Software & AI roadmap
The goal of the day: leave with a one-page written roadmap that goes straight into the next sprint planning. It answers three questions: do we sell software or build only for our own portfolio, how we would sell it, and when and why Steve grows into Askel OS.
This page is Mike's working draft. The orange boxes are proposed positions to argue about, not decisions.
Agenda
| Time | Block | Lead |
|---|---|---|
| 10:00–10:30 | Where we are: a quick live tour of what is running (CRM, KT handbook, outreach ledger, Steve). Carry over anything from Friday's Melers digitalisation retro & demo. | Mike |
| 10:30–11:30 | 1 · Product: sell software, or build for the portfolio only? | Mike |
| 11:30–11:45 | Break | |
| 11:45–12:45 | 2 · Steve and Askel OS: when, how, why | Mike, Vária |
| 12:45–13:30 | Lunch | |
| 13:30–14:30 | 3 · Where agents can and can't go; key-person risk | Niklas, Mikke |
| 14:30–15:30 | 4 · Top 3 bets for the next 3 months, owners, what we stop | All |
| 15:30–16:00 | Write the one-pager together on screen and read it back. Nobody leaves until it's agreed. | Steve writes, Mike edits |
What exists today
None of this was built as a product. Each piece solves a real problem at a portfolio company or in Askel's own work.
| Thing | What it does | State |
|---|---|---|
| Melers CRM | Invite-only, bilingual B2B CRM: sales pipeline, customers, contacts, imports. Since October also orders, invoicing to Fivaldi, customer prices and scanned waybill reading. Runs on Cloudflare. Its SaaS guardrails already make it multi-tenant-ready, but there is no self-service or billing. | live |
| KT handbook | Knowledge-transfer handbook for portfolio companies, with AI processing of uploaded material. Same stack as the CRM. | live |
| Outreach ledger | Records every company the cold-outreach pipeline touches and enforces the hard rules (no double emails, daily caps, kill switch). The judgment stays with Steve. | live |
| tsp-tarjous | Proposal tool for Turun Suurpesula. | live |
| buukkaus | Cold-call objection helper for Melers callers. | live |
| Steve | Askel's AI agent on Discord. About 20 scheduled jobs (sourcing sweeps, tender and marketplace alerts, Trello and Business Finland syncs, weekly digest) and the deal playbooks (screening, valuation, DD, IC, knowledge transfer). | live |
| Askel OS | Partner workspace (sourcing, screening, IC, DD, grow) on mock data, with a live Steve pane since 6 Oct. | mock data |
| AI Invoicer | Mikke's invoicing work. The CRM's October invoicing and waybill-reading commits may be where it landed. Mikke to confirm on the day. | to confirm |
Melers' own systems (Niklas, 28 Sep)
| Area | System | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Accounting | Fivaldi | The CRM now writes invoices here |
| E-invoicing | Verkkolaskut.fi | Fragile, per Niklas: "things can get messy if Steve starts to do things" there |
| Banking | OP, Aktia | 2FA |
| Payments | Viva Wallet (store), Zettle (drivers) | 2FA |
| PSOP invoicing | Parasta palvelua | 2FA |
| Staff | Connecteam: time tracking, comms, knowledge transfer | |
| Sales | crm.melers.fi | Ours |
| Documents | Google Drive | |
| Operations data | Detergent dispenser (kg/hours), video surveillance | Both on-site only; dispenser data could be a KPI |
| Driver routes | "Some spreadsheet somewhere" | |
| Domains | Moving to Cloudflare | Renewals due early 2027 |
1 · Sell software, or build for the portfolio only?
- Do we sell software as SaaS, build it custom for our own companies only, or build for the portfolio first and turn it into a product later?
- If we sell, to whom? Other laundries and cleaning companies (vertical), or other buy-and-build acquirers like us (horizontal)?
- Price model, and who supports customers?
- Where does each existing piece sit on that line?
Portfolio first. No external sales for the next 12 months. Askel's edge is buying and running companies, and selling software is a second business with its own support load that two full-time operators can't carry.
Keep the door open cheaply: the CRM keeps following its SaaS guardrails. We revisit when a second portfolio company (Auran Pesupojat) runs on it unchanged. If we ever sell, sell the CRM to laundry peers first, starting with one free pilot. Askel OS as a product for other acquirers comes much later, if ever.
2 · Steve and Askel OS: when, how, why
- Is Askel OS the partner workspace that replaces Trello, or a demo? When does the mock-data phase end, and who decides?
- Does Steve move from Discord into Askel OS, or do both stay?
- The 29 Sep platform plan: Cloudflare as the single backend, "zero SaaS within reason", three tiers (build, self-host open source, buy SaaS). It needs a go from Mike and Vária.
- How does Vária, or anyone, pull Mike in on a tech decision without waiting on him?
Steve stays where people already talk to him (Discord, plus the pane). Askel OS ends its mock phase only when it shows one real thing better than Trello does: the deal pipeline, fed from the outreach ledger. If nobody would open it daily for that, we park it.
Approve the platform plan with one change: buying SaaS is fine wherever building costs more than a week. Tech decisions go in a Trello list with a 48-hour default: if Mike hasn't answered, the proposer's call stands.
3 · Where agents can and can't go
- Which systems can Steve touch? Read-only, write, or human-only?
- AI invoicing: from Mikke's work to the CRM to a production test on real invoices. What's left?
- Key-person risk: today all the tech runs through Mike. What is the target?
| Level | Systems |
|---|---|
| Agents write freely | Our own systems: CRM, KT handbook, outreach ledger, Trello, Drive |
| Agents draft, a human approves | Anything leaving the company: invoices to Fivaldi, customer emails, offers |
| Human only | Banking, POS, Verkkolaskut.fi, Parasta palvelua: everything behind 2FA or money-moving |
Key-person risk: every live system gets a named non-Mike owner and a one-page runbook in the KT handbook by year end. Mikke is the second technical person.
4 · Top 3 bets for the next 3 months
For each bet: one owner and a done-definition you can check. Then the list of things we stop doing.
- Melers invoicing runs from the CRM. Done when a full month of real invoices goes out through Fivaldi with no manual re-typing.
- Auran Pesupojat on the same stack. Done when it is a second workspace in the CRM and the KT handbook, with the handover documented.
- Deal flow from the outreach pipeline. Done when it produces a set number of qualified conversations a month (number to agree on the day).
Stop: new mock-data prototypes, and new tools with no portfolio company asking for them.
The one-pager we leave with
- Sell or not, in one sentence, and when we revisit.
- Steve and Askel OS: what changes, and who owns it.
- The agent access table, agreed.
- Three bets, each with an owner and a done-definition.
- The stop list.
Before the day
- Everyone: read this page and note where you disagree with the orange boxes.
- Mikke: the state of AI invoicing in one paragraph: what works, what's missing.
- Niklas: mark which Melers systems you'd trust an agent to read, and which never.
- Vária: the tech decisions you've waited on Mike for since September.
- Mike: a 5-minute demo path for the opening tour.
Sources: the Trello card (task, Steve's 9 Oct agenda, Niklas's system list) and the Askel repos. Draft prepared 4 Nov 2026.