Studios
Every part of this project has been smooth, with clear communication and frequent check-ins throughout.
When your tools cannot share data, people re-type the same numbers from one screen into another. That is a tax on your business every day of the week.
Your team gets things done because they have to. The workarounds compound. The original reason for most of them has been forgotten, and every new change takes more time more than the last.
When software fights the real workflow, savvy employees build spreadsheets, side processes, and silent rules. The business runs on tribal knowledge designed to work around a broken system.
Every change feels uncertain, and the cost of staying put keeps rising while the cost of an incorrect "new" system feels worse. It can often take days or weeks to get responses from uninterested developers who have moved on.
"I felt heard. I felt validated. And you never made me feel like I needed to learn a whole nother side career just to be able to accomplish this goal."
— MISTY EBERSOLE, CEO · SASS Watch the full interview →
The objective is simple: one system that fits how your specific business operates, returning hours per day back to your team.
Every client who hires us, does so for one of these six reasons:
From spreadsheet to software
A spreadsheet runs a core part of the business, and has outgrown the people who built it. We turn tables and rows into a system with specialzed rules tailored to your business.
Built for your 20%
GLP-1 dosing algorithms, shooting matches, and customized quoting systems; our clients have diverse businesses with unique needs. We hone in on the 20% that makes your operation different, so the system matches how you work instead of forcing to match the system.
Custom ERP instead of a forced upgrade
Your vendor is pushing a costly upgrade on their timeline. We build custom so you are not boxed into features you do not need and timelines you did not choose.
Rebuilt without disruption
Some of our clients had a custom system that worked for years, until the original developer left, leaving them without someone who could maintain the software. We rebuild, migrate, and support your system transition so the business keeps running while the foundation is replaced.
One connected system
You run several systems that do not share data, and your people have become the integration layer. We build the system that ties the operation together.
The last firm failed you
An agency took the deposit and built the wrong thing. You still need the system fixed. You need a senior engineer who knows your business, answers in under an hour, and can fix your system.
Most ERP and custom software firms bill by the hour, obscure their process, and vanish after launch. We built Pilot West as the opposite of that, on every point that decides whether you get software worth owning.
Most firms quote a build before they understand the business. We reverse that. The first thing we do is define our North Star: the measurable, must-have business outcome you need. Then we talk through your options and discuss the trade-offs of each, including the options that do not involve hiring us. By the end you'll have a good sense of the options best for your company. If you decide working with us is the best path, the roadmap is anchored to that North Star we defined at the outset. That is how we deliver software that creates meaningful outcomes in months, not years.
We assign a senior, US-based developer to your business. They handle communication, speaking your language, with average response times under 15 minutes. You can pick up the phone and call, text, or email them at any time. The rest of our team sits behind them as supporting resources, scaling up or down as the work shifts. The model is built around one experienced engineer who knows your business, not a rotating cast of contributors ambiguously "contributing" to your project. You get a friendly, comunicative, seasoned professional without the hassle of payroll, the price of a team, or the risk of mis-hiring.
If at any point you decide we are not the right partner, we will refund your entire last month. Whether it is the first month or the tenth, we will give you the full amount of your last month's payment back. This is a low-risk offer because excellent work is rarely refunded.
We leverage LLM tooling to build scalable, high-quality code bases. But we never outsource what matters: human relationships. It's why we don't outsource talking to the humans experiencing the pain. It is also why we bake free cookies and ship them to your office.
Thirty minutes of listening and problem-solving. We name your North Star and discuss whether we are the right partner. Our goal is that you walk away with clarity on next steps.
This engagement is designed to resolve the pain identified in your North Star. Timelines vary, but can take anywhere from 3 months to a few years, with average engagements between 12-24 months. You own the code from day one. If at any point you decide we are not a fit, we'll refund your last month. (Yes, that means refunds in the first month cost you nothing.)
After we arrive at our first North Star, we have a choice: begin solving the next problem, or transition to Continuous Care. Continuous Care is where we keep your application fast, secure, and bug-free. You can make any request you wish, and we won't "upsell" you back to a North Star project at a higher rate.
For fifteen years Misty tried to replace SASS's 1990s Visual Basic system. Nothing fit. When we opened the database, it hadn’t been backed up in years. We secured forty years of membership data first, then replaced the system in 11 months with no downtime. Eighteen days after launch, the team said they had 30% of their day back.
"They made us feel valued and respected, with the intention of building a lasting partnership rather than just collecting a paycheck."
Amy’s staff was running fifteen different programs every day, copying data between them and auditing by hand. We built a custom system from the ground up so her team could stop wrestling software and return to clients.
"Every part of this project has been smooth, with clear communication and frequent check-ins throughout."
Todd’s scheduling system was aging out. We rebuilt it end to end, reservations, partner data, and session tracking, and shipped it on time, live in production from day one.
"Their ability to consistently connect development work to real business value set them apart."
Dr. Ian needed a patient app for medication tracking, weight tracking, and inventory. We delivered the MVP in under three months, with 35,000 lines of code and 25,000 lines of tests.
"This would have taken other agencies double or triple the time."
We built Pilot West Studios to be the anti-agency agency.
We believe that client care should be the value around which, all other concerns orbit. We started Pilot West because we kept meeting owners with awful experiences with software agencies. It was striking that most of those experiences weren't malicious, they were just regular old carelessness.
We had a hunch that we could do better.
Before we even had an official name, clients started calling us their technical "co-pilots". We named our business after the golden era of 60's Pan-American flight, where outstanding customer care (and maybe a nice suit) defined the American mindset.
We hope to get the opportunity to serve you.
We focus on the "ERP" industries: US-based construction, distribution, manufacturing, and service businesses, typically between $5M-$100M in revenue.
We include quotes above our calculator from people who never paid us a dime but got immense value from our consultation. The companies who do pay us tend to get brand new systems operating in this business, with nearly zero disruption, within 1-2 years on average.
You shouldn't blindly trust any software vendor.
However, we do have some good ratings on public software marketplaces that require proof in order to be eligible to be rated:
#1 Rated Software Vendor on Bark
10x Category Leader Awards on Clutch
We'd also be happy to connect vetted prospects with any of our clients so you can do your own due diligence.
Beyond that, we offer ridiculously good refund guarantees. We try to push all the chips forward to make working with us as close to zero-risk as possible!
Plus, we try really hard to bribe people with cookies. It's hard to fake that kind of enthusiasm!
A flat monthly rate, customized to the scope of your engagement. The model is intentionally cheaper than hiring a senior US developer in-house ($120K to $200K plus benefits) and more flexible. You scale up or down month to month. Exact pricing comes out of the free consultation, once we understand the scope.
Compared to your favorite date night—yes. However, when compared against the year 1 and year 10 costs of an off-the-shelf ERP implementation, you may be surprised to know custom can often be cheaper in the long haul.
A senior US developer costs $120K to $200K a year plus benefits, equipment, and recruiting time. Beyond that, talented senior US developers are hard to find and hard to keep. With us, a developer drops into your business at a flat monthly rate, with the rest of our team available behind them as supporting resources. No hiring or HR overhead, and you can scale resources up or down as the work shifts.
Yes. Our whole team is based in the US. No offshoring, no overnight handoffs, no time zone friction. You work with senior US engineers who understand your business in plain English.
Off-the-shelf vendors have the strengths of years of doing things a certain way. Their customizations are usually fairly limited, which leads to increased stability at the cost of fitting your business well.
The risk of a custom ERP depends on how the vendor handling the custom build works.
If they work heads-down for 2 years and then show up with a single, scary cut-over—yes. That's terrifying and shouldn't be how anyone handles a custom build (unfortunately, many do it like this.)
If the custom ERP developer gets your team using the software early, often, and on smaller problems first, the workflows get validated while your team still relies on the existing system for mission-critical workflows. As trust and resiliency is proven (not hoped for—proven) those mission-critical workflows can be taken over by the new system as the old system is slowly transitioned over, piece by piece.
This is a real risk that is managed through good communication, aligned expectations and thorough (which is different from "lengthy") discovery. Typically, by the time we've outlined the North Star, we have a good idea of the general phases of the system migration.
Pilot West Studios gives you access to the code and infrastructure from Day One, so if you determine that we're not fit for the job—you can fire us and have another team take over the system.
Pilot West Studios gives you access to the code and infrastructure from Day One, so if you determine that we're not fit for the job—you can fire us and have another team take over the system.
We offer "Unlimited Off-boarding". In the unlikely event that we've broken trust beyond repair and the only option forward is finding a new team, we will spend as much time as it takes to safely and transparently hand off the project to the new team and ensure you're in good hands.
Technically, these platforms offer customizations. But it's more like choosing a car trim package than building your car from scratch. For many companies, those customizations are sufficient. But for companies that want a simple system tailored to their business—custom can be a cheaper, simpler, long-term choice.
During discovery, you'll likely get tired of hearing us ask, "Why is it like that?" Many times the answers are unknown or simply, "Because it's always been that way." In these moments we have a choice: Forge a new path, or encode the existing choice into code. These choices aren't irreversible, but they do present opportunities to review why you do things the way you do.
Whatever you choose, we work to accommodate your ideal vision for the business whether that be encoding these choices in the software or working to "re-program" the processes in the business.
We hate saying "It depends", but we typically hammer out a v1 in anywhere from 3-9 weeks. The goal is to put something tangible into your hands ASAP so that you can say, "Wow these guys are freakin' awesome" and we can build out the rest of your system from there.
The full, production-ready ERP system usually takes anywhere from 9 months to 2 years depending on complexity.
We offer vetted prospects the opportunity to chat with any of our clients to help them get a sense of cadence, velocity, and working with Pilot West Studios.
We suggest nothing less.
We do not do "big bang" migrations that result in cutting over an entire production system in a single day (there are some situations where this is unavoidable, but we spend a LOT of time working to minimize or avoid this situation.)
We will slowly migrate features and functionalities out of the old system until the old system can be fully decommissioned.
All historical data is securely kept intact. We try to structure migrations to make the new system incapable of losing historical data.
To date we have never lost a single customer record during a system migration.
We hope you'll let us maintain your system after launch, though there's no requirement for that. We offer a "Continuous Care" service that smoothly transitions you from active development while still allowing you to request features, bug fixes, and changes at a low monthly rate. This also includes all the hosting and infrastructure costs baked into the monthly rate.
You own your code from Day One, and we don't require contracts. You are free to take the code that you own and have any other team work on it.
Our goal is to provide top-notch service so that you don't want to find other companies to work on it.
We offer "Unlimited Off-boarding". In the unlikely event that we've broken trust beyond repair and the only option forward is finding a new team, we will spend as much time as it takes to safely and transparently hand off the project to the new team and ensure you're in good hands.
Generally, no. Pilot West Studios can handle all of the technical requirements of your ERP. However, if you have an internal IT team and would like them involved in the process of building and auditing the system, we welcome collaboration.
We tailor our written guarantees to each client. We're happy to dump all of our guarantees into a structured legal document approved by your legal team.
A thirty-minute consultation call lets us outline your North Star, the one business objective your software should be moving. Most people arrive asking for a specific thing: a new ERP, a portal, a workflow tool, and leave with a clear, measurable path to improvement. We help you talk through what you're actually trying to solve, then walk through whether custom software is the right path. If something off-the-shelf would do the job, or if the underlying issue isn't really a software problem, we tell you, and point you toward the right solution. Either way, you leave with clarity.
We've worked across industries with compliance baselines, including healthcare data, financial data, and internal audit requirements. On the free consultation we dig into the specifics of your environment and tell you honestly whether we can meet them. If we can't, we say so.
Yes. We allow vetted prospects that we've confirmed are serious about working with us to contact any of our clients past or current to have a conversation about anything and everything that concerns you.
In less time than it takes to grab a coffee with a friend, you can get a read on where the hours are going, what is worth fixing first, and what a rebuild would actually cost in time and money.