Straight answers, including the awkward ones.

No. Manufacturing is the most developed example so far, because that is where the live system runs, but the same approach works for wholesale and distribution, and the shapes on what Noti builds.

The building blocks work anywhere a business is creating information and not using it.

Custom, but not from scratch. Behind the scenes there are standard building blocks, run sheets, inventory, planning, QA, alerts, dashboards, but how they come together is shaped to your business. More on the approach.

Most businesses do not need that. For them there is the Noti platform: the same thinking as software you sign up to and configure, rather than a build. Custom is for the operations the platform genuinely cannot fit.

You are probably not. The question is not your size, it is whether something is slowing you down that is worth fixing. Size changes the recommendation, not the answer. For a very small operation the right fix might be a process change or an off-the-shelf tool rather than a custom build, and I will say so.

That is the usual situation, and almost no business starts from zero. I work with what you already have, Xero, Square, MYOB, your warehouse system, your booking platform, instead of asking you to rip it out. The point is to connect what is already there, not replace it.

A few signs: you are the only one who knows what is actually happening across the business. Your team cannot do their job without asking you first. Your nights and weekends go on catching things that slipped. People copy the same numbers between five systems every week.

If that sounds familiar, the part wearing you out is not the business. It is the chasing.

No. Everything Noti builds runs on stable, predictable systems, the same kind of technology your accounting and banking tools run on. Rules, schedules, databases, dashboards, alerts. No models that make things up, no behaviour that changes without warning, no per-query costs that blow out as you grow.

AI can sit in one specific spot if it genuinely saves you time. It is never the core.

Most builds run 2 to 8 weeks from sign-off to live. Smaller systems land at the short end. Larger ones, with hardware to install, several connections to make, or staff to train, take longer. Every proposal spells out the timeline. I will not promise you two weeks if it is going to take six.

Four stages: a free call, then a paid Discovery day that produces a roadmap you own, then a fixed-price build, then month-to-month support. The full sequence is here.

For NSW clients, yes, at least once. I want to see the operation, meet the people who will use the system, and watch the work happen. You cannot build the right system without seeing the work. For other states I sort it out case by case, and I will tell you straight which one you need.

One point of contact who can answer questions and make decisions, access to the systems the build touches, and the okay to watch your team work. That is about it. No project manager, no steering committee, no workspace with twelve people in it.

A Discovery day is $1,000 plus GST, covering greater Sydney, and it is credited in full against a first build signed within six months. That is the one number I can give you before seeing the place.

The build itself is quoted after Discovery, because every business is different and any figure published here would be a guess. Then a simple month-to-month for hosting and support. Exact numbers are in writing before you commit to anything. How the money works.

Hosting, support, small refinements, security updates and direct access to Patrick. Bigger new features are quoted separately. Costs I pass straight on, things like text messages, AI usage and outside services, sit on top at cost and are never marked up.

That is part of the build, not an afterthought. Spreadsheets, exports from whatever you are running now, order histories, customer lists, product and pricing data. I bring it across, check it against what you expect to see, and fix what does not line up before you go live.

It is itemised on the quote at what it is actually worth and included in the fixed price, so it is not a surprise line halfway through. The one thing quoted separately is genuine archaeology, reconstructing records that only exist on paper or in somebody's memory. After a Discovery day I will tell you which of the two you have.

Yes, though not in the way software companies usually mean it. Nothing starts guessing. What changes is that the maths gets sharper as your own history builds up: reorder points that know your real lead times instead of a number somebody typed in once, forecasts built on your actual demand, quality limits calculated from your actual line, maintenance timed off your actual failures.

In year one it tells you what is happening. By year two it can tell you what usually happens next, because it has been watching your business for two years. That is your data doing the work, not a model.

No. Your business gets its own database, a separate one, not a row in a shared table with a filter on it. What gets reused across clients is the code, the standard building blocks like inventory, run sheets and alerts, which is exactly why a build is a fixed price and 2 to 8 weeks instead of a six-figure project from scratch. Your numbers, customers and margins are not visible to anyone else and are not pooled with anyone else's.

If you would rather be separated completely, on your own accounts and your own hosting, that can be done. It costs more to build and to run, so it gets quoted, but the answer is not no. Ownership and continuity in full.

On Noti infrastructure, at your own address: yourbusiness.noti.au. Your team gets logins and the screens built for your business. You are not buying a server to look after or a codebase to maintain, you are getting a system that is run for you, which is what the monthly covers.

Your data stays yours and you can export it whenever you want. If you ever want the whole thing moved onto hosting of your own, that can be done too. Ownership and continuity in full.

Yes. Month to month, 30 days notice, no lock-in. You leave with your data, the documentation and a copy of the code that runs your system. Your system is hosted by Noti, so moving it onto hosting of your own is a job in itself, and I will either quote it or hand everything over to whoever you want doing it. If I am not earning the fee you should be free to walk. That is deliberate, not a concession. Ownership and continuity in full.

That is what the monthly is for. Businesses change and the system should change with them. Small adjustments are included. Bigger changes are quoted when they come up. No surprises, no creep.

Yes. Noti is Patrick Lemon, the same person who answers the first email, runs the first call, builds the system and supports it afterwards. A few clients at a time is the model, on purpose, and it is not a stepping stone to an agency.

A fair question for a one-person business. Everything runs on standard, well-known services rather than custom hardware or a proprietary platform, and every system is documented. You would have working code, an export of your database and enough documentation for someone else to stand it up. Your system does not live in my head. The longer answer.

Yes, in management. That is on purpose. Every system Noti builds draws on one I still use and run today. It is not a line on a CV, it is a job I am still doing, and being on the floor is what keeps the work good.