Byron Wade Product engineer and founder
I ran the service business. Now I build the software it needed.
I grew a plumbing company to $2.4M in year two. Then it closed. Dispatch, phones, reputation: I learned the problems firsthand. Today I turn those lessons into products for the trades. Read what went wrong, and what I learned.
What I’m building · Thorbis
Explore Thorbis (opens in a new tab)Software for the people who keep things running.
From the first customer call to the last invoice. Product engineering and a shared design system, grounded in the work of a service business.
- 01CallThe customer and the job, from the first conversation
- 02ScheduleAn estimate and a time on the calendar
- 03DispatchThe right tech, with the job’s history
- 04InvoicePriced from the work that was done
- Year-two revenue, before closing
- $2.4M
- Years shipping software
- 8+
- Projects documented here
- 24
Selected work
Proof from products and the service business that shaped them.
Writing
Notes from building products and running a service business.
19 min read
Nexstar Is Teaching Plumbing Companies to Win the Invoice and Lose the Customer
After ten years in plumbing, two master licenses, owning a company, and working inside three shops, I believe the industry’s obsession with average ticket is trading lifetime trust for a one-day sales number.
- Plumbing
- Customer experience
- Sales
14 min read
What Service Businesses Actually Need From Software
Contractors do not need a larger feature checklist. They need software that protects the chain from first call to collected payment, keeps context attached to the job, and makes operational failure visible early.
- Field service
- Product
- Operations
13 min read
A Design System Has to Be Enforceable or It Is Just Documentation
Tokens, components, accessibility rules, and motion principles only become a system when products inherit them automatically. AI-generated interfaces make that enforcement more important, not less.
- Design systems
- UI
- Product engineering