The problem
A one-person embroidery shop with great taste in product and zero patience for software. Orders were tracked in a notebook. Quotes happened over text. The Shopify storefront was four years out of date and didn't fit the way she actually took orders — which was: a photo, a count, a deadline.
What we did
- Diagnose — sat with her for a half-day, watched the actual order flow, made a list of what software should be doing for her vs. what she should keep doing herself.
- Customize Shopify — replaced the off-the-shelf product configurator with a custom variant flow that mirrors the way she quotes embroidery jobs. Fewer fields, better defaults, a built-in ruler.
- Process design — set up the rest of her stack (invoicing, file handoff, deadline tracking) so the parts that aren't customer-facing stop eating her evenings.
The result
Order intake takes a fraction of the time. She can quote from her phone. The Shopify admin matches how she actually thinks about jobs — by deadline, not by SKU.
"Sean made the technology side of my business feel manageable for the first time."
