VervainThe structure of a bigger company

Take your business back from big tech.

Your data. Your files. Your process. No landlord, no lease, no lock-in. Entire departments, at your call, in files you own.

What this looks like — my real file, not a mockup:

vault/vision.md

We exist to serve local small-business owners by enabling them to own their process — a whole organization built custom. So that main street stops renting its process from big tech and the corner bakery, the plumber, and the studio can run and grow on their own terms.

This whole site is one index.html file. That's the point. If you can read it, you can own it.

The shift

Big companies win by structure, not magic.

A large corporation has a board, a risk team, a compliance officer, an audit function, FP&A, an intelligence desk, a continuity plan. Not because it's glamorous — because judgment has to live somewhere, and a single founder can't hold it all. Every one of those functions is a body of knowledge, a cadence, and a set of questions. Not a building full of people.

You can't hire all those people. So you carry it — in your head, badly, until the day something breaks. The harness gives you the same structure, run as files, personas, and a rhythm you own. It does the admin while you sleep, so running the business stops being a second job. And unlike the tools you've been renting, no one can take it away.

What big companies have — and what you get

Seven functions a larger company runs entire teams for. Now yours, in files you own.

Each one is a council seat (the judgment), a Vault artifact (the memory), and a recurring task (the cadence) — assembled, not invented. Run by hand today; cadenced automatically as the harness matures. You'll always know which is which.

Governance

A board & decision rights

A standing council that reviews every major decision and gates every change — with a recorded verdict and a reason. The independent oversight a board provides, without the board.

Risk

A risk officer & register

The things that could sink you — key-person, concentration, platform, data loss — named and tracked: likelihood, impact, a treatment, an owner. Reviewed on a cadence, not after it bites.

Compliance

A compliance & audit function

Obligations on a calendar, evidence collected as you go, and an audit trail built from how you already work. Scaffold-only by design — we won't overclaim a regime a specialist should fill.

Intelligence

Strategy & market intel

A weekly read on your industry and a scan of what's working in sales — a source on every fact, turned into a short list of bets you decide on. Not a pile of links.

Continuity

A continuity & succession plan

What runs, in what order, if everything breaks — vendor concentration named, a key-person runbook written — and a business that survives the founder. Transferable to a buyer or a successor.

Finance

FP&A

Budget and variance, unit economics, a rolling cash-flow view — the decisions a CFO would help you model before you make them. (Deepest build; gated on the bookkeeping link.)

Quality

Continuous improvement

Every cycle captures a lesson; the ones that recur become real improvements, shipped under a version bump. An auditable captured-to-promoted ratio — the enterprise quality function, productized.

All seven function packs are included at every level. Price differentiates how much of the setup we do with you — never which functions you get.

How this works

Not a subscription. Buy it for life.

An model-agnostic harness you can read, edit, copy, and carry with you. No database to host. No platform that can deprecate you. Here's the shape of it.

vault/

Your true north

Your vision, values, and the real context of your business — written in your words, not a template's.

build/ · think/ · comms/ · sales/ · run/

Clear jobs

The departments of a real business — each with a charter, a playbook, and the blank forms for its work.

council/

Your review board

A standing C-suite — technical, security, finance, ethos — that gates every decision and every change.

run/cycle-log/

The rhythm

Short cycles, a live scoreboard, and the honest lessons captured each round — the engine that improves it.

What you're actually buying

They sell you a tool. We hand you an organization.

You're paying for the expertise in process design and proven practices that will guide your business into the future — the seven functions above, turned into a system tuned to how you actually run. That includes the implementation: a person who's done this, sitting with you.

Software is cheap now. What's important is your data, your process, and your connections. What you can't copy is the hours of turning the way your business actually runs into a system you can see, edit, and carry.

That's where the value is. The agentic system. The walkthrough of the cases that matter most to you. The training to maintain and enhance it yourself.

It pays attention so you don't have to — the weekly read on your industry, the scan of what's working in sales, the follow-ups and the "what do we do next" — handled by a team that never sleeps and never bills by the hour. You keep the work that actually makes money. Your evenings come back.

After that, you run it. We're not in the loop unless you want us to be. No subscription to justify, no platform you're stuck on. If you ever want help, you book it by the hour.

What you get & what it costs

One product. Full capability at every level. You're buying how much of the setup we do with you.

We're piloting now — the first three businesses get the full Done-With-You setup free, in exchange for your honest feedback and permission to tell the story. After the pilot, choose the level of help you want. Nothing is withheld at any price: every package can run every tool, every integration, every council seat, the succession package — all of it. You're not buying features. You're buying labor.

All seven function packs — governance, risk, compliance, intelligence, continuity, finance, quality — are included at every level. No function is an upsell. Ever.

Do it yourself

Harness Only

For the hands-on owner

Free during pilot · $1,000 after

The full system, as a template and a guide. You set it up yourself, on your own machine, and own it from hour one — the purest version of the promise.

  • The complete template — Vault, council, rhythm, recurring scans, the five basics
  • Uses self-teaching features.
  • Full capability: every tool type, integration, custom seat, succession — unlocked
  • Buy it once. Yours for life. No subscription, ever.
  • Implementation/support available if needed.

Best for owners who want to do it themselves and keep the cost down.

Done for you + support

Partnership

We build it, train your team, walk year one

$25,000–$50,000+ (implementation + support + custom development)

We provide process engineering; building out the whole system for you. Integrate and enhance your existing process, and be guided to real value. The cycles, the council reviews, the quarterly retire-what's-not-earning-its-keep. Then you run it. Or keep us on, only as much as you want to.

  • Everything in Implementation, plus we do the heavy lifting of the build
  • The full custom council stood up and run through real reviews
  • Team training and the first quarterly review facilitated together
  • Buyer- and audit-ready documentation from day one
  • Custom ongoing partnership only if desired — no lock-in

Best for owners who want it done, and want a partner into the future — then full independence.

Want a hand after any of these? Ongoing support is available as an add-on — book a session only when you need one, nothing recurring unless you ask. Rate posted at the booking page, same for everyone.

The long version

What's actually in the files.

Not marketing. The real behaviors, one per line.

You own it

  • Every playbook, decision, and value is a file you can read, edit, and copy
  • Every change is saved and reversible — nothing is ever silently overwritten
  • One-command export to a clean copy you can walk away with
  • Roll back to any past version
  • No database to host, no subscription to keep alive
  • It's plain files — it runs without us, on any computer

Your true north

  • A vision written in your words
  • Values surfaced from your real stories, not slogans
  • A constitution of decision rights and guardrails
  • A living glossary that adopts your vocabulary
  • An ethos-change protocol so the center never drifts silently

Your standing review board

  • A cross-department council that gates every major decision
  • Named seats: technical, security, operations, finance, compliance, product, ethos
  • Any one of them can veto a change before it ships
  • Custom seats added for your business's specific concerns
  • Every change ships with a recorded verdict and a reason

The rhythm

  • Fixed-length cycles with one objective each
  • A live scoreboard of what actually matters
  • Cycle logs that capture what shipped and what you learned
  • A quarterly review that retires what's not earning its keep
  • Less time deciding what to do — the next move is always named, never a menu

It pays attention so you don't

  • A weekly read on your industry — a source on every fact (runs automatically; you review the brief before it ships)
  • A weekly scan of what's working in sales & marketing, turned into a short list of bets you decide on
  • A focused search across your topics, then one short brief — not a pile of links
  • A registry of scheduled tasks you control

It gets better from use

  • Captured lessons become real improvements — a complete, auditable loop: every cycle captures at least one, and the ones that generalize promote into the core under a version bump, with a live captured-to-promoted ratio
  • The design intent — each setup should make the next one faster — proven out as the first implementations land

Sales, done ethically

  • A trust-first process — referral, in-person, local
  • A free diagnosis that's a working session, not a sales call
  • AI used where it helps and refused where it would manipulate

How you start

  • A guided interview that surfaces your true north from real stories
  • You see and approve every statement before it's set
  • A take-home sheet that captures your business's center of gravity

The next step is a conversation, and a deep introspection.

Book a free 30-minute diagnosis. We'll look at how your business runs today and where a process you own would help. No deck. No pressure.

No trackers on this page. Ever. The only thing we collect is what you tell us in that email.

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