Boring Stories for Poolside · June 2026
Boring Stories × Poolside

Let's buy back your week.

You said the bottleneck is volume. Too much work, not enough hours, and a plan for you and David to step back inside a couple of years. Here's where AI and automation can carry the load, what we'd build, and how it all holds together.

What we heard

You're hiring one team with two toolboxes

Most agencies can make something look good. Fewer can build the thing underneath it. We do both, because the time you're trying to win back lives in the boring machinery, not the pretty part.

Boring Stories

The creative side

Brand, websites, video, and design. The work your clients see and the work that carries your name. Restrained, well-built, fast to ship.

For example: the page you're reading. We designed it, generated the imagery, and put it live on real infrastructure in an afternoon. That's the same stack and the same speed we'd hand you.

Boring Labs

The build side

When a problem needs a real tool, we write the software instead of duct-taping five subscriptions together. Desktop apps, automations, internal systems.

For example: we've built a tool that offloads and labels camera footage on its own, a system that runs our own studio operations without a person watching it, and CLIs that clean up the messy work nobody wants to do by hand.

Four places to win

Each one takes a real bottleneck off your plate. Built so your team runs it, not so you have to call us every time.

01

A website you can edit yourself

You said

Off Squarespace, and easy enough to add a section by prompt without calling a developer.

What we'd build

A site on a platform made for exactly that, Framer or Webflow, branded to Poolside. We can use our own builder to stand the first version up fast, then hand you the keys. The same setup becomes something you sell to your own clients.

The outcome

You stop waiting on edits. So do they.

Proof: this page went live on that exact stack. You could be editing a site like it ten minutes after we hand it over.

02

ClickUp that runs itself

You said

The email and call volume is insane, and switching CRMs would wreck the team.

What we'd build

We leave ClickUp where it is and automate around it. Inbound mail sorted into the right task, a drafted reply waiting for a yes, calls transcribed and filed on their own.

The outcome

The inbox stops being a full-time job.

Proof: the same pattern runs our own inbox. Mail comes in, it's sorted, a reply is drafted, and a person just says yes or no.

03

Video that starts at the good part

You said

You'd love the team to open a project that already has a solid first cut, then refine from there.

What we'd build

An editing workflow trained on your footage and your style, so the rough cut already looks like Poolside. Your editors start most of the way there.

The outcome

Less time on the boring 70 percent, more on the part that's actually craft.

How: we build the ingest-to-first-cut pipeline around your editor, Premiere or Resolve, so it fits the way your team already works.

04

Design assets you can still touch

You said

Generate the work, but keep the layers editable.

What we'd build

A branded template library plus a generation step that hands back real, editable files. Canva and Figma, not flattened exports.

The outcome

Routine design gets filled in minutes, and anyone on the team can do it.

How: templates locked to your brand so the team can't break them, with generated art that stays as layers you can still open and change.

Where your site lives

Built on Cloudflare, with every version saved in Git.

Cloudflare, not a platform tax

Your site runs on Cloudflare, the same network that delivers a large slice of the internet. It's fast everywhere in the world, it doesn't buckle under a traffic spike, and it costs almost nothing to keep online.

No monthly Squarespace fee, no plugin that breaks on a Tuesday and takes the page down with it.

Git is the full history

Every version of the site is kept in Git. Think of it as an unlimited undo for the whole site: every change is dated, labeled, and reversible.

If an edit goes sideways, we roll straight back to the exact version from before. Nothing gets lost, and nothing is trapped inside a tool you can't leave.

What that buys you: the site is genuinely yours, edits are safe to make because they can always be undone, and you're never renting your own website back from anyone. This page is already running that way.

How we'd roll it out

All four matter. We just don't do them all at once. We pick one, ship it, and let the time it saves pay for the next.

1

Website first

It's the fastest thing to show, and you feel it right away.

2

Then the ClickUp automation

Aimed at whatever's eating the most hours.

3

Then video

Once we've seen your footage and the cuts you like.

4

Design alongside

Rolled in whenever it fits.

Each step ends with one real thing you can use, and an honest read on the time it gave back.

What we need from you

Two short docs to fill in together. They tell us what Poolside is and what you actually care about, so we build to that and not to a guess.

  • Values and goalsThe durable stuff. Who you are, what you won't compromise on.
  • The planWhere the business is headed and the calls you've already made.
  • Access, when you're readyYour ClickUp, a current site, and one video project with a cut you're proud of.
Next

A short call to rank the four and pick the first. Then we build.