I'm James. I build AI systems and businesses. I've wanted to work for myself for about as long as I can remember.
My dad's a carpenter, so trades were always around. I chose to do an electrical apprenticeship because it lined up. One of Dad's mates is a sparky and he took me on. I didn't know what I wanted to do, I enjoyed the work, so I stuck with it. Honestly I still don't know exactly what I want to do. But I know I want to build things and run my own business.
The whole way through I was looking for something of my own. I tried crypto. I tried a fair bit of stuff. I learned a lot and made no money.
In 2026 my uncle told me to have a proper look at Claude. That's when it actually started. And it wasn't one thing I made that got me, it was the building itself. Websites, automations, agents, whole systems. I like taking something apart and working out why it broke. I don't get sick of it.
Nearly all of it runs on Claude. The building, the writing, the admin and most of the thinking out loud. I got properly good at it because everything else runs through it.
All of my software for tradies sits under one business, TradeSmart Systems. Missed calls, lost leads, the quoting that ends up getting done at 9pm.
I'm not a boss at a trade company, so I haven't sat there doing that myself. I've just watched it. A lot of them are up at 4 or 5 and not home until 6, and the one running the crew is still doing paperwork after that. It's not like that everywhere and it depends on the trade, but it happens enough to be worth solving.
Tradies are where I started, and this site isn't only for them. It's for anyone who wants to build this stuff themselves, whatever you do for work. I write up what I figure out and the skills are free.