Work · Case study
Spark for BigDog Solar: four tools and an Excel payroll, replaced by one app
BigDog Solar is a solar sales company with 150+ reps selling in the field and 15 admins running the back office.
Spark, the app I built for them, replaced four tools and a payroll done by hand in Excel, and saves them roughly $60,000 a year.
The setup before
Before Spark, BigDog ran on a stack of separate tools, Airtable among them. Each one solved a problem when it was added. None of them fit the way the business actually ran.
Payroll was the worst of it. Every rep's pay was worked out by hand in Excel, for every single rep.
Payments ran through a legacy payment system, and billing issues were spread across three different systems.
What I built
Spark has two halves. Reps use a mobile app in the field. The 15 admins use a web admin portal for the back-office side of the same system.
Pay is calculated in Spark now, with effective-dated commissions for setters, closers and team leads. A rate change applies from the right day without anyone redoing a spreadsheet.
I migrated their payments off the legacy system into NetSuite and rebuilt the data model for teams and reps. Spark replaced four tools and still talks to the two that earned their place: NetSuite and Trello.
How long it took and what it cost
About 12 months, from the first build until the reps and the back-office admins were all working in it, admin portal included.
It was a fractional CTO engagement, and it came before I offered fixed tiers. In scope, it is a Consolidate build. Twelve months is far longer than Consolidate takes today, and the section below is most of the reason.
Today, Consolidate is $20,000, 4 to 8 weeks after discovery.
What changed
- 4 tools removed from the monthly bill and the tech stack.
- 20+ hours a week of manual work gone.
- Billing issues live in 1 system instead of 3.
- Roughly $60,000 a year saved.
- 150+ reps and 15 admins working in one system.
What I would do differently
I would have spent more time on discovery and prototype work with the owners before going into full development. We started building first and worked out what the owners needed along the way, and that is a big part of why it took 12 months.
It is the reason every Consolidate and Replace build I do now starts with paid discovery and a clickable prototype, before any production code.
Is your setup similar?
If you have reps in the field, a back office re-typing their numbers, and a payroll that lives in Excel, it is the same problem.
See what Consolidate includes, everything else I've built, or the questions people ask first.