AI-Powered Mobile App. 12 Weeks. $1M in Seed Funding.
A first-time founder needed to go from concept to a market-ready AI product on iOS and Android — fast enough to close a seed round.
A Harvard Grad with a Vision — and a Clock Ticking
Clem McDavid spent seven years helping take Babel Street, an OSINT SaaS platform, from startup to a successful PE exit. Before that, he held roles at NASCAR, the PGA TOUR, and IMG College. He knew how to build a business. What he didn’t have was a technical team to build the product.
HomeLedger is the AI operating system for your home. It centralizes everything a homeowner manages — appliance manuals, warranties, maintenance schedules, HOA documents, contractor contacts — and layers an AI assistant on top that can answer questions in seconds instead of hours. Your dishwasher throws an error code? HomeLedger searches the web for the manual and tells you whether it’s a DIY fix or a service call. Want to know if your HOA allows a basketball goal? It surfaces the relevant covenant, the approval process, and the architecture committee’s contact information.
Clem had two quotes on the table. One from a local firm quoting six months. The other from Vertice Labs. He chose us, signed the SOW, and we got straight to work.
The nearest competitor quoted 4× the cost and six months. We shipped in twelve weeks. Clem wasn’t choosing between cheap and expensive. He was choosing between a team that understood speed and a team that didn’t.
A first-time founder, a product that didn’t exist yet, and investor timelines that wouldn’t wait.
AI Was Brand New
This was early-stage AI — before the tooling matured. Context window limits were a real constraint. Building a useful AI assistant that could parse appliance manuals, HOA documents, and home maintenance guides required creative engineering that most teams hadn’t attempted yet.
Multiple Deliverables, Not One
HomeLedger wasn’t a single app. Clem needed an iOS app, an Android app, a marketing website, and the UX/UI design for a web-based vendor portal — all in 12 weeks.
A Seed Round Hanging in the Balance
Clem needed a live, functional product to close his seed round. Not a prototype. Not a deck. A product investors could download and use. The funding timeline was non-negotiable.
What the nearest competitor quoted in cost — at six months instead of twelve weeks. Same scope. We shipped faster and for a fraction of the price.
No prior code. No existing team. We started from zero and had a live product in Clem’s hands in under three months.
Design First, Then Architecture
The first weeks were design iterations and system architecture. This was before the tools that now let us prototype in days. We spent the time getting the product vision right — flows, screens, AI interaction patterns — before writing production code.
Solving the AI Problem Early
AI context limits were the technical bottleneck. We built a retrieval pipeline that could search the web for appliance manuals, parse HOA documents, and return useful answers within the token constraints of the time. The dishwasher error code and basketball goal examples became the proof points that the approach worked.
Parallel Execution, One Team
iOS and Android shipped simultaneously via React Native. The marketing site launched alongside the apps. The vendor portal was designed and handed off. One team, one codebase strategy, multiple production outputs.
Daily Collaboration with the Founder
Clem was in the trenches nearly every day. Product decisions, design direction, domain logic — he made the calls, we executed. That’s how you ship in 12 weeks without scope drift.
HomeLedger: The AI Operating System for Your Home
A cross-platform mobile app (iOS + Android) that centralizes home management — appliance tracking, maintenance scheduling, document storage, and an AI assistant that answers homeowner questions by searching manuals, HOA covenants, and maintenance guides in real time.
AI Assistant
Built on early LLM technology with a custom retrieval pipeline. Searches the web for appliance manuals, parses HOA documents, and returns actionable answers. Tells homeowners whether they need a service call or a YouTube video.
Home Inventory & Document Storage
Digital inventory for every item, receipt, warranty, and document in the home. Photos, PDFs, and structured data — all searchable and organized.
Maintenance Scheduling
Proactive maintenance reminders tied to specific appliances and systems. Reduces emergency repair costs by catching issues before they escalate.
HOA Document Intelligence
Upload HOA covenants and the AI can answer questions about what’s allowed, what requires approval, and who to contact. No more reading 80-page PDFs.
Vendor Portal (Designed)
UX and UI design for a web-based portal connecting service professionals — HVAC, plumbing, electrical — with homeowners through the platform. Designed by Vertice Labs, built by the in-house team.
Shareable Access
Family members, contractors, and future buyers can be granted scoped access to relevant home data. Built for the full lifecycle of homeownership.
HomeLedger launched as the first AI-powered home management platform that could answer natural-language questions about your specific home — not generic advice, but answers drawn from your actual manuals, documents, and HOA covenants.
Shipped in 12 weeks: iOS app, Android app, and marketing website to production. Vendor portal designed and handed off. All on time.
$1M seed round closed with the live product as the centerpiece. Clem pitched at an investor dinner with the app in hand. Andrew attended to support the pitch.
Post-launch pivot identified: A conversation with an HOA revealed demand for mass communication via push notifications and automated dues collection. Vertice Labs ran strategy sessions to evaluate the market opportunity and helped Clem make the decision to pursue the HOA vertical.
Clem eventually in-housed the technical team — exactly how it’s supposed to work. We built the product, helped find the market, and handed off cleanly.
In Clem's Words
“We developed a plan and executed against it nearly down to the day for product completion. From design to implementation, the team was excellent to work with and truly believed in our product and vision.”
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