Currently taking projects

We get stuff done.

Sometimes it’s simple. Sometimes it’s not. We don’t really care which.

Consulting for the projects stuck in “we’ll get to it next quarter.” Rescues, rebuilds, launches, and the weird ones.

Start a project See what we’ve done

years in business: 28
projects shipped: 150+
clients: 74
account managers: 0

People who trusted us with the hard stuff.

What we do

Pick a box.

Or don’t, and just tell us what’s broken.

01
Project rescue
We take over the project that’s late, over budget, or quietly dying, and run it to done.
You need this if
the launch date has moved more times than anyone will admit.
02
Systems & architecture
We work out what to build, what to buy, and what to leave alone, then write a plan your team can staff.
You need this if
you have four tools that do the same thing and none that do what you need.
03
Apps & custom builds
We design and build the web app, integration, or internal tool that off-the-shelf software won’t cover.
You need this if
a core process runs on FINAL_v7_actually_final.xlsx.
04
AI that ships
We find the few places AI saves real time or money, prototype them fast, and put guardrails on the keepers.
You need this if
you’ve seen a lot of AI demos and zero in production.
05
Alignment & ROI
We get sales, marketing, and IT agreeing on what’s being built, and on the number that proves it worked.
You need this if
sales promised something IT has never heard of.
06
Something else?
Probably. Ask.
You need this if
it’s weird, it’s on fire, or nobody else will touch it.

Range

Three-day fix or nine-month build. Same people.

“Whatever it takes” is about range, not price. A few jobs from both ends.

Quick fixBig build

3 days
Leads stopped vanishing
Found and fixed a routing rule that was quietly dropping web leads.
6 weeks
Approvals left email
Replaced a spreadsheet-and-inbox approval chain with a small internal app.
9 months
Platform migration
Picked the vendor, led four teams, and ran the cutover without downtime.

Big build

Track record

Stuck, then done.

A few recent jobs. Client names withheld, because they asked nicely.

Regional bank

The migration nobody would call late

11 wksfrom stalled to live

Problem: A core system migration was seven months behind, and the vendor and internal team had stopped talking.
What we did: Took over as program lead, cut scope to what launch actually needed, and ran one cutover plan both sides signed.
Result: Live in 11 weeks, with no rollback.

The fix wasn’t technical. Two teams were working from two different plans. We merged them into one, set a weekly go/no-go, and moved the “nice to haves” to a phase two that shipped the next quarter.

National retailer

The 40-tab spreadsheet

−85%weekly planning time

Problem: Store replenishment ran on a 40-tab spreadsheet only one person understood. She wanted to take a vacation.
What we did: Mapped the logic with her, built a small web app around it, and trained the team in two sessions.
Result: Planning dropped from three days a week to four hours.

We kept her formulas and changed almost nothing about how the team thought about the work. The app just made it repeatable, checkable, and not dependent on one laptop.

Healthcare provider

The AI pilot that left the lab

1,200staff hours saved, first quarter

Problem: Staff spent hours summarizing intake notes. Two earlier AI pilots never made it past the demo.
What we did: Picked one workflow, built a guarded prototype with the clinical team, and measured it against the old way for 30 days.
Result: Rolled out to three clinics and saved 1,200 hours in its first quarter.

The earlier pilots tried to do everything. This one did one job, kept a human reviewing every output, and had a clear number to beat before anyone called it a success.

Manufacturer

Three dashboards, three answers

+34%lead-to-opportunity rate

Problem: Sales, marketing, and IT each defined a “qualified lead” differently, and three dashboards disagreed.
What we did: Ran short working sessions, wrote one shared set of definitions, and rebuilt the lead flow end to end.
Result: Lead-to-opportunity conversion up 34% in two quarters.

Most of the gain came from leads that were already coming in and falling through gaps between systems. Once everyone counted the same way, the gaps were easy to see.

How we work

Four steps. No 90-slide deck.

130-minute call
You tell us the problem.
Free. Bring the messy version. We’ll tell you straight if we’re a fit, and who is if we’re not.
2About a week
We ask annoying questions.
What’s actually broken, what done looks like, what it’s worth to you. You get a written plan and one fixed price.
3Days to months
It gets done.
You see progress every week. Problems get flagged the day we find them, not saved for the final readout.
4Final week
We hand it off clean.
Docs, training, and a team that can run it without us. We’d love to come back. You won’t need us to.

What clients say

In their words.

They took a project we’d been stuck on for a year and shipped it in a quarter. I stopped dreading Monday status calls.

VP of Operations, Regional bank

Easy to work with is underrated. They answered email, showed up prepared, and told us the bad news early.

Director of IT, Healthcare system

We handed them the messiest thing on our roadmap on purpose. It came back finished, documented, and on budget.

COO, Consumer brand

About

Small on purpose.

Short Productions has been getting things done since 1998. We’ve run programs at banks, built tools for retailers, and untangled systems at hospitals, mostly inside companies that don’t think of themselves as software companies.

There’s no bench to keep busy and no account manager in the middle. The person on your first call is the person doing the work.

Our slide decks are honestly not great. We make up for it by finishing things.

Jeff Stoll
Founder
Twenty-plus years shipping software, running programs, and translating between the people who sell things and the people who build them.

FAQ

Things people ask before they hire us.

What does it cost?

It depends on what the outcome is worth to you, because that’s how we price. After a free call and a short scoping week you get one fixed number, in writing, before any work starts.

How long does it take?

Quick fixes take days. Most projects take 4 to 12 weeks. Big builds can run several months. The written plan gives you a real date, and if it moves, you hear why the same day.

Is my project too small?

Probably not. If it’s stuck and it matters to you, it’s worth a call. Some of our favorite jobs took three days.

Is my project too big?

Also probably not. We’ve led multi-team, multi-quarter programs. If it needs more hands than we have, we’ll say so up front and help you staff it.

What if it goes sideways?

You hear about it as soon as we do, along with what we’d do about it. We agree up front on how scope changes get handled, so nobody gets a surprise invoice.

Do you work in my industry?

Probably. So far: banking, healthcare, retail, insurance, manufacturing, food and agriculture, and tech. Stuck projects look pretty similar everywhere.

Can you work with our existing team?

That’s the usual setup. We join your tools and meetings (the useful ones), work next to your people, and leave them able to run it without us.

Start a project

Got something stuck? Let’s unstick it.

We reply within 1 business day. Real human, no drip campaign.

We get stuff done.

People who trusted us with the hard stuff.

Project rescue

Systems & architecture

Apps & custom builds

AI that ships

Alignment & ROI

Something else?

Leads stopped vanishing

Approvals left email

Platform migration

The migration nobody would call late

The 40-tab spreadsheet

The AI pilot that left the lab

Three dashboards, three answers

You tell us the problem.

We ask annoying questions.

It gets done.

We hand it off clean.

Jeff Stoll

Got it. Thanks.