About
G'day.
I'm Micah. I grew up in a suburb outside Birmingham, Alabama, and these days I'm on a farm near Richmond, New South Wales, building a digital agency with AI from day one. This is what I'm up to, and why.
The story
I'm not coming at this from a polished marketing background. I've always been drawn to building things with computers, and about a decade ago I ran a small eBay business of my own, after a stint working for a mid-sized ecommerce company. The move out to the farm was a deliberate one, chasing a slower, more grounded life, closer to nature. Out there, my real loves are composting and growing vegetables.
What I've come to realise is that whether it's the farm or the agency, I've always just wanted to build things, and build them well. A farm is an incredibly complex web of natural systems, and the work there is trying to build a sound, closed loop of resources that grows tasty, nutrient-dense food, alongside operations efficient enough to make the whole thing feasible. And it is work, a lot of it. Behind the computer it's the same instinct: building a system that genuinely helps local service owners and tradies run their businesses better, so they can get on with what they do best and trust that the behind-the-scenes stuff is keeping everything flowing.
A few months ago I decided to actually build the thing I'd been turning over: an agency that helps tradies and local service businesses get online and get their systems sorted, without the price tag that used to come with it. The idea actually came from the farm. Tradies and small business owners would come through, and I'd ask how they get their work. Most just said some version of "oh, word of mouth," and a lot of them had no online presence at all. That's not necessarily a problem, plenty of good businesses run fine that way, but it made me think there are probably some who'd like to try building a presence online and just find the whole thing daunting, especially if they're not particularly technical. I'd like to make that easy for them.
I think I've always just wanted to build things, and build them well.
So the model is pretty simple. A clean website, no charge. The site actually does the job. It's fast, structured for search, built properly. The bit I charge for is the system running behind it: a chat widget that answers people when you can't, missed-call text-back, follow-ups that keep leads warm, review requests after a job, all in the one app. That's where the real value is, and that's where the margin sits. No hidden fee in the site build, no bait and switch.
I'm early in this. Nakota West Industries is the first client live on the platform: property maintenance in Sydney, the new site live and migrated cleanly, systems going in now. That's the proof the platform works. I'm building it out from there, slowly and honestly, and I post about most of what I'm learning along the way.
What I believe
The stuff I think is actually true.
These aren't values statements off a branding deck. They're just things I keep coming back to, and they shape how I build and price things.
Most tradies don't need a $10k website. They need one that works and pulls its weight. AI, used well and alongside some other good tools, has made building a solid site pretty easy now, so I'd rather pass a good chunk of those savings on to my clients than pocket it.
A website that just sits there is basically useless. It should capture enquiries and make it easy for someone to get in touch or leave a review. The active stuff, like texting back a missed call or following up, runs through the system behind the site. A brochure nobody acts on isn't worth much.
I think my real edge is that I started fresh, with AI built in from the start. A lot of agencies aren't ripping anyone off, to be fair. They've got teams, offices, and the way they've always done things, and a $10k build is what keeps all that running. I just don't carry any of that. I build this lean, on my own, with AI doing most of the heavy lifting, so a free site and a fair monthly isn't a loss-leader trick to reel you in. It's honestly just what it costs me to do. And that's the bit an agency built around the old way can't really copy, not without pulling apart how their whole business works.
It's fine to be early and learning. I'm on the journey, I'll make mistakes, and I'd rather build this in public than pretend I've got it all figured out. I don't think that's weak. I think it's honest.
The business model
How it actually works.
I think this is worth being explicit about, because "free website" sounds like there's a catch. There kind of is, but it's not a bad one.
Building a clean site is easy now. AI does most of the heavy lifting. So the build isn't expensive and I don't charge for it. What I charge for is the system that runs behind it, set up and configured and maintained properly. That has a real cost to run and takes real time to do right, so that's the monthly fee.
And the website and the system go together. The free site is the front door, and the monthly covers everything that keeps it running, the hosting, the domain, and the system behind it. That's the part I charge for, and that's what makes giving the site away make sense. You can buy and own your own domain if you'd rather, that's totally fine. I'm not going to hard-sell you, and there's no lock-in once you're set up. If your situation's a bit different, raise it on the call and we'll work out what makes sense.
Want to chat?
Book a 15-minute call. I'll ask what you do, what you're trying to fix, and whether I can actually help. If the honest answer is that you don't need me, I'll tell you that and we'll leave it there.