Bespoke Salesforce solutions for SMBs
Play the front nine well,
and the back nine takes care of itself.
We build custom, Salesforce-native solutions for sales, support, product, and partner teams — using AI only when it's genuinely the right tool, never by default. Increasingly, that means building something you own instead of renting another subscription. The rule that doesn't bend: AI augments your team. It never replaces them.
- Typical first engagement
- 4–6 weeks
- Working software by
- Week 2
- Team size
- Small & senior
Services
Four ways we tend to start
Most engagements begin with one of these and grow from there — and every one starts by asking whether AI, a custom build, or plain configuration is actually the right answer, not assuming it's AI. All of them end with something running, documented, and owned by your team.
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Solution & build-vs-buy mapping
A structured pass across your Salesforce workflows — sales, service, product, or partner experience — to find where a custom build actually beats a licensed tool, where AI genuinely earns its place, and where the honest answer is neither. You get a ranked shortlist with effort, risk, and expected payoff, plus the ideas — and the tools you're already paying for — we think you should keep as-is.
- Workflow & data audit
- Ranked opportunity backlog
- Build-vs-buy guidance
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Prototype sprints
Two to four weeks to turn the top opportunity into something people can click. Real data, real constraints, honest evaluation — so the go/no-go decision is made on evidence instead of vibes.
- Working prototype
- Eval harness & baseline metrics
- Go/no-go recommendation
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Production delivery
Taking a promising prototype the rest of the way: retrieval, tooling, observability, cost controls, and the unglamorous plumbing that decides whether a system survives contact with real users.
- Architecture & implementation
- Monitoring, evals, guardrails
- Cost and latency tuning
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Team enablement
Working sessions, certifications, and pairing so your team builds the instincts themselves — including the people using the system every day, not just the ones who built it. We'd rather be unnecessary in six months than retained for five years.
- Hands-on workshops
- Internal playbooks
- Ongoing advisory
Approach
How an engagement plays out
No discovery phase that quietly becomes the whole project. We aim to have something real in your hands before the first invoice clears.
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Scope the hole
A week of conversations, data spelunking, and honest questions about what success would look like. We write down the target so it can't move later.
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Take the shot
A short build cycle aimed at the riskiest assumption first. If the approach is going to fail, we would rather find out in week two than month five.
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Measure the lie
Evaluations against real inputs, with the failure cases written up plainly. You see the same numbers we do, including the unflattering ones.
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Hand over the clubs
Documentation, walkthroughs, and pairing until your team can extend the system on their own. The handoff is part of the work, not an afterthought.
About
A small, trusted team, on purpose
Front Nine is a small network of 3–5 people, not a scaled “boutique” of hundreds — every engagement is scoped and delivered by the same senior people throughout, no pyramid, no handoff to a team you've never met.
The discipline we sell is knowing when AI is the right tool and when it isn't. Some solutions we build involve AI. Plenty don't. That choice — not “adopt AI” — is the actual expertise.
Before Front Nine, the founder built and sold two companies — running product, solution engineering, and customer experience along the way. That's the experience behind every engagement: having actually built and sold the kind of systems we're now helping you build or replace.
We work best with SMB organizations already running Salesforce that would rather own a solution built exactly right than keep renting one that's a mediocre fit — and that are more interested in a system that works than in being early. If a project doesn't need AI, or doesn't need to be custom-built at all, we'll tell you that too. And one rule doesn't bend: AI is here to augment your team, never to replace them.
The name comes from golf: the front nine sets up the round. Get the early decisions right — the problem you choose, the data you trust, the way you measure — and everything after gets easier.
FAQ
Questions we get early
How do engagements usually start?
With a short call, then a paid scoping week. The scoping week produces a written plan you can act on with or without us — if you take it in-house from there, that is a fine outcome.
Will this replace people on my team?
No — and we mean that as an operating rule, not a talking point. Every engagement is scoped to make your team more capable with AI, not to make parts of it unnecessary. If a proposal only makes sense as a headcount reduction, we won't recommend it.
Do you only work with companies on Salesforce?
Yes, by design. Working inside a system you already own and trust — instead of bolting on something new — is a big part of why engagements move fast and stay contained. If Salesforce isn't your system of record, we're probably not the right fit.
Why build custom instead of buying another Salesforce app?
Because a licensed tool is built for the average customer, and you're not average — you have a specific way your team already works. AI-assisted development has made bespoke builds meaningfully more affordable than they used to be, so for the workflows that genuinely don't fit an off-the-shelf tool, owning something built exactly right, inside Salesforce, often beats another recurring subscription. For everything else — the parts of your stack that are genuinely well-served by a mature tool — we'll say so.
Isn't custom software harder to maintain than a SaaS subscription?
Sometimes, yes — and we'll tell you that up front if it's true for your case. A bespoke build only makes sense when someone's accountable for keeping it running, which is exactly what our team-enablement work is for. We won't hand you something you can't maintain and walk away.
What does it cost?
Most work is fixed-scope and fixed-fee so the incentives stay aligned. Scoping engagements are a flat fee; build engagements are quoted per phase once the target is clear. Longer advisory arrangements are monthly.
Do we need a data team already?
No. You need someone who knows where the data lives and someone empowered to make decisions about the workflow we are changing. We can work with messier data than most teams expect — we just need to be honest about it.
Whose infrastructure does this run on?
Yours. We build in your cloud accounts, your repositories, and your model provider agreements. Nothing important should depend on a vendor you cannot fire.
What about security and confidentiality?
We sign your NDA and MSA, work within your access controls, and scope data handling before any of it moves. If a use case cannot be done safely with the data you have, that is part of the recommendation.
What happens when the engagement ends?
You own everything: code, prompts, evaluations, and documentation. Many clients keep us on a light monthly advisory retainer; plenty do not, and that is the intended outcome.
Contact
Let's talk about the first hole
Tell us what you are trying to do and where it is stuck. If we are not the right fit, we will say so and point you somewhere better.
Based in the United States · Working with teams remotely