Russ Ward.
Edition · Spring MMXXVI
Custom Software for Multiple Income Streams

Custom software
for entrepreneurs with
multiple income streams.

For established business owners juggling a primary company, side investments, and revenue-share plays — who don't have the time, the patience, or the in-house tech to manage another freelancer. I scope the friction, build the fix, and ship in under 30 days. Communication-first. Flat fees. No retainers required.

Book the Audit See the work →
By the Numbers
10+
production apps shipped this year
2–4 wk
typical delivery from kickoff
<$15K
most builds, flat fee
100%
owned by you. no vendor lock-in
Brokerage Owners Dealership Operators Agency Founders Mortgage Company Owners Multi-Practice Doctors Investor-Operators Specialty Service Owners Brokerage Owners Dealership Operators Agency Founders Mortgage Company Owners Multi-Practice Doctors Investor-Operators Specialty Service Owners
01 / Who I Help

If you've been
burned by a freelancer
who couldn't just ship,
this is for you.

i

You Have Multiple Income Streams

A primary business plus 1-3 side plays — investing, revenue-share partnerships, secondary product lines. You don't have the bandwidth to learn another platform or babysit another contractor.

ii

You Already Tried the Stack

Zapier, Make, off-the-shelf SaaS, the "automation VA" you hired on Upwork. You're paying for 10+ tools and the workflow that's actually killing you still doesn't have a clean fix.

iii

You've Been Ghosted Before

You hired a freelancer or agency and they vanished, missed deadlines, or shipped something half-finished. Now you're skeptical — and you should be. Communication is the entire job.

iv

You Buy to Save Time

You'd rather pay $10K to make the problem disappear than spend 40 hours learning another tool. Invoice sent, invoice paid. That's how you make decisions about everything else — software shouldn't be different.

02 / Selected Work

Ten real builds.
Each one solving a specific business problem.

Every project below is shipped, used in production, and walked through on video. Click any title to watch the full Loom tour.

01
Chrome Extension · CRM · GHL

Lead King Messenger CRM

Watch the walkthrough
Problem
Operators running real business through Facebook Messenger — ads to personal profiles, group leads, client conversations — lose deals in the inbox. No tags, no stages, no contact data, no way to push any of it into a real CRM without manual copy-paste.
Build
A Chrome extension that lives inside facebook.com/messages, paired with a full kanban CRM dashboard. Tag conversations, capture contact details, take notes, drag contacts through custom pipeline stages — all without leaving Messenger. Bidirectional GoHighLevel sync built in. Multi-tenant by design.
Result
Turns the Messenger inbox from a black hole into a real sales pipeline that feeds the rest of the GHL stack. Replaces $67/mo half-solutions with a tool that actually does the GHL integration.
02
Real Estate · SaaS

Real Estate Investing Deal Finder

Watch the walkthrough · 8 min
Problem
Investors waste hours combing MLS exports and listing sites for properties that match their buy criteria — and miss the deals that close fastest.
Build
A web app that ingests listing data, scores deals against custom investor criteria, and surfaces the best matches with a one-click contact workflow.
Result
Replaces 4–6 hours per week of manual property hunting with a daily ranked feed.
03
Voice AI · Middleware

Vapi / GoHighLevel Bridge

Watch the walkthrough
Problem
Agencies using Vapi voice AI couldn't get clean call data, summaries, or transfer logic into GoHighLevel sub-accounts without breaking every time something changed.
Build
Multi-tenant middleware with five webhook endpoints per client, Anthropic-powered call summaries, prompt builder, and a one-click sync. Built for agencies serving multiple clients.
Result
Cut Vapi ↔ GHL setup from a half-day per client to under 10 minutes. Now used as the backbone of my agency's voice AI offer.
04
Automotive · Dashboard

Car Dealership KPI Dashboard + Popup Generator

Watch the walkthrough
Problem
Dealership marketing teams couldn't see lead-source performance in one place, and building website popups required a developer every time.
Build
Dark-themed analytics dashboard pulling from Google Sheets and GHL, plus a self-serve popup builder with two-screen lead capture, image upload, and dual webhook integrations.
Result
Replaced ~$1,200/month of stacked SaaS tools and gave non-technical marketers a popup they can launch in five minutes.
05
Sports · Decision Tool

Football Simulation Game Strategy

Watch the walkthrough
Problem
Sim football players (a passionate niche on WhatIfSports) had no good way to pick game-plans, set targets, or analyze results post-game beyond memory and gut feel.
Build
A full strategy app with formation-aware target distribution, AI-generated post-game articles, PDF exports, halftime adjustments, and admin-controlled video coaching.
Result
Live SaaS at wischeatcode.com with paid users and an active beta-tester community. Proof I can ship and run a real subscription product.
06
Conversational AI

Hope Bot

Watch the walkthrough
Problem
People going through hard moments often need a calm, non-judgmental space to talk and pray — outside of business hours and without a paywall in the way.
Build
A faith-friendly chatbot tuned for emotional support and prayer, with a deliberately careful prompt design and tone control.
Result
Demonstrates careful prompt engineering, voice/tone discipline, and the kind of nuance most "GPT wrappers" never bother with.
07
Mortgage · SaaS

Originate HQ — Loan Officer Tools

Watch the walkthrough
Problem
Loan officers juggle referral partners, refi opportunities, and pipeline status across spreadsheets and CRMs that don't talk to each other.
Build
A multi-tenant mortgage SaaS with a Referral Partner Portal, Refi Tracker, and per-LO workspaces. React + Node + SQLite.
Result
A complete prototype that proves I can architect, build, and host a real multi-tenant SaaS — not just a single-purpose tool.
08
Mortgage · Internal Tool

Pipeline Optimizer for Loan Officers with ADD

Watch the walkthrough
Problem
A working LO doesn't need another CRM — they need a single screen that tells them exactly who to call right now and why.
Build
An AI-driven pipeline app with green/yellow/red priority scoring, a "What to Do Right Now" banner, Focus Mode, append-only notes timeline, and per-loan-type checklists (FHA, Conventional, VA, USDA, Jumbo).
Result
Built for and used by a real loan officer in production. Replaces three different tools and a sticky-note system.
09
AI Research Tool

Best Podcast Finder

Watch the walkthrough
Problem
Anyone trying to grow a brand by guesting on podcasts has to manually research shows, audience fit, and contact info. It's brutal.
Build
A research tool that surfaces best-fit podcasts based on topic, audience, and host style, with quick-pull contact discovery.
Result
Compresses hours of podcast research into a single search. A reusable template for any "find-my-best-fit" tool a client might need.
10
iOS & Android

Wholefully Healed — Native Fitness App

Watch the walkthrough
Problem
A personal trainer wanted her own branded app to deliver workouts and nutrition coaching — without paying $200/month forever for a white-label fitness platform.
Build
A native iOS & Android fitness coaching app, built and shipped through Apple App Store review and Google Play.
Result
Live in the App Store. Proof I can take a non-technical founder from idea to a published native app — the most demanding delivery process there is.
"

The code is table stakes.
What you're paying for is someone
who picks up the phone.

— Working Principle
03 / How to Engage

Three ways in.
Flat fees. No surprises.

Every engagement starts with the audit. From there, half move into a build. Some stay on retainer. None get stuck in proposal limbo.

— Tier I
The Operational Audit
$1,500
flat · paid up front
  • 90-minute deep-dive call to map your operations
  • Written diagnostic of your top friction points
  • Recommended build scope & flat-fee quote
  • Audit fee credited toward any build
Book the audit →
— Tier II
The Custom Build
$7,500
flat · 30-day delivery
  • Defined scope, locked at kickoff
  • Built and shipped in 30 days or fewer
  • One full revision round included
  • 30 days of post-launch support
  • You own the code & the hosting
Start with an audit →
— Tier III
Build + Retainer
$15K
+ $1,500 / mo ongoing
  • Larger scope or multi-tool builds
  • Ongoing iteration, support & new features
  • Priority response on changes
  • Quarterly strategic review of the tool
Apply for retainer →
Want the full picture? See how the engagement works, end to end →
04 / The Process

Audit. Scope. Build. Ship.

No 47-page proposals. No surprise change orders. No "we'll need another sprint." A defined process that ends with software you own and use.

i

Audit

You book the $1,500 audit. We spend 90 minutes on the friction. I deliver a written diagnostic and a flat-fee scope.

ii

Scope

If we move forward, the scope is locked in writing before any code is written. The price doesn't change unless the scope does.

iii

Build

I build and ship in under 30 days. You see progress in real time, not in slide decks. One revision round is built into the process.

iv

Ship

Tool goes live, you get a walkthrough, code & hosting handed over. 30 days of post-launch support included by default.

05 / Common Questions

The questions every
owner actually asks.

Is there a deeper walkthrough of how this all works?

Yes. I put together a full presentation covering the whole engagement — what the audit looks like, how scoping happens, what the build process is, and how delivery works. View the full presentation here.

Why charge for the audit instead of a free discovery call?

Because $1,500 separates the operators from the tire-kickers. If a problem isn't worth $1,500 to diagnose, it definitely isn't worth $7,500 to fix. The audit fee credits toward any build that follows, so committed owners pay nothing extra to start.

Do I own the code, or is this another SaaS subscription?

You own everything. The code, the database, the hosting account. I'll set you up on Render, Vercel, or wherever makes sense — under your account, not mine. The only ongoing cost is your hosting (typically $7–$25/mo) unless you choose the retainer.

What if my problem isn't a fit for a custom build?

If the audit reveals that an off-the-shelf tool, a Zapier flow, or a process change would solve it cheaper and better, that's what the diagnostic will say. I'd rather refund the difference and earn a referral than build something you don't actually need.

How is this different from hiring a dev shop or another freelancer?

Most of my clients hired someone before me. They got ghosted, missed deadlines, or received something half-finished. Dev shops scope to maximize hours. Freelancers can usually build, but most can't communicate, scope, and ship on time. I'm an operator who runs an agency on these tools — I scope the way I'd scope it for myself, I respond to messages, and I ship in weeks instead of quarters. The code is table stakes. What you're really paying for is reliability.

What stack do you use?

Whatever fits the problem. Most builds are React or vanilla HTML on the front end, Flask or Node/Express on the back, and SQLite or Postgres for data. Native iOS/Android when needed. Voice AI through Vapi. Hosting on Render, Vercel, or your platform of choice.

Do you take on monthly retainers without a build?

Generally no. The retainer exists so clients with a custom tool can keep evolving it without renegotiating every change. If you need a fractional CTO or pure consulting without a build, I'm probably not the right fit.

Stop managing
another freelancer.
Start shipping the tool.

Book the audit. Worst case, you walk away with a written diagnostic of your operation worth far more than $1,500. Best case, the tool you've been needing for two years gets shipped before the end of next month.

Book the Audit