AI builder and commercial operator
I build practical AI systems, products and growth workflows.
I work across the messy middle of commercial operations and product engineering: finding the leverage, building the system and shipping it into real workflows.
£971k
Built from scratch at NOM
2x
B&C revenue in 12 months
33%
CAC reduction at Butter and Crust
£6.2M
Email revenue driven at ENVU
Selected work
Projects that show the range.
A mix of automation, commerce, consumer product and full-stack systems work. Each project is designed around a real operational or customer problem.
Case study
NOM CS Automation
AI workflow automation for faster customer support operations.
Case study
NOM Bundle Builder
Commercial bundle experience for a Shopify storefront.
Case study
Daily Thread
A shipped iOS app for daily reflection and personal continuity.
Case study
Football Tracker
Next.js and Supabase app for structured football tracking.
Case study
Postcode Checker
Fast eligibility checker for postcode-led customer journeys.
Case study
NOM CS Automation
AI workflow automation for faster customer support operations.
Problem
Customer support work was spread across repeat questions, manual triage, order checks and internal follow-up. The process created avoidable admin and made it harder to keep response quality consistent.
Solution
Built an AI-assisted workflow that classifies support requests, drafts useful response notes, highlights order context and turns recurring questions into repeatable operating patterns.
Outcome
Reduced the manual load around support triage and gave the team a clearer, faster way to handle recurring customer issues without losing the human review step.
Case study
NOM Bundle Builder
Commercial bundle experience for a Shopify storefront.
Problem
Bundles were commercially valuable but difficult to present clearly, test quickly and connect to the checkout experience without adding friction for customers.
Solution
Designed and built a guided bundle flow that makes the offer easier to understand, keeps selection steps focused and connects the front-end experience to the underlying commerce logic.
Outcome
Created a more controlled promotion surface for testing bundle mechanics, improving the quality of the buying journey and reducing operational dependency on manual setup.
Case study
Daily Thread
A shipped iOS app for daily reflection and personal continuity.
Problem
Most note-taking and journaling tools are either too open-ended or too heavy for quick daily use, which makes it difficult to build a consistent habit.
Solution
Built a focused iOS app around small daily entries, simple continuity and a lightweight loop that makes it easier to keep a thread of what matters over time.
Outcome
Shipped the product publicly on the App Store, proving the full path from idea and product design through build, release and distribution.
Case study
Football Tracker
Next.js and Supabase app for structured football tracking.
Problem
Football data is easy to collect casually but hard to keep structured when tracking teams, fixtures, results and notes across a season.
Solution
Built a web app that organises football information in a clean interface with persistent data, fast filtering and a foundation that can expand as the tracking model grows.
Outcome
Demonstrated a production-style full-stack workflow with database-backed state, typed UI development and deployable infrastructure.
Case study
Postcode Checker
Fast eligibility checker for postcode-led customer journeys.
Problem
Customers needed a quick way to understand whether a service, offer or fulfilment option applied to their postcode before committing to the rest of the journey.
Solution
Built a focused postcode checker that validates input, returns a clear eligibility state and gives the business a reusable component for location-led decisions.
Outcome
Removed ambiguity early in the customer journey and created a simple pattern for turning operational postcode rules into a customer-facing experience.
About
Commercial operator. Practical builder.
I've spent my whole career in D2C, always close to founders, always building things alongside the commercial work.
In 2020 I co-founded No Ordinary Moments with a £20k investment and built it toward £1M in total revenue. Growth was slow and deliberate at first: getting the brand right, understanding the customer, finding the product that resonated. Then in 2023 the flywheel clicked. Meta ads scaling at a profitable CAC, a brand identity we'd spent real time crafting, a sleep product that found its audience. NOM now runs at close to £400k annually and I own a meaningful stake in what we built.
Alongside NOM I joined Butter and Crust as Head of eCommerce. In twelve months we doubled revenue from £1M to £2M ARR. CAC dropped from £30 to £20. LTV grew from £120 to £140. It was a lot of small things done right and compounding: brand, landing pages, email flows, paid acquisition, relentless testing.
Throughout all of it I kept building tools alongside the commercial work. A CS automation that replaced hours of manual email. A custom cart and bundle builder that cut app costs and improved conversion. An iOS app shipped to the App Store. That combination of commercial instinct and building is where I work best and where I am going next.
NOM Revenue Growth
£971k built from £20k, 2020 to present
Shopify revenue only. Excludes Amazon and retail channels.
Contact
Useful conversation first. Process second.
Best fit conversations are with founders, operators and hiring teams looking for someone who can identify leverage, build fast and keep the commercial context in view.
Built with
The stack behind this site.
A practical mix of AI tooling, typed product code, deployment infrastructure and domain automation.
Build agent
Codex
Used to plan, implement, deploy and verify the portfolio site.
AI assistant
Claude API
Powers the portfolio chatbot through a server-side Messages API route.
Deployment
Vercel
Hosts the site, API route, production env vars and custom domain aliases.
Framework
Next.js
Runs the App Router portfolio and dynamic chat endpoint.
Code quality
TypeScript
Types the components, project data, chat messages and API handling.
Interface
Tailwind CSS
Keeps the layout, buttons, panels and cards consistent across the site.
Data visualisation
Recharts
Renders the NOM revenue growth chart in the My Story section.
Domain setup
GoDaddy API
Updated DNS records programmatically to connect zac-ellis.com to Vercel.