Catalytic consulting for business process and software

Get unstuck.
Then get ahead.

Bring us the “I wonder if we could…” that keeps coming up. We build the working version, and set your team up to run it themselves.

Talk to us → See the work ↓

Work directly with founder Sam Douglas, from the first conversation through the build and handoff.

// The problem

Where the work gets stuck.

You probably know already. The harder part is deciding what to change, whether the improvement is worth the effort, and where to start.

Sound familiar?

Work stalls between people. A request arrives without the details needed to act on it. A new client waits because the next step has no clear owner. Keeping the work moving depends on someone remembering to follow up.

Your systems don't talk to each other. Someone copies information from one tool to another, then checks that the records match. A change in one system means updating the others by hand.

The same document gets rebuilt every week. Proposals, intake summaries, reports: someone gathers information from the same sources and assembles each document by hand, every time.

There's an internal tool nobody has time to build. Everyone knows what it would do. It's been on the list for a year.

You're paying for AI tools, but the payoff isn't clear. Your team has access, but each person is left to figure out where the tools help and how to use them well.

Your team is curious about AI, but hasn't found a worthwhile place to start. You have ideas, but haven't worked out which ones would save time, reduce errors, or help the business grow.

// Where to start

Four ways in.
Each one ends with something you keep.

Pick the one that matches where you are.

“Something here is worth fixing, but we don't know what the fix is yet.”

DIAGNOSE

Workflow assessment

What we look at
One business area or a closely related set of workflows: how the work moves, the tools involved, where the hours go, and where handoffs break.
What you bring
Up to three people who do or own the work, about an hour each, and real examples from the tools they use.
What you get
A short written brief: the current process, what it costs you now, the options worth comparing, and the smallest next step. Sometimes that step is a setting you already have, or not building anything.
Then
Implementation is a separate decision. Build it with us, or take the brief and run with it yourself.

“We know which recurring task needs fixing.”

BUILD

Focused implementation

What we look at
One known workflow: the top of the shortlist, or the recurring task you already named.
What you bring
The people who do that task today, and what a good result looks like to them.
What you get
A working automation or tool, success criteria agreed before we start, and a check against them before we call it done.
Then
A handoff that covers what it does and how to change it. Your team runs it.

“We pay for AI tools, but the payoff isn't clear.”

TEACH

Team enablement

What we look at
The tasks your team does every week, and the AI tools they already have access to.
What you bring
The team, a half day, and examples from their current work.
What you get
Hands-on sessions on their own tasks, plus the prompts, checklists, and workflows they build during them. Those stay with you.
Then
They use it the following week. We check in on what stuck.

“We need an application that doesn't exist yet.”

SHIP

Product or internal tool

What we look at
A new application that still needs discovery: the tool that keeps not getting built, and what has to be true for it to be worth building.
What you bring
The problem, the people who would use it, and someone who can make the call on scope and priorities.
What you get
Discovery that settles the what before the how, a rough version you can react to early, then the build and the unglamorous hardening.
Then
You own the code written for your application, with documentation and an agreed plan for maintenance and future changes. Open-source parts keep their own licenses. Exec Foundry was built this way.

You don't need to choose before you contact us. Describe the problem, and we'll recommend the smallest useful place to start. That can be a single workflow assessment or one focused fix.

The first conversation

It's free and takes about 25 minutes. You describe the idea or the work that keeps repeating, and we ask how the work moves today. You leave with a straight answer on whether we can help and where we would start. When the fix is already clear, we quote it directly, with no assessment first.

Scope and price

Nothing paid starts without a written scope and price. Work that is already understood gets a fixed price. Discovery and exploration, where the answer isn't known yet, run in short stages, each priced before it starts, with a point after each where you can stop. The scope also lists what becomes yours, what runs on open-source tools, and anything that depends on a tool of ours, with the terms for using it.

// The work

Problems we turned into working software.

Tools we built. Most we gave away.

Product we build and operate

Exec Foundry

Job search tools for senior professionals. The system carries the volume. You keep the judgment.

One workflow, before and after: preparing for an interview.

Before
For every interview, the candidate gathers the job description, the company's news and filings, and their own résumé, then writes talking points from scratch. By the fortieth pursuit, the prep is thinner than the first.
After
Exec Foundry assembles the prep and a company brief from the pursuit's record, with company research and linked sources. The candidate reviews the evidence, corrects it, and decides what to say.
Result
Prep starts from a sourced draft instead of a blank page, and the fortieth pursuit gets the same standard as the first. The judgment stays with the person.
One decision
We turned down auto-apply. Sending more applications, faster, was the wrong problem to solve.

The same shape fits a proposal, an intake summary, or a weekly report. The system gathers and drafts. A person reviews and decides.

Exec Foundry's Resume Forge: a master resume, then Diagnose, Forge, and Verify steps with findings grouped by signal

Resume Forge. Diagnose finds the gaps, Forge proposes edits, the user decides what ships.

1 / 3
Read the story → execfoundry.com →
Open-source tool

ForgeTrail

Recurring problem
Every new AI coding session started from zero and re-fought bugs the last one had already settled.
What we built
Decisions, phase, and lessons kept in the repository, so the next session starts where the last one stopped.
Why it matters to a client
The same habit is how we avoid charging you twice for the same discovery. Decisions get written down where the work lives.
forgetrail.dev →
Open-source tool

Cold-eye

Recurring problem
New AI tools land every week, and most of them make sense to the person who built them, not to the next person who opens them. We wanted a stranger's read on all of them, ours included.
What we built
A review skill that reads a finished artifact and returns a readiness verdict with ranked findings.
Why it matters to a client
Before we hand work to your team, we run this read and fix the findings we agreed on.
coldeye.dev →
Open-source tool

xFacts

Recurring problem
Adopting an app, a tool, or a model meant a source dive to find out what it is built from, what it touches, and what it hides.
What we built
Six compact labels for software, from the app and its features to models and agents, with "undisclosed" as a visible value. A validator checks structure. It does not certify truth.
Why it matters to a client
When we recommend a tool for your business, this is the set of questions we already asked about it.
xfacts.dev →

Dozens of tools on the shelf. See our tools →

// Who you'll work with

You talk to the person
who builds it.

Sam Douglas
Founder, Catalyst Forge

Sam has spent his career building software that didn't exist yet: at Raytheon, Choice Hotels, and Verisign, and as co-founder and founding engineer of Mindcorp. Alongside that, a sixteen-year consultancy serving dozens of small businesses in southern Arizona. In addition to founding Catalyst Forge, he builds and operates Exec Foundry, wrote ForgeTrail and the rest of the shelf, and writes the essays.

On an engagement, Sam does the diagnosis, the build, and the handoff himself. When a project needs more hands, we bring in collaborators, and Sam stays the person you talk to. No sales team, no account managers.

Your business drives the decision

We don't start with what AI can do. We start with what your business needs. If AI is the right answer, we'll tell you. We'll also tell you when it isn't.

What's yours at the end

What we build for you is yours: the custom code, configuration, workflows, and documentation made for your business. It may also run on existing tools. Open-source tools, ours or other people's, keep their own licenses. If a piece depends on a tool of ours that isn't public, the scope says so and states the terms for continued use.

Before handoff, we agree who handles everyday use, technical upkeep, and future changes, and the handoff covers what each of those takes. Your team may run it entirely on its own. If you want help after that, it's available. It's your choice, not a condition.

// Writing

Two essays that show how we work.

· 4 min read

What Over How

The kickoff ends early. Everyone nodded at modernize. Three people just heard three different projects, and nobody finds out until month four.

· 5 min read

What We Didn't Build

We shipped Exec Foundry, a search workspace for senior professionals. The obvious feature we turned down says the most about how we build.

All writing →
// Let's talk

What have you been wondering about?

Bring the “I wonder if we could…” that keeps coming up, even if it's half-formed. We'll ask how the work happens today, and tell you whether it's worth doing and whether AI belongs in the answer.

Email Sam about a project → Email a quick question

Or write to us directly: hello@catalystforge.com

What to include

The idea, or the work that keeps repeating: who does it now and what you've already tried. A paragraph is plenty. Don't clean it up; the mess is usually where the answer is.

What happens next

You get a reply from the person who would do the work, not a sales sequence. If it looks like a fit, the next step is a 25-minute conversation about how you work. If it doesn't, we'll say so and point you somewhere useful.