About
A small, hands-on team in Cincinnati. We started by building software for businesses we run ourselves, and we've since delivered 20 projects for entertainment and event venues, construction, auto services, youth sports organizations and marketing agencies.
We're operators first
We started with the businesses we run ourselves, then built for clients across hospitality, construction, auto services, youth sports and marketing. "When a rollout goes badly, we're the ones who have to explain it to our own staff on Monday. It makes us conservative about scope and stubborn about the details that only matter later."
Who you're working with
Founder
Aaron runs Full Throttle, a multi-venue entertainment park business, and a storage operation for cars, RVs, and boats. Both run on software Acorn Works built — scheduling, bookings, collections, billing, reporting.
Several of our projects started because one of his businesses needed it on a Monday and nobody sold it.
Engineer
Evan ran his own business for years the disorganized way — quotes one place, invoices another, the schedule in his head. Then he built the software that ran it for him, and found he was better at that than anything else.
He writes the systems and sits with the people who use them. He'll take any excuse to get out of the office and watch the work happen.
How we build
Ship in phases, specific about what a phase does and doesn't include.
First deliverable is usually a clickable version on sample data — "much cheaper to be wrong at that stage."
Build for the person holding the device: large tap targets on a floor, short PIN on shared devices, bigger type when the user isn't twenty-five. "The difference between a system people use and a system people route around."
Permissions, audit trails and data privacy are built in from day one, not bolted on later.
What we won't do
Won't sell a platform you grow into. Won't bolt AI onto a problem a simple report would solve. Will say when the answer is process change rather than software.
Common questions
Almost always. Most business software has an API, and where it doesn't there is usually a database or an export we can work from. Part of the Genesis meeting is finding out quickly which of those we're dealing with, because it changes what's worth building.
We tell you at the Genesis meeting, and you keep the notes. It happens regularly. Sometimes the fix is that two people change the order they do things in, and we would rather say that early than build something your team quietly routes around.
Yes. The code and the data are yours from the first commit, in your repository and your database. There is no licence to keep paying and nothing that stops working if you stop working with us.
It can be, when it's set up right. Your data stays in your own systems, only what you approve gets shared, and every AI answer traces back to a record you can check. A person signs off on anything involving money.
Yes. We are based in Cincinnati and take work across the country. We travel for the Genesis meeting when being in the room is what the work needs.
Most clients keep us on monthly support to maintain it and keep adding to it. Or your team takes it over. The code and the data are yours either way.
Start a conversation
We'll come back with whether we can help and roughly what it would take. Usually within one business day.