01 · the challenge
The challenge
An emerging DTC food brand was running orders through Shopify, customer journeys through GoHighLevel, and finances through a personal Google Sheet. Every Friday the founder spent 4 hours reconciling. Returns were slow, review requests were inconsistent, and missed-call text-back was set up but never wired.
02 · our approach
Our approach
- 01
Audited every existing automation in GHL and Zapier — kept what worked, rewrote what was duct-taped.
- 02
Wired Shopify order events through Zapier into GHL contacts, with cohort tagging by product line.
- 03
Set up post-purchase review-request flows on the right SKU-level cadence.
- 04
Built a Python micro-service to push daily Stripe + Shopify summary into the founder's finance sheet.
- 05
Wired missed-call text-back to a real GHL workflow that books a callback automatically.
03 · what we delivered
What we delivered
- Cleaned-up GHL account with documented tag ontology
- 8 production Zaps with error routing into Slack
- Daily finance digest job (Python on Cloud Run)
- Review-request workflow tied to fulfilment events
- Looker Studio reconciling Shopify revenue with finance sheet
- Runbook + 30-min Loom
04 · reflection
“Automation isn't always sexy. Sometimes it's just clean plumbing.”
The brand didn't need new tools — they needed the ones they had to actually talk to each other. The wins were boring, predictable, and worth their weight in founder-hours.