Pistonlog

A clearer view of the workshop.

I designed and built Pistonlog entirely myself, connecting customers, vehicles and jobs in one garage management platform.

Ownership
Solo design and full-stack build
Duration
One year
Website
pistonlog.com (opens in a new tab)
Pistonlog garage workflow board with job cards and a job inspector panel
The current product: workshop progress and job details in one view.

Less friction in the working day.

The garage owner’s existing software was complicated, difficult to learn and expensive. I wanted to keep the capability a workshop needs, without making everyday tasks harder.

  • Complex to Simple

    Make everyday workshop tasks straightforward.

  • Confusing to Intuitive

    Make the workflow easier to learn and share.

  • Expensive to Value

    Offer clear pricing and genuinely useful features.

Visit the garage. Test. Iterate.

I visited the garage owner in person to understand the problems first-hand. I designed and built the product myself, tested it with him and used what I learned to refine it. These early screens show part of that iteration, not the current production interface.

Early reminder dialog with a linked job card, date, time and optional customer message
An early exploration of reminders linked to a job.
Early job card form with status, priority, mileage, notes and parts quantities
An early job card bringing notes, status and parts together.

Hear from Tony at ACB.

Tony shares his experience of Pistonlog in this testimonial, which I also shot and edited.

Testimonial featuring Tony at ACB. Filmed and edited by Ross Shelford. Watch on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Building with AI, owning the decisions.

My strength is turning operational problems into clear, usable products. I also recognise the limits of my expertise across engineering. AI helped me extend what I could implement independently, while I owned the research, design, branding, code, testing and launch. That ownership includes recognising where specialist review is needed, particularly around security and reliability.

The useful input was the reasoning behind each decision. A job card needed to connect a customer, a vehicle and its work because that is how the garage operates. I brought that context into the build: what the person was trying to do, what information they needed and why the interaction should behave a particular way. Visiting the owner, testing with him and iterating gave me a practical basis for judging whether the result worked.

AI made a breadth of work practical for me as a solo founder that I could not previously have delivered alone. It reduced the resources needed to move from an idea to a working platform and shortened the path from feedback to implementation. The skill I would bring to a team is directing that capability with clear intent, questioning the output and staying accountable for the experience people actually use.

Pistonlog is now being piloted in a four-bay garage with 10 employees. The next step is to gather feedback and measure its impact on day-to-day work.