Roughly 10,000 years ago, in 2023, Aboard launched a fun data-management tool—sort of like if Airtable and Pinterest had a happy baby. Our idea was to make complex data easy to organize—to make “database stuff” feel like “bookmarking”—and then, as it picked up users, we hoped to adapt it for companies and teams. 

That version of Aboard found dedicated users, but the world had other plans. Right after we launched it, the tidal waves started coming: ChatGPT 4.5, vibe-coding tools, and Claude Code. “Making it easy” is always the right idea in technology, but the definition of “easy” changed from “great interfaces and simple setup” to “tell an LLM what you want and it builds it.”

So we had to pivot. But my co-founder Rich and I didn’t really see it as a strategic pivot, where you shift from one product idea to the next. The idea of “product” was changing. The line between “platform customer” and “agency client” was blurring, into clustomers, or worse, custolients (pronounced “cust-o-lee-ents”). A software company for the LLM future will be less a big platform with a single name and more a set of tools, practices, and human touchpoints that can provide consistency and stability. It might sell itself as a product, or it might be billed as a solution provider, or it might just be 50 markdown files in a trenchcoat. It’s a wild time.

So what is Aboard today? Well, it’s a mix of product and agency. You might call it a praygency (yes, I added the “y”, how could I not), or an agenuct. More seriously, since the boundaries between product management, engineering, and design are blurring, we got rid of a lot of titles. Everyone at Aboard is a Solution Engineer, including me; they work for our customers using our internal tools as well as Claude Code. It’s a slightly awkward term, but better than prodesigngeneer.

The simplest way to describe us is as a “solution engineering firm.” We build complex stuff, then we manage it for our customers, who pay us a licensing and hosting fee for ongoing support, or they can buy the solution outright and host it themselves.

To keep it simple, we’ve organized what we do into two offerings, which we call “Launch,” for rapid development, and “Transform,” for organization-wide AI change management.

Aboard Launch. You call us, and in 30-90 days, we will use our custom AI tools combined with powerful ones like Claude Code to build a stable, tested web platform for you, with all of your data migrated into it. We can combine platforms, stand up new tools, or adapt existing ones. Think: CMS, CRM, and ERP/logistics. We’ll train your team and be available on Slack, too. It’s like an agency, but much, much faster—and we often deliver a working tool before we send you a proposal. You’ll pay an ongoing licensing and support fee. This is the perfect product if you want to bring AI into your giant company in a discrete way, or you want to clear your roadmap.

Aboard Transform. A classic consulting relationship with a delicious twist: We ship all the software. You want to learn the risks and rewards of building with AI, with a focus on the risks first. You need a plan, you need advisory, and you have a list of things you want to build—but you can’t just take wild swings. You need talent who will take the time to understand your business before slopping prompts all over everything. We’ll listen and work together on a roadmap, and then we’ll develop good working software. Except we’ll build a lot of it, quickly, so that you can start to show your organization how to work more quickly, how to clear roadmap, and what comes next.

Why these offerings? Why not pretend to have a one-size-fits all platform or a perfect answer? It comes back to solution engineering: The changes in our industry mean that the definition of “tech company” is changing—and broadening. Products are transforming into services in the light of the full moon, like werewolves.

I tend to stay away from nautical imagery since our company is named Aboard, but I keep coming back to the image of a tugboat. I love tugboats. We all love tugboats. They’re small, practical, and powerful. When enormous ships show up, tugboats get them safely into port. AI is the enormous ship; Aboard is the solution-engineering tugboat. That’s the dream.

It’s a disorienting time, and everyone in our industry is adapting as well as they can. It’s also, if we’re frank, extremely fun, because increasingly, the people who reach out don’t have tech-shaped problems: They have business and organizational problems, and our work is one way to solve them. Today, our customers run the gamut from healthcare providers to insurance firms, and our inbound runs the gamut from event space managers to meat distributors. Everyone is overwhelmed, everyone needs to go faster, and everyone wants help. That’s why we’re here, on our tugboat.

The “good” news? Software is still hard, despite what you read in the paper. Not the actual coding part. That’s getting easier, especially if you build web apps. But the thinking part, where you figure out what an organization needs, break that into smaller problems, get everyone aligned, migrate the data, test it, and deploy it? You can’t just write prompts. Things will keep getting faster and smoother. Software works for humans, not the other way around—and humans will remain just as complex as before.

There’s more information about what we’re offering here on the site. As always, just get in touch—we’re glad to help, even if you just need advice.