Small business.
Big tech.
Without the big budget.

AI. Apps. Automation. Better workflows. Big businesses have teams to figure this stuff out. Small businesses usually don’t.

After Five is about finding what actually works — without wasting your time or your money.

Follow along See what I’m testing →

Practical solutions

Real-world tests

Built for small business

Customer	Status	Due	Amount
Acme Co	Open	9/12	$4,200
Brightline	Overdue	8/28	$1,150
Carter Ltd	Pending	9/15	$3,900
Delta Group	Open	9/20	$7,250
Evergreen	Overdue	8/30	$980
North Point	Open	9/22	$1,675

InvoicesQuotesCustomers

There has to be a better way.

QuickBooks

ChatGPT

Canva

Drive

Slack

Notion

Mailchimp

Zapier

Stripe

Square

Trello

Calendar

Wait… I’m paying for all of these?

✦

ChatGPT

How can I automate this without buying another app?

Ask anything…

→

Okay, but what can AI actually do?

Spreadsheets
for everything?

Founder behind
After Five

So
many
apps!

Helpful
(not hypey)

Hi, I’m Emma

Welcome to After Five.

Thanks for finding this little slice of the internet. I’m glad you’re here.

Small businesses are the backbone of the economy, but they don’t always have the time, budget or resources to invest in expensive technology, consultants and complicated systems.

The good news? The game is changing.

AI, social media and technology that was once reserved for big companies are becoming accessible to everyone. And used well, they can make running a small business a whole lot easier.

That’s where After Five comes in.

I’m working with small businesses to figure out what actually makes sense — optimizing what you already have, finding smarter ways to use the apps you’re already paying for, and introducing new tools when they genuinely make life easier.

No massive tech budget. No changing everything for the sake of it. No pretending every new AI tool is going to revolutionize your business.

Just practical ways to work smarter, spend better and get more bang for your buck.

— Emma

Who is this for?

The small business owners wearing all the hats.

You’re running the business, doing the work — and somehow you’re also the marketing department, IT support, finance team and everything in between.

You know technology could make things easier. But between AI, new apps and the next big thing, who has time to figure out what’s actually useful?

Maybe you’re trying to get your head around AI and wondering if you’re already too late.
Maybe you’re paying for five different apps and still doing half the work in Excel.
Or maybe you just keep thinking, surely there’s a better way to do this.

You’re in the right place.

The pile of apps a small business runs on — accounting, email, calendar, chat, payments and more — One business. A dozen apps.

What I'm testing

The threads I'm pulling on.

01 / The AI question

Is AI the unlock?

Does it actually move the needle for a small business — or just add noise? Testing it honestly.

02 / Spreadsheets

Death to spreadsheets.

The boring truth: most growth starts by killing the manual copy-paste work.

03 / Workflows

The right apps.

Optimising workflows with tools a business already pays for — or cheap ones that replace ten.

04 / Growth

What actually grows.

Separating what drives real growth from what just feels productive.

Don't miss a finding

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The experiments, what worked, what flopped, and the tools I build along the way — straight to your inbox.

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Small business.Big tech.Without the big budget.