Most of what I do is invisible. That's sort of the job — when an automation works, nobody thinks about it again, and when a system is well built, it just quietly runs. The consulting side of Advanced Monkey has always been like that: a small number of clients, known deeply, with the work living inside their businesses rather than out in public.
But something has changed over the last couple of years. The client work started producing products.
It happens naturally. You build something to solve one client's problem properly, and halfway through you realise the problem isn't unique to them. BuildReady started that way — an exam-prep platform built because the off-the-shelf option held our client's own content hostage. So did the AM Engage Portal, which began as a way to send our own proposals and now handles quoting, signing and invoicing end to end. There are more on the bench.
What this blog is for
I want to tell that story as it happens, not after the fact. So this is where I'll write about:
- The products — what's being built, why, and when you can get your hands on it.
- The journey — the honest version of running a small consultancy while building products on the side: what works, what didn't, what it costs.
- The practical stuff — lessons from client work (anonymised, always) about what AI and automation actually do for a small business, minus the hype.
No content calendar, no filler. I'll write when there's something worth saying, and keep it short when short is enough.
Follow along
If you want the next post — or early access when a product launches — there's a signup just below. You choose what you hear about, and every email has an unsubscribe link. That's the whole deal.
We're all monkeys. Tools make us advanced. Let's see where this goes.