The greenhouses mostly closed. Why build a page around them?
Because the shape of the business survived the industry. Anything perishable and seasonal — bedding plants, produce, catering, even a rental fleet — has the same core problem the rose houses had. What you can sell is what is actually ready, and knowing that a week late is the same as not knowing.
Does the hospital have to be involved for health work to be useful here?
No. We mostly build for the businesses around it: therapy practices, home care, equipment suppliers, transport. They live on referrals and authorisations arriving intact. That work does not require the hospital to sign anything, though it does require us to be careful about what patient information ever touches a system we built.
How do you keep patient information from ending up somewhere it should not?
By collecting as little as possible, keeping it inside systems your practice controls, and putting a human between anything clinical and anything automated. We write the data handling into the scope document before the build starts, and if a feature would need information we are not comfortable holding, we design around it instead.
We are a two-shift plant with no IT person. Who runs this once it is built?
You do, and we build it on that assumption. Plain screens, no admin console that requires a specialist, and documentation written for the person on the floor. We stay available for changes, but a system that only works while we are on retainer is a system we sold you badly.
How do you price this, and when do we find out the number?
Before anything gets built. We map how your operation really runs, then hand you a document with the scope, one fixed figure, and an explicit list of what we are not doing. Should the mapping turn up an existing product that covers it, we name the product, bill you for the mapping, and leave.
Who ends up owning what you build?
You own the data outright and can pull it out at any time in a format other software can read. On the code we are straightforward about it in writing before you commit — no surprises, no hostage-taking, and no clause that makes leaving expensive.
Is Labor Day weekend really worth building software for?
For a restaurant or a retailer on Locust Street, one weekend can move a quarter. The build is small — pre-orders, pickup slots, and a defensible order quantity based on what happened last year. It pays for itself the first time you do not run out of the thing everyone wanted.
Do you actually visit, or is this all remote?
We come out. Process mapping in a plant or a greenhouse does not work over video, because the interesting parts are the workarounds nobody thinks to mention. Pana is a short drive for us and we would rather see the bench than hear about it.