Overview
TradeCatch is a bilingual lead management and automation platform designed for contractors and local service businesses. It helps businesses capture missed opportunities, answer incoming calls, qualify leads, schedule appointments, follow up on estimates, and manage customer interactions from one dashboard.
The Problem
Contractors often miss calls while working on job sites, respond too late to potential customers, or forget to follow up on estimates. These small delays can result in lost jobs and revenue. The challenge was creating a system that could handle customer communication automatically while remaining reliable, professional, and easy for contractors to use.
Implementation
I designed an automated workflow that connects phone answering, missed-call recovery, lead qualification, appointment scheduling, and estimate follow-ups. Customer information moves through structured workflows that help contractors identify opportunities, prioritize requests, and respond without manually managing every interaction.
AI Phone Receptionist
TradeCatch includes a bilingual AI receptionist that answers incoming calls 24/7 in French and English. It identifies the caller's needs, collects contact information, determines urgency, and prepares structured job details for the contractor.
I designed the system to separate AI-generated conversations from critical business decisions. Pricing, scheduling restrictions, emergency handling, and escalation follow defined rules rather than relying entirely on AI responses.
My Contribution
As the founder and developer, I'm responsible for both the technical development and business direction of TradeCatch. I designed the product architecture, customer experience, automation workflows, lead qualification logic, and website. I also manage deployment, Cloudflare configuration, testing, and ongoing improvements.
Beyond development, I work on understanding contractors' needs, defining the service offering, and preparing the platform for real customer operations.
Technical Decisions
One of the most important decisions was separating conversational AI from business logic. While AI handles natural conversations and information collection, critical operations such as scheduling, opt-outs, pricing restrictions, and escalation follow explicit rules.
I also structured the workflows around individual customer interactions so information collected during a call could be used for contractor notifications, lead qualification, and follow-up processes.
Challenges
The main challenge was designing automation that feels natural to customers while remaining predictable for businesses.
Handling conversations in both French and English introduced additional considerations around communication, consistency, and customer expectations.
Another challenge was deciding which actions could be automated and which required human involvement, particularly when dealing with emergencies, uncertain requests, and business-specific scheduling rules.
What I Learned
Building TradeCatch taught me that conversational AI needs more than a good prompt to work as a business service. I learned the importance of separating flexible conversations from strict operational rules, especially when handling bookings, pricing, and customer requests.
I also gained experience designing workflows around real business processes rather than individual features. Building the product as both a developer and founder helped me understand how technical decisions affect onboarding, reliability, customer experience, and the overall service.
Current Status
TradeCatch is live and accepting founding pilot businesses in Québec. I'm actively working on onboarding, testing, monitoring, and refining the platform around real contractor workflows.
The current priority is improving the experience for both contractors and their customers while validating how the service performs in everyday business operations.
What I'd Improve
My next focus is making the platform more adaptable to different contractor workflows. This includes improving business-specific configuration, refining lead qualification, and making appointment and estimate follow-ups easier to manage.
I'd also like to expand operational reporting so contractors can better understand missed-call recovery, lead activity, appointment conversion, and follow-up performance.