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Recently shippedReplaced a $40,000/year enterprise PM stack with a custom build — 12 weeks, one engineer.

01

AI-First Applications

We don’t bolt AI onto existing products. We architect systems with intelligence at the core — custom model integration, LLM-powered workflows, and data pipelines designed to get smarter every week. The goal is leverage, not a talking point.

Vantage AI — live self-learning market analysis platform we shipped

What this looks like in practice

  • Ship a working AI feature in weeks, not quarters — with evaluation baked in
  • Wire Claude, OpenAI, or a self-hosted model into the software you already run
  • Replace manual workflows with machine-driven ones that stay auditable
  • Build the evaluation rig so you know whether the model actually makes things better
  • Design for the day the model gets smarter — not locked to a single provider

02

Custom Web Applications

Full-stack engineering for the business logic off-the-shelf software can’t handle. Internal tools, customer portals, SaaS platforms, data-driven applications — built for the businesses who know their process better than any vendor ever will.

ZenPM — custom SaaS we shipped that replaced a $40K/year enterprise PM stack

What this looks like in practice

  • Replace a $40K/year SaaS stack with software you actually own
  • Wire legacy systems together so your team stops living in spreadsheets
  • Build the internal tool that cuts a recurring 6-hour task down to under an hour
  • Architect the SaaS your team needs but no vendor sells
  • Ship on Vercel, AWS, or your own infrastructure — your rules

03

iOS & Android Apps

Native and cross-platform mobile engineering built for performance. Kotlin Multiplatform and Compose Multiplatform share business logic across platforms while every UI stays native. One codebase. Two app stores. Zero compromise on feel.

Mobile and cross-platform development

What this looks like in practice

  • Ship iOS and Android from one codebase without the usual cross-platform compromises
  • Native feel on both stores — not a wrapped web view
  • Push notifications and offline sync that actually work in the field
  • App Store + Play Store deployment handled end to end
  • Built to hand over — no proprietary frameworks, no lock-in

04

Software Engineering

Architecture reviews, technical due diligence, and senior judgment on hire. When your team needs an experienced engineer to evaluate a stack, plan a migration, or audit a codebase, you get twenty-eight years of perspective — not a junior consultant reading off a checklist.

Senior engineering judgment — architecture review, migrations, technical due diligence

What this looks like in practice

  • Get a second opinion from a senior engineer before you commit — not after
  • Unblock a stalled migration with one week of focused review
  • Audit a codebase you inherited and get a prioritized punch list
  • Pre-acquisition technical due diligence for businesses and private equity
  • Judgment calls on AI adoption — what will pay off, what won’t

Proof, not slideware

We don't pitch “AI-first.”
We ship it.

Pulse is one of ours — a live SaaS that watches a business's local SEO and writes the week up in plain English, with Claude doing the writing. Everything below is the running product monitoring this very site. The same senior engineering goes into your build.

pulse.champlinenterprises.com
Pulse dashboard — a 0 to 100 Pulse Score with a plain-English verdict and weekly Win, Watch, and Try insights, monitoring champlinenterprises.com
The flagship view: a 0–100 Pulse Score and a one-sentence verdict any owner understands — “254 visitors, but no calls or form submits yet.” The weekly read is generated by Claude, not a dashboard you have to decode.
pulse.champlinenterprises.com
Pulse performance report — a branded, print-ready monthly summary with the Pulse Score, leads, visitors, and lead mix
A branded, print-ready report the owner can forward — Pulse Score, leads, and lead mix on one page.
pulse.champlinenterprises.com
Pulse search console view — real query data, clicks, impressions, average position, and striking-distance opportunities
Real Search Console data, wired in — the exact terms people use, and the queries one nudge from page one.

How it was built

Blank repo to production in weeks.

Pulse went from nothing to a live product in weeks — Laravel and ClickHouse under the hood, Claude generating the weekly read. That's how we build: senior engineering, AI used as leverage, something real in front of users fast. The screens above aren't a mockup — that's the live app, reading this site.

And Pulse is just one piece. Every engagement comes with the whole platform — portal, support, e-sign, and monitoring — all built and run by one company, not rented from five.

Live

In production, not a prototype

Weekly

Plain-English read, written by Claude

0–100

One score the owner actually gets

Weeks

Idea to shipped — not quarters

05

Headless WordPress, by design

Headless WordPress

Most agencies install a $50 theme and call it a website. We engineer something different: a custom-designed frontend running on top of WordPress, decoupled. Your team keeps the editing experience they already know. Your visitors get a site built like enterprise software — sub-second loads, real security, no plugin bloat, no rebuild every two years. This very site is built that way. By design.

What this looks like in practice

  • A custom-designed frontend — your brand, not a WordPress theme
  • Headless architecture — WordPress for your editors, Next.js for your visitors
  • Sub-second loads on the slowest connection your buyer actually uses
  • Real security — the WP admin never lives where attackers look
  • No plugin tax, no theme dependency, no rebuild every two years
  • Same stack we use for Fortune 500 apps

Why headless

Yes, we build websites. We build only one kind.

Most businesses don't lose customers because their site looks dated. They lose them because it loads slowly on a phone, breaks twice a year when a plugin updates, or gets hit by whatever WordPress exploit is making the rounds. A headless build solves all three — at the architecture level, not as patches.

The editor side stays familiar. Your team logs into WordPress the way they always have. The visitor side is something completely different — a custom-engineered frontend running on the same infrastructure that powers Fortune 500 applications. Sub-second loads. Real security. A design ceiling wherever you want it.

And because we ship the codebase, you own it. No agency retainer to keep the lights on. No vendor lock-in. No rebuild every two years when the theme stops being maintained. The frontend evolves with your business. The content stays editable by your team.

How they compare

Same WordPress editor for your team.
A completely different site for your visitors.

What you care about

Themed WordPress

What most agencies ship

Recommended

Headless WordPress

How we engineer it

Speed3–5 second loads on mobileUnder one second, every page
Security postureWP admin exposed at /wp-adminAdmin on a private host. No admin endpoint on your public site.
Plugin dependencies15–25 plugins, each its own vendorA small, vetted set on a stack we own
Update riskA plugin update breaks the site twice a yearFrontend is a versioned codebase. Updates ship safely.
Design ceilingWhatever the theme author shipped in 2018No ceiling. Hand-built, pixel-perfect UI.
Long-term flexibilityLocked to the theme until the next $30K rebuildRefresh the design without touching the content
Stack provenanceA random theme stacked with random pluginsSame architecture we ship for Fortune 500 apps
What you own at the endA licensed theme you can’t legally modifyThe codebase. Yours.

Managed services

Shipping is half the job.
We run the other half.

Most agencies hand you a codebase and a stack of third-party subscriptions to babysit — one tool for errors, another for support, a third for uptime. We engineered our own. Every site we run is monitored, supported, and backed by software we built and host ourselves: one team, one bill, and a Care Plan that proves its work every month.

Visibility

Pulse

Tracks how you surface in local search and what visitors actually do once they land — so “are we being found?” has a number, not a shrug.

Reliability

BugHive

Watches every page for errors and downtime and flags them to us before your customers ever feel them — the early-warning system most sites simply don't have.

Support

Support Desk

A real, branded support desk. When something needs a human, your team reaches ours — logged, answered, and resolved, never lost in an inbox.

Proof

Client Portal

One login to see exactly what we did this month — backups, security patches, updates, SEO. The retainer stays visible, never a black box.

And when the work calls for it: your own document signing, self-destructing secret sharing, and an SSO’d AI assistant trained on your account — all engineered in-house, all under one roof.

How engagements work

Sprint. Build. Fractional.

Three pricing models, matched to the shape of the problem. All three are senior-led, fixed-scope or scoped-monthly, and start with a free 30-minute audit.

01

Sprint

2–4 weeks · one focused outcome. A working prototype, a migration unblock, a technical audit with an action plan you can execute. Fixed price, fixed timeline, no scope creep.

02

Build

6–16 weeks · a shipped product. Custom software, a SaaS MVP, an AI integration that lives in production. Architecture, engineering, deployment — all by the engineer writing the code.

03

Fractional

Monthly retainer · embedded senior capacity. For businesses who need a CTO's judgment without hiring one. Direct access, no layers, no project managers in the middle.

Process

How We Work

Step 01

Conversation

We talk. You tell us what you need, we tell you what's possible. If we're a fit, we'll know quickly.

Step 02

Architecture

We plan the right solution before writing a single line of code. No surprises, no scope creep.

Step 03

Engineering

We build, test, and deliver. Direct communication throughout — you always know where things stand.

Your client portal

One secure door to everything we build you.

Every client gets a private Champlin Enterprises portal — your analytics, support, documents, and every tool we ship, in one place. Sign in with a secure link we email you: no password to remember, none to get stolen, one click into each tool.

FAQ

Common questions

Who does Champlin Enterprises work with?

Clients of every size — from product users and managed-hosting customers to teams hiring us for custom builds, AI work, and senior engineering. Whatever the engagement, you get senior hands on the work: 28 years of experience, no juniors, no outsourcing.

What is the minimum engagement size?

The productized Sprint is a flat $25,000. Build and Fractional engagements scale with the problem, and our products and hosting plans carry their own public pricing. Start with a free 30-minute AI Opportunity Audit — a one-page plan, no commitment.

Do you outsource or subcontract any work?

No. Every line of code is written by Kevin Champlin personally. No offshore teams, no account managers, no junior developers layered between you and the engineer. This is the product.

Can Champlin Enterprises handle AI integrations in production?

Yes. AI-first applications are the primary focus. Work spans Claude (Anthropic), GPT (OpenAI), and open-weight models (Llama, Qwen, DeepSeek), with end-to-end delivery of retrieval, fine-tuning, evaluation harnesses, and production deployment.

Does Champlin Enterprises work with startups or only Fortune 500?

Both. The common thread is that clients understand what senior-level engineering is worth. Typical startup engagements are Series A or later, or well-funded seed teams with a clear product thesis. Fortune 500 engagements are usually AI pilots or code audits.

What does the engagement process look like?

Four steps: (1) 30-minute discovery call to determine fit. (2) Written technical plan and proposal before any code is written. (3) Build, test, and deliver with weekly demos and direct async communication. (4) Complete ownership handoff — no vendor lock-in, no proprietary frameworks.

Is Champlin Enterprises available for technical due diligence or code audits?

Yes. Common engagement patterns include acquisition diligence, investor-mandated reviews, and pre-platform-rebuild audits. Typical scope is one to three weeks.

Where is Champlin Enterprises located?

Remote-first, based in northern Illinois. The day-to-day runs over Zoom and shared workspaces — the way modern software actually gets built — so location is rarely a constraint. Kevin has deep roots in the Illinois Valley and works with clients across Chicagoland, and travels for in-person kickoffs, working sessions, and reviews whenever an engagement calls for it.

A softer step

Not sure which engagement fits?

Most businesses don't know whether they need a Sprint, a Build, or a Fractional engagement until they've had thirty minutes of real conversation about the work. That's what the Free AI Opportunity Audit is for: thirty minutes on Zoom, three concrete places AI quietly pays for itself in your business, a one-page plan emailed within 48 hours. No pitch. No follow-up sales sequence.

Book the free audit →

Let's build something.

A real problem. A real budget. A bias toward shipping. Start with a 30-minute audit — no pitch, no follow-up sequence.

Book your free AI AuditOr start a sprint

30-minute call. One-page plan emailed within 48 hours. No pitch deck.