Byron Wade. I build software for service businesses.
I grew a plumbing company to $2.4M. Then I lost it. Now I build the software it needed.
Dispatch, phones, reputation, and the design system underneath them. I got the problems from running the company. The answers ship as code. Here is what went wrong.
- Year-two revenue, before it closed
- $2.4M
- Years shipping software
- 8+
- Projects written up here
- 16
Selected work
Proof from products and the service business that shaped them.
- ThorbisIn development
field service, rebuilt
A unified operating system for field service: one job cockpit, live dispatch, and communications that stay with the work.
- Job cockpitFocus
- Next.js 16Stack
- Active buildStatus
- GoodmarksLive
reputation, protected
Happy customers go to public reviews and unhappy ones land in a private inbox first, so the reputation gets protected before it breaks.
- LiveStatus
- ReviewsFocus
- Mobile-firstSurface
- SignalRouteIn development
the phone that runs itself
AI-operated telephony that answers, routes, transfers, and summarizes, with a visual call-flow editor and a developer API.
- AI-operatedMode
- Visual flowsEditor
- Dev + opsAudience
- byronwade/uiIn development
one design language, every project
One design language across products: Morph Panels, semantic tokens, and accessible primitives reused everywhere I build.
- Morph PanelSignature
- SemanticTokens
- This siteUsed on
- Wade's Plumbing and SepticLive
trust at emergency speed
A fast, neighborly site that ranks in two markets and makes calling feel obvious under stress.
- $2.4M yr-2Peak revenue
- CA + GAMarkets
- Speed + trustPriority
Writing
Notes from building products and running a service business.
- Nexstar Is Teaching Plumbing Companies to Win the Invoice and Lose the Customer17 minAug 7, 2026
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
- What Service Businesses Actually Need From Software14 minJul 28, 2026
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
- A Design System Has to Be Enforceable or It Is Just Documentation13 minJul 12, 2026
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
- Why I’m Building Thorbis: Field-Service Software Should Understand the Whole Business14 minNov 18, 2025
Thorbis did not start as a feature list. It started with the operational failures I lived through in plumbing: lost context, weak job costing, missed calls, expensive seats, and software that never sees the whole company.
- Thorbis
- Field service
- Product