replaces
Your spreadsheets
The weekly ritual retired - live figures on one screen, one version of the truth.
Your notepads and group chats
Every enquiry, message and decision captured in the system, not in someone's pocket.
The CRM nobody opens
Clients, pipeline and follow-ups where the work actually happens - with the chasing automated.
Your missed follow-ups
Dormant leads, unbilled hours, unanswered quotes - surfaced and chased by an engine that never forgets.
Your paper forms
Onboarding, sign-offs and inductions - digital, signed, filed automatically.
The month-end surprise
Margins, money and risk visible on the day, not discovered when the accountant calls.
The agency invoice
A website your staff edit like a document and publish themselves. No developer wait.
We replace, augment or add around what you already run. Nothing you trust gets ripped out.
04The Proof
Live in Real Businesses Today
Nothing in this deck is a concept. A £13M roofing group runs 81 live projects through their system, margins flagged daily, down from 359 chaotic boards. A £40M contractor had 1,177,240 files mapped and priced before we quoted their migration. A luxury travel operator had 300 pages rebuilt byte-exact, with 6,866 members rescued, when their old platform was switched off.
100+
Live deployments in client businesses
12
Clients in 8 months
1,320
AI build sessions this year
You are not buying a promise. You are buying systems that already work.
05The Method
How It Works: One Named Improvement, Every Month
Cold Lava BuildsThe PromiseYour SideOutcome
- 01Your Side
A Twenty-Minute Call
You tell us how the business actually runs. We show you a system like yours running live and name the first thing we would build.
- 02Cold Lava Builds
The Operational Map
We diagnose the business with the same hands that build it - where the hours go, what eats the week, where the pressure sits.
- 03The Promise
One Named Improvement, in Writing
Promised at the start of the month. You always know what you are paying for.
- 04Cold Lava Builds
Built, Bespoke
Not configured, not templated - built around how your operation actually works.
- 05The Promise
Shown Working, Live
At the end of the month you watch it run on your real work. Not a slide, not a demo environment.
- 06Your Side
Your Team Signs It Off
Nothing you trust is switched off until its replacement is live and your people have approved it.
- 07Outcome
The System Grows
A live dashboard shows what shipped and what is next. The backlog is yours to reorder any time.
One named improvement, every month, in writing - until the repetitive work is built out of your business.
The Three-Month Trial
Every Engagement Starts With a Trial That Works Both Ways
Our recommended structure is a three-month trial. It gives us enough time to deliver, enough time to understand how we work together, and it works both ways: at the end, either of us can walk away. No lock-in. Everything we build is yours from day one.
A defined exit, a named deliverable each month, and nothing held hostage.
06AI Employees
Round-the-Clock Team Members, Built Around Your Business
Not chatbots. AI employees designed around how each business runs - answering the enquiry, chasing the document, filing the paperwork at 3am. Nine are live in client systems today.
What They Handle
- Every inbound enquiry answered and qualified, 24/7, on the channels your customers already use
- An AI recruiter that interviews candidates, chases documents and files them around the clock
- Social publishing hands-free: 1,556 posts and 220,000 impressions for one client while the manager got their week back
- New-starter inductions taken from paper to digital - drawn signature, PDF filed automatically
Where the Line Sits
- Judgement stays human - your team can step into any conversation at any point
- Every message logged in the system, visible to your team the moment it happens
- A team-facing assistant answers plain-English questions from your live data
- We make your people more powerful. We won't pretend the goal is replacing them.
The repetitive work runs alone. The judgement stays yours.
07Commercial Control
Run the Business From One Screen
Projects, people, money and risk in one place - live during the day, not discovered at month end.
What You See
- Who is where, what shipped, what is stuck - across every live job
- Margins flagged daily: one £13M roofing group went from 359 chaotic project boards to 81 live projects with margins and approvals on one screen
- Live figures pulled from the tools you already run - one client's sales command centre went live in a single build day
What Stops Happening
- Rekeying the same numbers into spreadsheets that disagree with each other
- Money you already earned going missing: for one client we found 1,249 dormant leads sitting idle and built the engine to bring them back
- Finding out at month end what you needed to know on Tuesday
The dashboard is not a report. It is where the business runs.
08Ownership
It's Your System. Not Ours.
Every password, every login, every line of code: yours from day one. If we vanished tomorrow, it all keeps running.
Yours From Day One
- The code, the logins, the data - handed over as they are built, not held hostage
- Everything built in the three-month trial is yours, whichever way you decide at the end
- Your data is never pooled with other businesses, never sold, never used to train anything outside your walls
Built Around What Works
- We replace, augment or add around what you already run
- Whatever else your operation runs on, we wire it in
- Nothing you trust gets switched off until its replacement is live and signed off
Ask the last company that sold you software for the same promise.
Straight Answers
Ask Us the Hard Questions
By this point in any serious conversation there are five questions in the room, asked or not. We would rather answer them before you ask.
02
We tried AI before and it didn't stick. Why would this be different?
Because nothing we build is templated or configured. It is built around how your business actually runs, shown working on your real work, and nothing is switched off until its replacement is live and your team has signed it off.
03
Is this going to replace my team?
No. The repetitive work runs alone: chasing, logging, reminders, filing. Judgement stays human, your people can step into any conversation at any point, and we make them more powerful. We won't pretend otherwise.
04
Do I still own everything if you disappear?
You do. The code, the logins, the data: in your name from day one. If we vanished tomorrow, it all keeps running - and your data leaves with you.
05
What about the tools we already use?
We replace, augment or add around what you already run. Whatever your operation runs on, we wire it in - nothing you trust gets ripped out.
Whoever you talk to about AI for your business, ask them these same five questions.
09Who Does the Work
So Who Actually Does the Work?
Cold Lava is a UK team that builds for owner-run, operations-heavy businesses. The people on the call are the people who build the system.
01
Oliver Tatler
Technical Lead & Build Architect
Leads every build on Cold Lava's production line. Custom systems for how you work, not how Silicon Valley thinks you should.
02
Jacob Stray
AI Strategy & Architecture Lead
Turns how the business actually runs into what gets built. The person who maps your operation is the person who architects the system.
03
Cold Lava Engineering
Engineers & AI Specialists
Engineers, AI specialists and automation consultants behind every engagement - the bench behind the 100+ deployments already live.
Working With Us
Two Ways to Work. One Way to Start.
01
The Monthly Retainer
One named improvement every month, promised in writing and shown working live. Pick your pace - from one build day a month to your own embedded tech department. The same team at every tier, and everything built is yours from day one.
02
Fixed-Scope Builds
One defined system, built properly, fast. You set the deadlines. We tell you the price. For businesses that need a specific thing delivered before committing to a monthly rhythm.
The best way to understand what we do is to see it running. We don't do slide-deck demos - every question is answered with a working system from a live client business, not a promise.
- 01Twenty minutes, no slides: you talk us through how the business actually runs
- 02You watch a system like yours running live - and we name the first thing we would build for you
- 03A proposal configured to your business - then a three-month trial that works both ways
- 04Not the right fit? We will say so, and point you somewhere useful
The conversation starts with your operation, not a product pitch.
Want the full picture, prices included? Explore coldlava.ai