05 — Portal
CoderConda develops client portals and custom software that hand four of five recurring chores to the client and the system. Today the tenth client is the same manual work as the first.
The first call takes fifteen minutes by video and costs nothing.
Chore · Who4 of 5
01The status
You“How far along is my order?”
today: Youin the portal: The client
02The file
Your team“Could you send me that again?”
today: Your teamin the portal: The client
03The sign-off
You“Is this right?”
today: Youin the portal: The client
04The access
Your team“Could you set us up quickly?”
today: Your teamin the portal: The system
05The exception
You“With us it works differently.”
today: Youstays
02 — The chores
01 — The status
“How far along is my order?”
The question is fair, and it is the same every time. You answer it, from memory or from an inbox, and the answer holds for the moment you give it. In the portal it is already there before anybody asks.
Information you have to fetch is not information.
02 — The file
“Could you send me that again?”
Quote, addendum, sign-off, invoice: every version sits in a different inbox, and whoever sent last knows which one counts. Your team searches and sends. In the portal there is one version, with the date it came from beside it.
The effort is not in sending. It is in checking.
03 — The sign-off
“Is this right?”
Something is finished and needs a yes. Until it arrives the job rests, and nobody can see why. In the portal the sign-off sits with the client, with a date and a name beside it. That does not shorten the decision, but it shortens the wait before it.
Waiting is the one line item nobody invoices.
04 — The access
“Could you set us up quickly?”
Create, send credentials, make folders, copy a template: the tenth client is the same work as the first. This is where growth starts to feel like load. In the portal the system sets up and you review.
What grows with every client is not a service. It is a bill.
05 — The exception
“With us it works differently.”
A special price, a partial delivery, a client with two billing addresses: the case that does not fit the form exists in every company. It stays with you, and that is correct: I do not build a form for a judgement call. A portal that forces it into the form produces detours, not order.
The one row that stays where it is.
Chore 1 of 5
Chore · Who4 of 5
The status
The clienttoday: Youin the portal: The client
The file
Your teamtoday: Your teamin the portal: The client
The sign-off
Youtoday: Youin the portal: The client
The access
Your teamtoday: Your teamin the portal: The system
The exception
Youtoday: Youstays
03 — The exception
After five rows the obvious move is to hand as much as possible to the system. With a portal that is the most expensive mistake. The normal path is built quickly; the time goes on the cases nobody wrote down, because they live in somebody’s head.
How often the case occurs
Once a year
Stays manual.
Building a form for it costs more time than the case will ever use.
Twice a month
Gets a button.
A button, not a workflow: somebody decides, the system records it.
Every week
Is not an exception.
It belongs in the normal path, and discovery is what finds that out.
That is why I start with discovery and not with a proposal.
04 — The evidence
RecRobot is one central application for a process that used to be tools and shouted questions. Nine steps changed hands in the process, exactly as in the grid above. The state of a case has been visible ever since, without anybody asking for it.
RecRobotAI recruiting · 2025
What transfers
What does not
The industry. RecRobot is a recruiting process, not a client portal, and the figure holds for this one case.
05 — Two prices
Software that stays has two prices: one to build it and one to run it. Quote only the first and you have sold an application nobody updates eight months later. What sits in which one is here. I name the amount in writing after the first call, before anything is built.
Once
Every month
Promised byDamjan Savić
06 — The four phases
A portal comes about in four sections, and after two of them you can stop without standing there empty-handed. That is the difference between a project and a bet.
01
What exists afterwardA document
The process as it actually runs today, including the exceptions nobody had written down.
Exit possible
02
What exists afterwardA clickable model
Something to try before anything is built. Decisions happen here, while changing is still cheap.
Exit possible
03
What exists afterwardThe application
Roles, permissions, login, interface and integrations, in sections with an acceptance per section.
04
What exists afterwardReal clients inside it
A few first, then all of them. What the pilot surfaces costs less than what a full switch surfaces.
It does not have to be a portal.
If nobody needs to look inside, an interface is ballast, and if this is one feature, an application is too much. Two neighbouring offers, for exactly those cases.
07 — The objections
This offer hears four objections more often than any others. Three of them are fair, and the fourth is the question about price.
“Nobody wants another login.”
True, which is why portal is the wrong word for the start. The first version is usually a link without a password that shows one single case.
“But we already have a CRM.”
Good, then it stays. A CRM is built for your side, not your client’s. What is needed is not a second system but a window into the one you have.
“And if the process changes?”
It will change, that is not an if. So the process sits in settings rather than in code, and that is why operations stands beside it as its own line.
“What does a portal like this cost?”
Two figures, not one, and the first comes after discovery. Before that it would be a guess: half the effort sits in the exceptions, and nobody knows those beforehand.
This is the most common objection and it is almost always right. A client who orders twice a year will not create an account for it. So a portal rarely starts as a portal: the first version is a link showing one single case, without a password and without a login, but with an expiry date. Anyone who comes back often is then offered an account, and takes it, because they already know what it is good for. The order matters more than the technology underneath.
A CRM manages what you know about your clients. A portal shows your client what you know about their case. Those are two different questions, and no CRM answers the second, because it was never asked of it. In most cases the existing system stays the leading source and the portal reads from it: one integration, one direction, no second copy of the data. Where that cannot work because the system has no API, it says so in the first line of the discovery and not as a surprise in month three.
A process that stays the same for a year is rare. So discovery writes down not only how it runs today but which parts of it usually move: deadlines, standard texts, responsibilities, the stages of a sign-off. Those are exactly the parts that end up in settings you change yourself, rather than in code somebody has to touch. What changes anyway is the reason operations stands as its own line beside the build: an application nobody owns is legacy within a year.
The website service prints its price on the page because it is the same scope every time. A portal is not: two companies in the same business have different exceptions, and the exceptions are half the work. A figure for the build before discovery would be either padded or renegotiated in month three, and both are worse than a week of clarity first. What is fixed beforehand instead: that there are two figures rather than one, that discovery is agreed on its own, that its result is yours, and that you can stop after it.
08 — Appointment
Pick a time that suits you straight from the calendar. I go through with you where your company stands and what is worth doing. No obligation and no sales pressure.
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