An AI company for owner-operated businesses.
AI agents and custom software that do real work in your operation, built for how your floor actually runs. I work as your fractional CTO: I build it, host it, run it, and keep improving it. One engineer you can call, not a vendor and not a hire.
2
weeks on your floor before any code is written
30
days to the first working tool
4
states of active client work (Texas, Tennessee, South Carolina, Mississippi)
Who this is for
- Companies doing $2M to $30M a year with a real operation: a shop floor, a fleet, a dispatch board, a warehouse.
- Owners who know the software they run is holding them back and do not want to hire a CTO, an agency, and a dev team to fix it.
- Teams that need the first useful tool in weeks, not a twelve-month roadmap.
- Venture-backed software companies.
- One-off website jobs.
- Anyone who wants a slide deck instead of working software.
Starting a business from scratch? See the turnkey build: brand, website, CRM, booking, phone and AI-search visibility, built and run as one system.
What AI orchestration means here
AI where it saves hours, deterministic code where it must be right, and a human check before anything touches live data.
AI that answers the phone
A voice receptionist on a real business line. The model was picked by testing candidates against 51 real recorded calls, not by reputation: the winner scored higher, ran about 30% faster, and cost about a third as much.
AI that reads your paperwork
Orders and documents arriving by email or PDF get extracted into structured production tracking, and every field is checked against the source before anything is written to live data.
AI that builds and tests
My own build pipeline uses several AI models: cheaper models draft the code, an independent pass reviews every change, and nothing ships until the real test suite passes. That is how one engineer runs this many systems.
AI that gets you found
ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Gemini now answer "who should I call." I measure how often they name a business every week, and build sites those engines can read and cite.
How it works
Three stages, in order, because it is a real sequence.
Discover on the floor
Two weeks inside the operation: shadow the people who do the work, read the real documents, map where time and errors go. Output is a short written plan with the first tool named.
Build the first tool in 30 days
Deterministic where it must be right, AI where it saves hours, nothing presented as a guess. Every load, order, or job can be checked against the source. Small strides, not leaps.
Run it
Hosting, monitoring, backups, and monthly improvements are part of the engagement. Setup fee plus a monthly upkeep fee. No seat licenses.
Proof
What was built in each operation, and what it changed.
A custom hardware manufacturer in Mississippi
Orders were typed into QuickBooks Enterprise, printed, then re-keyed by hand into two spreadsheets for the shop floor. Built a production-docs engine that reads the printed orders and produces the floor sheets, with every line traceable back to the source page and a review step for anything uncertain. Now moving into order intake from phone and email.
A three-state septic service company
Ran operations, IT, marketing, and inbound sales while building its stack: a CRM with dispatch and invoicing, a phone system with AI call handling, tank sensors reporting to the CRM, and the marketing measurement behind it. Took one state from a few jobs a week to a full weekly schedule.
Texas roofing and permit data products
Built and operate a statewide building-permit and hail-storm data platform and Stormward, a CRM for small Texas roofing contractors that runs on top of it. Ingestion, storage and delivery run continuously and are maintained the same way a client's tool is. See Work.
Who you would work with
Will Burns. Eighteen years running operations, including as Head of Texas Operations for a three-state septic service company, where I built the CRM, the dispatch board, the AI phone system and the tank sensors I describe on this page. No account managers and no offshore handoff: the person on the intro call is the person who builds and runs your system. Based in San Marcos, Texas.
FAQ
What is a forward-deployed engineer?
An engineer who works inside your business rather than from a ticket queue: learns the operation first, builds against real documents and real workflows, and stays on to run what was built.
How is this different from hiring an agency?
An agency delivers a project and leaves. This engagement includes hosting, monitoring, and monthly improvement, and the same person who built it answers the phone.
What does it cost?
A one-time setup fee for discovery and the first tool, then a flat monthly upkeep fee that covers hosting, monitoring, backups, and improvements. Exact numbers depend on the scope; ask on the intro call.
Who owns the software?
You own everything specific to your business: your data, your documents, your configuration. The platform underneath stays hosted and maintained by ECB, TX LLC.
Where are you based?
Texas. Current work spans Texas, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Mississippi, mostly remote with on-site discovery.
Is Burns Bright Studio a different company?
No. Burns Bright Studio is a trade name of ECB, TX LLC, used on earlier builds. Same person, same work.
Contact
Email [email protected] or call (979) 236-1958. Tell me what the operation is doing and where it hurts.