Scale It
Take on more volume with the crew you already have. Half of owners want to grow revenue without adding headcount. That only works when the work is not manual.
DO LESS FOR MORE
We solve the problems that block growth and keep the owner too busy.
We are the operations team that writes down how your company actually works, automates the busywork, and then runs it with you — so you can grow it, step back from it, or sell it for more. Your call.
10+ hours a week back within 90 days — or we work free until it is true. In writing.
Twenty-eight owner-led businesses have stopped being the bottleneck.
- Addiction
- Cross
- Diversecity
- Edular
- Fmn
- Gatc
- Globalexportise
- Gwlaw
- Hidrau
- Industrial
- Meetwork
- Injury
- Innova
- Julie
- Klassapps
- Lawtech
- Layerlogix
- M2e
- Meetflow
- Myitguy
- Nass
- Saas
- Scc
- Uptown
- Wildfire
- Wv
- Seatons
- Bahia Soliman
THE THREE PROBLEMS OWNERS BRING US
The business you built should not need you in the middle of it.
Three things show up in almost every company we open up.
1. They turn work away.
Not because demand is short. Because they cannot staff it, schedule it, or quote it fast enough.
2. Everything routes through the owner.
Quotes, exceptions, the odd job nobody else can price. Roughly 13 hours a week goes to chasing information, settling conflicts, and correcting mistakes.
3. Money leaks where nobody is looking.
Unbilled change orders. Overlapping software. Work finished and invoiced three weeks late.
Each one has the same root cause. The way the work moves is in your head, not in the business.
10+ hrs/week
Recovered per employee once the systems talk to each other
Employees spend 8+ hours a week on unnecessary tasks and meetings. Automation returns 4–12 hours a week.
500+ hrs/year
Per employee, after the systems are aligned
10+ hours a week × 50 working weeks.
25–47%
Discount buyers apply to owner-dependent businesses
M&A data comparing owner-dependent with professionally managed firms.
Optionality by design
One system. Three ways out of the middle.
We do not ask which one you want on day one. We build the same thing either way — a business that does not route through you. Then the choice is yours.
Step back
Work on the business instead of inside it. Take a real vacation. Survive a resignation without a crisis.
Vacation-proof. Resignation-proof.
Sell it for more
Documented operations and low owner dependency are what buyers pay premiums for. SOPs alone correlate with a 0.25× higher multiple.
An asset, not a job.
Even if you never sell, a business built to sell runs better today. And it takes 12–18 months to remove owner dependency — which is why the honest advice is to start before you need to.
Sources: FreshBooks State of US Small Business 2025; ExitValue.ai (25,592 M&A transactions).
What owners tell us
Owner, professional services
“We are ready to grow, but every new client means more work that lands on my desk.”
Founder & CEO
“If my operations manager left tomorrow, I do not know how we would function.”
Operations Director
“Our systems do not talk to each other. We duplicate data and effort everywhere.”
Managing Partner
“We are busy, but margins keep shrinking and I cannot tell you exactly why.”
Managing Partner
“I have not taken a real vacation in years.”
STOA OS™
STOA OS™ — how we get you out of the middle
Snapshot
Map
Document
Automate
Operate
01
Snapshot
We find where time and money quietly disappear — double entry, dropped follow-ups, unused licenses, and work that only happens because it always has.
Snapshot
We find where time and money quietly disappear — double entry, dropped follow-ups, unused licenses, and work that only happens because it always has.
Map
We document how the business actually runs. Not the org chart. The real thing.
Document
Tribal knowledge becomes simple written steps anyone can follow. It all lives in STOA Flow — where the way you do things gets written down, taught, and signed off, so you can prove somebody else can do it. Not that they read it. That they can do it.
Automate
We build automations for your most repetitive workflows — client onboarding, follow-ups, reporting, invoicing — so your team focuses on work that actually matters.
Operate
We stay on as your operations team — monitoring, improving, and reporting monthly so the system compounds instead of decaying.
Stages 4 and 5 are where most partners stop and we start. Anyone can hand you a document. We stay and run it.
THE LADDER
Start where you are comfortable. Most people end up in the same place.
| Hidden Capacity Report™ | Free | Where your hours and dollars are going, quantified. One short conversation. No obligation, no pitch. |
|---|---|---|
| Tool Spend Audit | $900 | Two weeks. We follow the software you already pay for and map how information actually moves. Where the systems do not talk, somebody is doing the work by hand — usually you. Credited if you go further. |
| Operations Snapshot | $2,500 | The full picture, scored. Every process mapped, every leak priced, and a prioritized plan. Credited toward the build. |
| 90-Day Build | from $8,000 | Priced to scope. We fix the three things that matter most and build them into STOA Flow. Yours to keep either way. |
| Operate | $2,600–$7,600/mo | We stay on as your operations team — running it, watching it, improving it, reporting every month. Four sizes. |
| 20 | $2,600 | $130/hr |
|---|---|---|
| 40 | $4,600 | $115/hr |
| 60 | $6,000 | $100/hr |
| 80 | $7,600 | $95/hr |
For comparison: one good technician costs closer to $95,000 a year fully loaded, and you still have to find one.
What we actually do
Four kinds of work. Most engagements use three of them.
Get more work out the door
We find the steps that slow a job down between the phone call and the invoice, then take them out. Quotes go out faster. Jobs get scheduled without a meeting.
Make the software you already pay for get used
Most companies do not need new tools. They need the ones they own to talk to each other. We audit the stack, cut the overlap, and connect what is left.
Write it down so somebody else can do it
Every process taught, documented, and signed off in STOA Flow. Not a binder nobody opens. Proof that a new hire can do the job in weeks instead of months.
Then keep it running
We stay on as your operations team. Monitoring, improving, and reporting monthly, so the system compounds instead of decaying.
Custom software, AI agents, and web work happen when the simplest fix is not enough. They are never where we start.
Two guarantees. Both in writing.
Before you spend anything meaningful — find or free.
The Tool Spend Audit will show you at least ten hours a week of work being done by hand that should not be, mapped and priced in a written report — and exactly how to fix each one. If we cannot, you do not pay. Credited toward your first invoice if you go further.
After you hire us — Until It Works™.
10+ hours a week back within 90 days, or we keep working for free until it is true.
Why STOA Operations
The team big firms won't send and freelancers can't staff.
This is the caliber of operations work Accenture does for the Fortune 500 and a seasoned CTO does for funded companies, built for businesses neither will ever serve, at a price that pays for itself. A fractional COO plus the team that builds the systems and runs them, instead of only advising on them.
Big firms won’t take engagements under $250K.
Freelancers lack the breadth, the method, and the backup.
Software vendors recommend their own product.
IT providers keep the lights on. They don’t engineer the business.
Alejandro Morales is Board President of XPX Triangle, the exit-planning community for advisors who prepare businesses for sale. We don't just make your business easier to run. We make it worth more to the person who eventually buys it.
Not ready to talk to anyone? Start here.
Three free tools that answer what owners ask us most: what is this costing me, what software should I actually be using, and has somebody already solved this. Our library has 631 automations mapped across 16 industries — with the tools, the setup steps, and the hours each one gives back.
Find out what the bottleneck is costing you.
Free, no pitch. We map where your time and money are leaking and hand you the number — hours per week and dollars per year. What you do with it is up to you.
engagement timeline
Get the number.
A free Hidden Capacity Report shows where hours and dollars are going. One short conversation.
See the plan.
The $900 Tool Spend Audit shows what we would fix first, what it is worth, and what it costs. Credited if you go further.
We build it.
The 90-Day Build fixes the three things that matter most. Yours to keep.
We keep it running.
Most partners hand you a system and leave. We stay on as your operations team.
