# Oli Nelson > AI consultant & software engineer, based in Coffs Harbour, NSW · working anywhere. I build software for small businesses. You tell me what your business needs. We work it out together, then I design, build and deploy it. Contact: olivernelson@hey.com · 0458 341 473 Enquire: https://bosun.olinelson.com/enquire/work-with-me Website: https://olinelson.com ## About Your app, live in about a month. I’m Oli. I build software for small businesses. You tell me what your business needs. We work it out together, then I design, build and deploy it. One person, from the first conversation to live software. No sales guy. No project manager. No hand-offs. Before software I was a professional jazz drummer — a Bachelor of Jazz Performance from the Sydney Conservatorium, the James Morrison Jazz Scholarship, a podium finish at the Australian National Jazz Awards, and albums reviewed in the Sydney Morning Herald. What that taught me: theory only matters when it actually changes what happens in the room. You’d be working with one real person who picks up the phone — not a sales team, not an offshore shop, not someone who vanishes after the invoice clears. **Based in** Coffs Harbour on the NSW Mid North Coast, Australia — working with local businesses and clients anywhere. The first call is free. I’ll say if I can help. ## Sizes Most projects are live in about a month, for a fixed one-off fee. It depends on the size. Most are Small. - **Small:** $5,000 — Live in about a month. A focused app that solves a specific problem in your business. - **Medium:** $10,000 — Live in about two months. A larger workflow, with more screens, more automation, or more moving parts. - **Large:** from $15,000 — Three months or more. For substantial systems that need more time to design, build and test properly. ## After the app is live Once your app is live, you choose what happens next. Keep the lights on, or keep building. - **Lights-on:** ~$60 per month — At cost, plus 20%. Bug fixes only. Hosting, services, and the bits that keep the app running. That’s it. - **Steady:** $1,000 per month — Two major features and four small changes each month. For a business that wants the software to keep getting better, without going all in. - **Brisk:** $5,000 per month — Ten major features and twenty small changes each month. For a business with a lot to build. - **Hammer and tongs:** $10,000 per month — Twenty major features and forty small changes each month. Building flat out, with a major feature going live every working day. ## Terms Bug fixes are unlimited on every plan. You pay at the start of each month and stop when you want. The software and your data are yours from day one. ## Consulting, by the day Separate from the fixed-price builds above. I help fix businesses. I get inside the business, work out where things are getting stuck, and fix them. We work it out together. Then I fix what needs fixing. Sometimes that means changing a process. Sometimes it means writing some software. Usually it’s a bit of both. I work by the day. You get me inside the business, not a slide deck. I’ll sit with the people doing the work, follow the process from beginning to end, find the unnecessary steps and bottlenecks, and work out what to change. Then I’ll make the change. I can write the code myself, so there isn’t a hand-off between figuring out the solution and building it. - **Fix the process:** I’ll spend time with the people doing the work and find where it’s slow, repetitive or needlessly manual. Then we’ll simplify it. - **Fix the software:** If the answer is software, I’ll build it. A new feature, an integration, an automation, or a small internal tool. - **Fix the whole thing:** Sometimes it’s all of it: the process, the software, and the way people work. I’ll keep fixing until the business runs better. I can also drop into an existing software team. If you’ve already got a product and a development team, I can work inside it too. I can take on a difficult feature, fix something that’s been sitting around too long, help make a technical decision, or build the AI feature that everyone has been talking about but nobody has shipped. I’ve spent most of my career working inside other people’s teams and codebases. I don’t need to own the project to be useful. The rate depends on the work. Tell me what is going wrong, what you’d like to improve, or what you’re trying to get done. I’ll work out the shape of the engagement and come back with a day rate in Australian dollars plus GST. Two days is the smallest engagement worth either of our time. A day rate makes sense when we don’t know exactly what we’re going to find yet. If we can define the work properly, I’ll usually give you a fixed price instead. No consulting theatre. I’ll get into the business, understand what’s actually happening, and help fix it. If the answer is a process change, we’ll change the process. If it’s software, I’ll build the software. If it’s both, we’ll do both. The goal is to make the business work better — not to find a reason to keep me around. Read more: https://olinelson.com/consulting.html ## Experience I’ve been building software for 7.8 years. Before software, I was a professional jazz drummer. I’ve built for startups and established businesses, and I’ve built and run my own products. So I know both sides: building software for a business, and being the person whose business depends on it. My newest product is [TradieBridge](https://tradiebridge.com): Simpro, Xero and Deputy backup in a copy you own, that you can ask with AI. A$49/month. These days I work directly with the people who use the software. No layers between you and the person writing the code. - [Uscreen](https://www.uscreen.tv) - [Rapid Global](https://www.rapidglobal.com) - [Nirovision](https://www.nirovision.com) - [WithYouWithMe](https://withyouwithme.com) - [iCare OCULO](https://www.oculo.com.au) - [Ricordi](https://ricordi.ai) - [Maestrocast](https://maestrocast.com) - [TradieBridge](https://tradiebridge.com) ## Proof — things Oli has built - **A real-time safety agent** — Built for an industrial-compliance company: AI that watches live site camera feeds and flags hazards and accidents the moment they happen — alerting the team in real time, before a near-miss becomes an incident. - **Ricordi** — My own AI product — built solo (https://ricordi.ai): An AI platform for music teachers: record a lesson and it becomes a timestamped practice plan automatically. I built the whole thing alone — the AI, the web app, the iPhone app, the brand. - **Automatic thumbnail generator** — Built for a video platform: A system that turns any video into eye-catching, on-brand thumbnails automatically — the kind of repetitive busywork that used to eat hours, done in seconds. - **Maestrocast** — My own product — live & paying (https://maestrocast.com): A video platform built for online music lessons. A paying studio runs about 30 lessons a week on it. I built all of it — the product, the software, and the support behind it. ## Track record - **Founder, TradieBridge, Ricordi & Maestrocast** (2025 — now): Founded and built three of my own products from nothing — the software, the AI, the brand, the support — and put them in front of real paying users. - **Product Engineer, Uscreen** (2025 — 2026): Built new features end-to-end for a video platform used by thousands of creators — including its AI tools — and led the team’s use of AI to build faster. - **Software Engineer, Rapid Global** (2023 — 2025): Shipped AI to production fast for an industrial safety-and-compliance company — a live safety-monitoring agent and a plain-language site assistant among them. - **Software Engineer, Nirovision** (2020 — 2023): Built the systems that connected a security product to the accounting and payroll tools its customers already used, and automated their billing. ## Technical capability - **AI & automation:** LLM apps · AI agents · computer vision · voice & transcription · Anthropic API · OpenAI API · retrieval (RAG) · AI-assisted development - **Building software:** Full-stack web apps · iPhone apps · real-time video · automations & integrations · payments & billing · dashboards - **Under the hood:** TypeScript · Ruby on Rails · Node.js · Python · React · Hotwire · PostgreSQL · AWS · Stripe ## Writing - [Human Programmers - a manifesto](https://olinelson.com/words/human-programmers-a-manifesto.html): In a world of abundance, the answer is curation . When the barriers to entry are lowered, the differentiator is taste . When machines are more capable than… - [The Gift of Abstraction](https://olinelson.com/words/the-gift-of-abstraction.html): When I began taking drum lessons from David Goodman everything changed for me. I had had wonderful drum teachers previously, but there was something about… - [How did I get here?](https://olinelson.com/words/how-did-i-get-here.html): From age ten my sole goal in life was to be a professional Jazz drummer. I’m not exaggerating. ‘Jazz Drummer’ was effectively my conjoined twin, forcible… - [Ruby Procs and Lambdas for the Javascript developer](https://olinelson.com/words/ruby-procs-and-lambdas-for-the-javascript-developer.html): If you're like me and are one of the many "Javascript everywhere" developers joining the Ruby on Rails Renaissance you may be a little confused by Blocks,… - [Build and host your own link-in-bio page](https://olinelson.com/words/build-and-host-your-own-link-in-bio-page.html): This guide is intended for people who have zero or very little exposure to anything related to coding or web development. By the end of this you'll have your… - [Yes, You Should Learn How To Code](https://olinelson.com/words/yes-you-should-learn-how-to-code.html): The year 2025 is almost upon us. If you listen to certain parts of the internet you would be forgiven for having the impression that all things programming… - [We Are All Eyeball Hunters Now](https://olinelson.com/words/we-are-all-eyeball-hunters-now.html): I used to think trying to gain a following on social media was an activity for the vain. The superficial Plebeians who lacked any substantive passions so… ## Links - [GitHub](https://github.com/olinelson) - [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/oli-nelson/) - [X](https://x.com/o_j_nelson) - [Blog](https://olinelson.com/words.html) - [Music](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/02iL2Vi9ONfgVKVG5DfGYz?si=bd53fa2abd8d4f5a) - [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/olinelson__) ## Work with Oli To work with Oli, send an enquiry at https://bosun.olinelson.com/enquire/work-with-me, email olivernelson@hey.com, or call 0458 341 473. Not sure you need an app? That’s fine. Tell me what’s annoying you, what takes too long, or what your team keeps doing by hand. We’ll work out whether software is actually the answer. If it’s not a good fit, I’ll say so. I won’t sell you. Tell me what you need. I reply within a day, usually faster. Full text of every article is available at https://olinelson.com/llms-full.txt and https://olinelson.com/feed.xml.