AI Development Ellettsville IN for the Limestone Belt
A town of six and a half thousand in the stone country that built the Empire State Building, the Pentagon, and most of the state capitols in the country.
Edward and Eleanor Ellett settled here in 1818, the town was platted in 1837 and incorporated in 1866. Quarrying began in Monroe County in 1826, and Ellettsville — along with Stinesville, five miles north — became one of the county's limestone towns. The belt runs south from here through Bloomington to Bedford, and what comes out of it is Salem Limestone: the Empire State Building, the Pentagon, Washington National Cathedral, the Glory of Commerce over Grand Central, and about thirty-five of the fifty state capitols. Indiana made it the state stone in 1971. By 1929 the quarries were shipping over 340,000 cubic metres a year.
Dimension stone is not like other manufacturing and the paperwork shows it. A block comes out of the ground with its own colour, grain and bed. It goes to a mill — the Bybee yard on North Matthews Drive has long done that work, on a road that also carries the town street department, the recycling station and a medical-device plant — and gets sawn and cut to a drawing an architect has to approve first. The piece that results might be set on a building eighteen months later, next to a piece cut from a different block, and if the two do not match nobody cares whose fault it is. Then it has to be freighted, and stone is heavy in a way that changes how loads are planned and how a crane day is booked.
The other half of the town is more ordinary and no less real. Ellettsville has gone from 3,328 people in 1980 to 6,655 in 2020, most of that growth being households in the commuter shed to the east. Richland-Bean Blossom Community School Corporation runs the schools across two townships, with Seven Oaks Classical School taking pupils on top of that. The town hall is on Lee Street, the water works on North Sale Street, the sewage plant out on Red Hill Road and the municipal wastewater works where West McNeely Street meets Matthews Drive; the fire department, the Monroe County Public Library branch and the run of shops sit along West Temperance Street and Main Street with Jacks Defeat Creek behind them. State Road 46 puts the university city about fifteen minutes east. So the trades, the shops and the services here are serving a growing residential town at the same time as the stone industry works around them.
Watseka, Illinois·Serving Indiana & Central Illinois·Est. 2024·Founded by a published AI-alignment researcher (thirdwayalignment.com)
In Plain English
What We Fix for Ellettsville Businesses
Most businesses around Ellettsville and the Monroe County limestone belt do not call us asking for software. They call because the same thing keeps going wrong every week.
Calls going to voicemail while you work
The phone rings while you are on a job. By the time you call back, they hired someone else. We build systems that answer, capture what the customer needs, and get it to you.
Quotes that take days to go out
Job details end up on a notepad, in your head, and in three text messages. We put them in one place so the estimate goes out the same day.
Customers calling to ask where things stand
Every "just checking in" call interrupts real work. A customer portal lets them see it themselves.
The same information typed in three times
Written on a form, retyped into a spreadsheet, retyped again into the invoice. Enter it once and let it flow.
A block, a drawing, and eighteen months in between
The stone that gets cut this month may not be set until the year after next, beside a piece from another block. Which block a piece came from, which drawing revision it was cut to, who approved that revision, and where it sits on the truck all have to be recoverable long after everyone has moved on to other work. A yard on North Matthews Drive gets asked to match a course it cut in 1998, and either the record answers or nobody does.
Fast, works on a phone, and turns visitors into phone calls and quote requests.
Online quote requests
MAKE MORE MONEY
Customers describe the job and attach photos. You price it accurately the first time.
A customer portal
SAVE TIME
One place for customers to see their job, documents, invoices, and status.
Scheduling
EASIER TO RUN
Jobs, crews, and equipment on one calendar. No double-booking.
Billing and online payment
MAKE MORE MONEY
Invoices go out when the work is done. Customers can pay online.
Customer tracking and follow-up
LOSE FEWER CUSTOMERS
Missed calls get captured. Quotes get followed up on. Nothing depends on remembering.
Document and record management
SAVE TIME
Contracts, photos, signed forms, and certificates found in seconds instead of folders.
Custom software built around your business
EASIER TO RUN
When your process has outgrown spreadsheets, paper, or software built for somebody else.
What about AI?
AI is one tool we can put inside your system. We use it when it saves you time, organizes information, finds something faster, or prepares work for your review.
If ordinary software can do the job better, we use ordinary software instead.
We are not here to sell you AI. We are here to build the thing that fixes the problem.
Your business does not have to change to fit our software. We build the software to fit your business.
We do not hand you another piece of software and expect you to figure out how to use it.
01We learn how your business actually works — a real week, not the version on paper.
02We find where the most is being lost — usually one specific handoff.
03We build the smallest thing that fixes it — one workflow, fixed price, a result you can see.
04We add to it as you grow — each piece connects to the last.
A person on your team can always review anything important before it goes out. We are a Indiana-based team and we work under an NDA whenever you want one.
Four workflows built around Ellettsville and the Monroe County limestone belt.
For owners and IT folks who want the specifics. Each one starts at the surface a customer or a crew actually touches, automates the repeatable middle, keeps a person on the gate that matters, and ends in something you can hand to an auditor, a customer, or a regulator.
Research focus: a town of about 6,655 in a limestone belt quarried since 1826, where dimension stone moves from a quarry face to a mill to a building site over months or years, alongside a residential economy growing inside the Bloomington commuter shed.
01 / Submittals, revisions, and the architect's red pen
Step 1 · Where it starts
A project page where drawings, submittals, RFIs and approvals live in one thread per project, visible to the mill and to the customer at the same time.
Step 2 · What gets automated
Incoming drawing sets and marked-up submittals are read for revision letters, dates and changed dimensions, and the system flags where a new revision differs from the one already in production.
Step 3 · The process it plugs into
Nothing enters the cut list without an approved revision behind it, and every piece on that list carries the drawing number and revision it was cut to.
Step 4 · SolaceSentry review
A person releases every submittal and every revision to the floor. The system compares and highlights; it does not decide that a change is minor or that a piece is still good.
Step 5 · What leaves the system
A cut list that matches the approved drawings, and an audit line from a finished piece back to the revision and the approval it came from.
Proof metric: Pieces recut because they were made to a superseded revision, and days from submittal sent to approval received.
02 / Which block did this piece come from
Step 1 · Where it starts
A tag applied at the quarry face and read again at every step, so a block, a slab and a finished piece are the same record rather than three.
Step 2 · What gets automated
Photographs at the face and at the saw are held against the block record, so colour, grain and bed can be compared later rather than described from memory.
Step 3 · The process it plugs into
A single order draws from a reserved set of blocks where colour and grain will read together, and the reservation holds until the order ships rather than being quietly cut into.
Step 4 · SolaceSentry review
Matching is a judgement made by people who know stone, standing in front of it. The system holds the evidence and the reservation; it does not decide that two pieces match.
Step 5 · What leaves the system
An order that arrives on site reading as one piece of work, and a traceable answer eighteen months later when a replacement has to be cut to match.
Proof metric: Pieces rejected on site for colour or grain mismatch, and time to identify the source block for a replacement.
03 / Getting something extremely heavy to a site on the right day
Step 1 · Where it starts
A shipment page that records the pieces on a load, their weights, the setting sequence they belong to, and the site access constraints, before anybody books a truck.
Step 2 · What gets automated
Delivery paperwork, weight tickets and site correspondence are read and matched to the load, and a project date that has slipped is surfaced against the loads already planned for it.
Step 3 · The process it plugs into
Loads are built in the order the mason will set them, not the order the pieces were finished, and a crane day is planned against what will actually be on the truck. Getting a loaded trailer off North Matthews Drive and onto State Road 46 is part of the plan rather than an afterthought at the gate.
Step 4 · SolaceSentry review
A person signs the load plan and the weights. Nothing about rigging, lifting or load security is generated by software, and we will not build a system that appears to do so.
Step 5 · What leaves the system
A truck that arrives with the pieces the crew needs next, in setting order, on a day the crane is booked for.
Proof metric: Loads delivered in setting sequence, and crane or crew days lost waiting on the wrong pieces.
04 / A growing town that empties east by eight in the morning
Step 1 · Where it starts
Booking, quoting and enquiry pages built for people who are at work in the city all day and deal with their household in the evening — the electricians, plumbers, roofers and body shops working the streets off West Temperance Street and Maple Grove Road.
Step 2 · What gets automated
Enquiries are sorted by urgency and trade, and repeat customers are recognised so their history arrives with the request rather than being looked up afterwards.
Step 3 · The process it plugs into
Work is grouped by area and by what has to happen first, and recurring service is scheduled forward rather than waiting for a customer to remember.
Step 4 · SolaceSentry review
You approve every quote and every appointment. The system drafts and sorts; a person commits the calendar.
Step 5 · What leaves the system
Same-evening replies, a routed week, and repeat work booked before the customer starts looking for someone else.
Proof metric: Time to first reply, and the share of past customers who booked again within a year.
Payment Plans
Premium custom work without one painful check.
We are not trying to be the cheapest software on the shelf. We are trying to be the lower-risk custom path when cheap apps do not fit and enterprise platforms are too much. Approved setup can be split across the build while monthly support stays predictable.
The goal is simple: price above basic SaaS because the work is custom, but package the first step so the monthly decision feels closer to a serious software subscription than a traditional open-ended agency project.
2026 Appreciation Discounts
2026 USA 250 Birthday Special
10% off eligible DID service fees
Available for new approved projects and support agreements signed by December 31, 2026.
Veteran and disability-owned businesses
Additional 5% off eligible DID service fees
Veteran-owned and disability-owned businesses can stack this with the USA 250 special.
Discounts may stack up to 15% off eligible DID service fees. Hosting, software licenses, SMS, AI usage, taxes, data licenses, and other pass-through vendor costs stay separate.
We are not trying to beat every cheap subscription. We are trying to beat the total cost of forcing a local business into software that does not match how it works.
Not the cheapest app
A generic monthly tool can be cheaper when your process already fits it. We say that plainly.
Less than a full custom build
Most custom software projects start far above these entry offers. We narrow the first scope so a local buyer can start.
Premium because it fits
The value is the mapping, setup, integration, review controls, and local support around the way the work really happens.
Custom Bridge Plans
Starter Bridge
$750 activation + $399/mo
A narrow custom workflow that feels closer to SaaS: contractor follow-up, a training tracker, a simple evidence vault, or one intake flow.
Growth Bridge
$1,500 activation + $699/mo
Best for teams that need several workflow steps, light integrations, a dashboard, a portal, or staff-facing automation.
Regulated Bridge
$3,000 activation + $1,250/mo
For legal, healthcare, cyber, manufacturing, and audit-sensitive work where access controls, review steps, and evidence matter.
Bridge plans assume a 36-month support agreement. If the agreement ends early, the unpaid setup balance becomes due. Third-party software, hosting, SMS, and AI usage stay separate.
Market Price Check
Basic subscriptions
Often about $30-$550/month before extra users, add-ons, setup time, and process gaps.
Best when a business needs its calls, quotes, files, evidence, approvals, and follow-up connected around the way it already works.
Custom agencies
Public software-project guides commonly place small custom builds in the $10k-$50k+ range, with U.S. senior work often $120-$250+/hr.
DID uses fixed entry offers and smaller first scopes so a local team can prove the workflow before approving a larger build.
Enterprise platforms
QMS, field-service, SOC 2, GRC, and vCISO paths can quickly reach the low tens of thousands once onboarding and support are included.
DID is the bridge: more tailored than a cheap app, far less commitment than buying enterprise software before the team is ready.
Entry audit credit
For many local buyers, a workflow audit can be credited toward the first build when the implementation is approved within 30 days.
Setup split
Approved setup can be billed by milestone or spread over 3-12 months depending on region, scope, risk, and monthly support.
3-year partner price
A 36-month support agreement can earn a 10-12% managed-support discount, price-lock normal support rates, and reduce upfront strain.
A stone town that is also a growing residential town — quarries, mills and fabrication along North Matthews Drive and West McNeely Street on one side, and a household services and retail economy along Main Street and State Road 46 on the other.
The stone side needs traceability that survives eighteen months and a change of crew: which block, which revision, which load. The trades working the streets off West Temperance Street need to answer people who are at work all day and get the job booked before somebody else does.
Where most people start
Growth Bridge for a mill or fabrication shop, where drawings, blocks and shipments all have to connect; Starter Bridge for a single scheduling or enquiry problem.
Work supporting architectural submittals or anything a project team will audit later sits higher, because the approval trail is the deliverable rather than a by-product.
When you do not need us
A general project management product plus decent accounting genuinely covers a lot of contractors here. Where it falls down is block-level traceability and weight-based load planning, which no off-the-shelf tool we know of does properly. If your problem is the first kind, we will point you at the software and not quote a build.
We are worth it when a drawing revision, a block reservation and a delivery sequence all have to agree, and when getting it wrong means recutting stone rather than resending an email.
What we would take on first here
Shop drawing and submittal tracking with revision control back to the approved set
Block-to-slab-to-piece traceability for colour and grain matching across long lead times
Weight-aware load building in the mason's setting sequence, planned against crane days
Evening-hours enquiry and booking handling for trades serving Bloomington commuters
Questions from Ellettsville owners
Straight answers about working with us here
A job we quote this spring might not ship until the year after next. How do you scope around that?
By building for the handover rather than for the person who starts the job. The whole point of the record is that somebody who was not in the room in 2026 can pick up a piece in 2028 and find the block, the revision and the approval behind it. We scope a first build small and fixed, but we design the data so it is still legible when the crew has turned over twice — that is not extra, it is the requirement.
Colour matching is done by eye by people who have done it thirty years. Is a computer going to start second-guessing them?
No. We will hold the photographs, the block record and the reservation so that judgement has better evidence in front of it, and we will keep the reservation from being quietly cut into by another order. Deciding that two pieces of stone read together is a person's call made standing in front of them, and any system that claims otherwise is selling you a rejection on site.
Every piece has a weight and every site has a gate. Does off-the-shelf software handle that?
In our experience, poorly. Most project and dispatch products think in pallets and cartons and count things, and this industry thinks in tonnes and setting sequence. That gap is one of the few places we will confidently say a build is the right answer. Where a general product does cover you — ordinary scheduling, ordinary accounting — we will tell you to keep using it.
What happens to the block and drawing records if we stop working with you?
They come out in full, in a plain format, on request, written into the agreement before you spend a penny. In this industry the archive is a live asset: a building supplied in 1998 will eventually want a matching replacement, and the firm that can answer that question wins the work. Nobody should be renting access to their own history.
We are a fabrication shop with fourteen people. Are you going to build something that needs an IT department?
No, and if the thing we designed needed one we would have got it wrong. Fourteen people means the system has to work for someone with dusty hands and a phone standing in a yard off North Matthews Drive, and the office side has to be usable by whoever is covering the desk that week. If it takes more than one afternoon to teach, it will be quietly abandoned and you will have paid for nothing.
Most of our customers are working in Bloomington until five. How do we stop losing them to whoever answers first?
By answering without being there. In a commuter town the enquiry that gets the job is very often the one that got a real reply the same evening, not the best price. So the booking surface has to hold honest availability, the triage has to separate an emergency from a quote request, and you have to be able to clear the day in twenty minutes after dinner. That is a different build from a shop whose customers walk in off Main Street.
How much of this is actually AI rather than a well-built database?
Reading a marked-up drawing set and spotting that a dimension changed between revisions is the technology doing genuine work, and so is matching a weight ticket to the right load without anyone keying it. The reservation logic and the setting-sequence planning are ordinary software done carefully. Those two things appear on separate lines of our quote, priced differently, because the alternative is a supplier billing you at AI rates for a spreadsheet with a good haircut.
Start with the one handoff that costs you the most. We scope it for a fixed price, build it, and show you it works before anyone talks about a bigger system.