Hey! I’m Shaun, and BYOP is me... from the first chat right through to the finished thing.
I help small businesses and charities with websites, systems, apps and AI from my home office in Rotherham, working with people in Sheffield and well beyond. I’ve also spent 14 years running the operational side of a national charity, so I’ve sat on your side of the desk too.
Fancy a chat?
Working with Shaun was incredibly easy. I had a rough idea of how I wanted the Kairos Coaching site to look and feel, and he turned it into a clean, professional website that fits perfectly. He was responsive, clear in his communication, and made the whole process feel simple rather than overwhelming.
I didn’t start out as a tech person (although I’ve always loved it). For 14 years I’ve worked in operations and finance at a national charity, and running a charity is a lot like running a small business. You end up doing everything... IT, finance, budgeting, customer service, fundraising, project planning, managing people and, yes, occasionally cleaning out the bins.
Before BYOP, I ran my own nutrition business, Catalyst Nutrition. I had a client area before I had a single client, because I loved building that sort of thing. There was a client pack, a portal, downloadable resources and a few issues of my own cookbook.
Somewhere along the way I realised the building, the fixing and solving people’s problems were the parts I enjoyed far more than the nutrition. The business didn’t last. What I learnt there did. Understanding where someone is, what isn’t working and the simplest way to improve it is still the job. The output’s different now, but the aim is the same: you leave in a better place than when you arrived.
I want to be the person I wish I’d had when I was starting that business.
These days I’m Chief Operating Officer at PHA UK and Managing Director of Together Events, alongside BYOP. Which can get confusing. I once took a call with a prospective partner from the PHA UK office and completely forgot to switch on my BYOP Zoom background. Cue 20 minutes explaining pulmonary hypertension before we got anywhere near business. (It went great in the end. The background goes on first now.)
Those roles keep giving me reasons to ask whether there’s a better way to do a job, and quite often the answer has been to build something. Some of the tools on this site started that way.
See the apps and systemsBecause I’ve managed budgets, I’ll tell you what something costs to run, not just what it costs to build. Because I’ve been on the receiving end of confusing tech, I’ll explain things in plain English, and please don’t feel silly for asking anything. And because I’ve worked with teams, I know a new system only sticks if the people using it actually like using it.
You probably know the sort of agency I mean. Lovely meeting rooms, nice biscuits, and once they’ve got your business you’re passed to whoever’s free. When I started BYOP as a one-man band, I didn’t expect how many people were looking for exactly that... someone who’d do the work themselves and still be around afterwards.
Most small businesses don’t need a £20k project. They need something that works for where they are now, from someone who’ll still be around when they’re ready for the next bit. I’m with you all the way.
Who you help, where the business is going and what you’d like later, not just what’s broken today. When I built a feedback form for a client’s review committee, they weren’t excited about anything clever. They loved that it was simple to use, did everything they needed and let them change things themselves.
If a smaller first step does the job, I’d rather you spent less now and came back when the business needs more. It’s how I’d want to be treated, too.
Family matters to me, and so does doing a proper job for the people I work with. Keeping the list small means I don’t have to choose between them, and you get my full attention when it’s your turn. It also means I’ll be straight with you about when I can start. If I can’t give your project the time it deserves right now, I’ll say so, rather than squeezing it in.
I once built a website that looked lovely on desktop. Launched it, was over the moon... then happened to look at it on my phone. Oh dear. Images all over the place.
It was a simple fix, but “recheck every page on every device” has been on my launch checklist ever since.
I work from home in Rotherham. Mornings are two hours of madness getting two kids and a dog ready, and BYOP work often picks back up once the kids are in bed. My wife is incredibly supportive, though she did watch the whole of Yellowstone without me while I built a client area. At this point we’re basically a throuple... me, her and the laptop.
The kids love pretending to work. I’ve left a masterpiece of code on the screen and come back to a mix of consonants and vowels that would win me nothing on Countdown.
Meet Murphy, our golden retriever. He doesn’t break anything, exactly. He just waits until I’m deep in something at the laptop, then raids the bins.
My co-pilot for the best part of a decade. Three businesses, two kids and a dog later, this can of delicious fuel still keeps me going. Never Red Bull.
Headphones on, totally eclectic 90s and 00s. Ronan Keating’s Life Is a Rollercoaster to Green Day’s American Idiot, and no shame about any of it.
Not sure which? That’s fine too. Tell me what’s going on and I’ll point you in the right direction.
CRMs, client portals and tools built around how you work.
See what I can build
Connecting your tools so the routine steps happen on their own.
Explore automation
Working out what’s worth paying for, and where AI might actually help.
Let’s make sense of AI
Tell me what’s doing your head in... the website, the admin, the tools that won’t talk to each other. You don’t need to know what the answer looks like yet. That’s my job.
Let’s have a chatNo commitment, no pressure. Based in Rotherham, working with businesses in Sheffield and beyond.
