Case study · Business operating system
Skilled Coaching gives owner-led businesses the commercial team they cannot afford to hire: an AI sales agent and senior operators who work inside the business. Its Commercial OS puts sales, marketing, cash and operations on one live screen, and a monthly board meeting decides what to do about what the numbers show. I designed the backend system behind it, together with the Skilled Coaching team. Every client business gets a private space where its owner sees live numbers, takes part in board decisions and pays for its plan, while the Skilled Coaching team looks after all of them from one place.
Skilled Coaching's public page for the Commercial OS, October 2026, with the sample numbers it shows there. The platform I built is private, so none of its screens are shown.
Visit skilledcoaching.comFor everyone
Skilled Coaching fills the commercial seats that an owner-led business needs but cannot justify hiring full time. Its line is 'real people installing digital people': AI agents and senior operators who work inside the client's business instead of advising from outside. Its clients are owners of businesses turning over roughly one to ten million dollars, in fields such as construction, solar, HVAC and professional services.
A client can start with one of three things. Emma is an AI sales agent that answers enquiries, qualifies leads, follows up and books calls. The Commercial OS is one live screen for sales, marketing, cash and operations, with two operators inside the business to run it and a monthly board meeting to act on it. Fractional senior leadership is offered by invitation.
A live screen needs software behind it. Each client business needs its own private place to see its own numbers, hold its board meeting, keep the decisions that came out of it, pay for the plan it is on and answer its onboarding questions. The Skilled Coaching team needs to set all of that up for many clients and look after them without mixing anyone's data.
I designed it as the backend operating system the whole service runs on. Numbers arrive from the tools a client already uses, such as the payment, CRM and accounting systems, and Emma, the AI sales agent, is connected on the backend so its results can be brought into the same space. The Boardroom keeps ideas, the board agenda and decisions, each with an owner and a deadline. Plans and payments run through it, and the database decides who sees what.
The platform is private to Skilled Coaching and its clients, so there are no screens of it on this page. The page shows how it is shaped and leaves out names, keys, limits and settings.
Skilled Coaching sets up the space and invites the owner and the team, each with the access they need.
Sales, marketing and money come in from the systems the client already uses.
Ideas go on the agenda, the board decides, and every decision gets an owner and a deadline.
For founders and CEOs
What the business needed, why the platform is built this way, and what it gives Skilled Coaching and its clients.
Sales sit in a CRM, money in the accounting system, payments with the card processor and lead results with the AI agent. An owner who wants one view of the business has to open four tools, or wait for a spreadsheet at the end of the month.
A founder must see their own business and nothing else, while Skilled Coaching's team has to see every client. Revenue and board decisions are private to one company, so a mistake in who sees what is the worst mistake the system could make.
A monthly board meeting only works if each decision is written down, owned by a person and checked the next month. Skilled Coaching puts it in one line on its own site: 'Logged this month. Checked next month.'
A dashboard that only looks good does not help a founder decide anything. Skilled Coaching's promise is that decisions follow the numbers, so the numbers have to be live, they have to come from the source, and a client has to be sure they are looking at their own.
So every client business is a separate space with its own sections, pages and people, and the rules about who sees what sit in the database, where a mistake on a screen cannot undo them. The Skilled Coaching team builds each client's pages from a small set of blocks. That is quicker than a custom dashboard for every client and keeps every client's screens consistent.
The board meeting got its own place because it is the point of the service. An idea is raised and goes on the agenda, the board decides, and the decision is recorded against the idea with an owner and a deadline, in one step, so the log and the idea cannot disagree. The picture shows the decision log as Skilled Coaching presents it on its own site, with sample entries.
A client business is one space in the platform. Inside it sit the sections the Skilled Coaching team has set up, such as Finance, a weekly pulse or the Boardroom, and each section holds pages.
The team builds those pages from blocks, so a founder's screen shows what matters for that business. Which pages each person sees is set by role, and can be narrowed to one person and one page.
Skilled Coaching can now run its clients from one system. One client's monthly tracker, a spreadsheet, was moved into the platform with import scripts, tab by tab, and the board meeting is logged in the same place as the numbers it is based on. Payments are taken and renewed there as well.
Clients sign in, change their temporary password and see only their own space. Skilled Coaching's team can add people, change what each can see, block or reactivate an account, reset a password and reset a second sign-in step when someone loses their phone.
I designed the backend system and built it together with the Skilled Coaching team. I decided how clients are kept apart, how the numbers get in, how payments run and how board decisions are recorded, and I built the backend those screens depend on.
For engineers and technical leads
A React front end, a NestJS API and a PostgreSQL database on Supabase. The database decides who can see what, the API handles everything that needs a secret, and every client is a separate space. The system is private to Skilled Coaching, so this page shows its shape and leaves out table names, keys, limits and settings.
The Skilled Coaching team creates a space for a client and builds its sections and pages from blocks: text, tables with formulas, charts, documents, files, video, payments, onboarding answers and live numbers from outside systems.
The API adds the client's people, each with a temporary password they must change at first sign-in. A person gets one or more roles, and access can be narrowed to a single page, to view or to edit.
The browser reads page content straight from the database, using the person's own session. Row-level security answers every question, so a request for another client's page returns nothing.
Anything that needs a secret goes through the NestJS API: creating members, connecting a client's payment, CRM or accounting account, talking to Emma, taking payments and sending sign-in codes. The API checks that the person is signed in and belongs to that client before it does anything.
Connected accounts are stored encrypted, and only the API can read them. It fetches summary numbers from Stripe, HubSpot and Xero and keeps them with the connection. A page reads the saved numbers and asks for a refresh on the schedule its block sets. Emma's summaries are read when they are asked for.
In the Boardroom an idea moves from captured to the board agenda to a decision. Recording the decision writes it and updates the idea in one database call, so the two cannot disagree.
For payments, a client picks plans, the API bundles them into one payment and the provider confirms by a signed message. The platform marks the plans active, and a nightly job charges each renewal that is due.
One platform serves every client, so a single slip in who can see what would show one company's revenue or board decisions to someone else. Skilled Coaching's own team has to see everything, and a founder has to see only their business.
Access is layered. A client is a space, a space holds sections, and sections hold pages. A role opens sections, and one person can be given view or edit on one page. These rules sit in the database as row-level security, forced on every table, so a request built by hand to skip the screens gets nothing back. Once a person has a second sign-in step, the same rules also hide client data from any session that has not completed it.
A founder's numbers live in different tools: payments in one, deals in another, invoices and cash in a third, and lead results with the AI agent. Each speaks its own language and counts its own way.
The platform connects to each client's own accounts and reads summary numbers, then keeps them as named metrics with a date range, such as revenue this month or deals won this quarter. A page block picks one metric, one range and how often to refresh. Charts, stat tiles and table formulas then read the same numbers, so a figure on the board page matches the one on the finance page. Emma's summaries come through the same API for the client's linked workspace.
Skilled Coaching sells plans, and clients pay for them inside the platform. The first payment has to be right, and every renewal has to happen on its own, because nobody wants to chase each client for an invoice every month.
The platform keeps a catalogue of plans, switches each plan on or off per client, and lets a page show a plan as available or locked. The first payment saves the client's consent with the provider. A nightly job uses that consent to charge each renewal that is due, writes every attempt to a ledger and marks a failure as past due.
A client's connected accounts are encrypted before they are saved, in a table no browser session can read, and only the API holds the key and the service credentials. Tokens for the accounting system are renewed by the API when they run out. Emma's agency-level key lives only on the server, and each client space can be linked to exactly one Emma client, so two companies can never read the same numbers.
Emma talks to a client's customers, so its raw records carry names, calls and conversations. The platform serves summaries only: an overview, a time series, outcomes, a funnel, results per agent, campaigns and pipelines. Leads, calls, conversations and calendars are left out on purpose, and the Emma client a request reads is looked up from the server-side link, never taken from the request. Spoken briefings and generated reports from Emma are built behind switches that Skilled Coaching turns on when it is ready.
An idea has a status that runs from captured, through under review and on the board agenda, to approved, in progress, deferred, declined or completed. Recording a decision creates it, with its owner and deadline, and updates the idea in one database function, so the idea and the log never drift apart. Every new space gets a Boardroom section that nobody can see until a role is given access to it.
Clients can turn on an authenticator app or a code sent by email. The app option uses the platform's built-in support, so we store no secret. Email codes are stored only as hashes, expire quickly, allow a few tries and are limited in how often they can be sent. Once a person has a second step, the database hides client data from any session that has not completed it. If someone loses their phone, an admin can reset it.
Pages are built from twelve kinds of block: headings, text, documents, tables, stat tiles, lists, charts, video, files, payments, onboarding answers and live numbers. Tables work like a spreadsheet, with cell references, ranges, SUM, AVG, IF and references to other pages, and can track a week, a fortnight or a month at a time.
Before the platform, a client's numbers lived in a monthly metrics spreadsheet. Import scripts moved its tabs, from the monthly scorecard to marketing and sales, financials and sprint, and vision, operations and cash, into pages with the same layout, so the client could carry on with the rhythm it already had.
The Skilled Coaching team creates the client's space and its sections, such as Finance, a weekly pulse and the Boardroom.
They create roles, give each role the sections it may see, and add people. The backend creates each account with a temporary password.
They connect the client's payment, CRM and accounting accounts and link the client's Emma workspace.
They build the pages from blocks. Onboarding forms collect what the client has to tell them first.
The client signs in, changes the password, can turn on a second step, and sees only their own space.
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