From working prototype to sustainable self-employment.

Customer problem

Small business owners and skilled staff often lose productive time answering routine calls, collecting job details, arranging bookings, following up quotes, moving information between systems and handling repetitive customer questions. Missed calls can also mean lost jobs before the business gets a chance to respond.

Solution

Ghost Automate will design, install and manage systems including AI telephone reception, lead capture and qualification, appointment/job booking, customer reminders and follow-up, calendar/CRM/job-management/accounting integrations, document/data-entry automation, internal business knowledge tools and bespoke workflow automation.

Initial target market

New Zealand sole traders and small service businesses, particularly plumbers, electricians, builders, mechanical/service firms, property/service contractors and other appointment- or job-based businesses with frequent inbound enquiries and administrative workload.

Commercial model

Current evidence of execution

The domain ghostautomate.co.nz, customer-facing website and working browser voice assistant are already live. The demo proves technical capability but is intentionally not presented as a mature commercial deployment: it cannot currently create a real customer booking, alter a real calendar, submit a real lead or change a customer's systems.

Support requested

Service ladder

These are launch hypotheses for viability modelling, not published historical prices or sales. Pricing is to be validated through customer interviews and pilot sales.

Delivery process

Discovery → workflow map → scope and quote → privacy/data review → build → integration → structured testing → human-fallback testing → customer acceptance → launch → monitoring → optimisation.

The commercial product is not merely whether an AI model can talk. It is whether the agreed business workflow performs reliably, safely and at a sustainable margin.

Customer acquisition plan

1. Founder-led direct outreach to selected local trades and service businesses.
2. Demonstrate the existing voice assistant and discuss the customer's real workflow.
3. Run a short discovery conversation and identify one expensive repetitive problem.
4. Offer a tightly scoped pilot with measurable success criteria.
5. Measure deployment time, direct cost, customer value and reliability.
6. Convert successful pilots into managed recurring services and referrals.
7. Delay broad paid advertising until conversion rate and acquisition cost are understood.

Why Ghost Automate can differentiate

The strategy is to compete on implementation, integration, practical business outcomes, privacy-conscious deployment and ongoing optimisation rather than on the cheapest per-minute voice bot.

Market interpretation

Ghost Automate does not need to capture a meaningful percentage of all NZ businesses to become viable. A founder-led service business can reach sustainability with a relatively small customer base. The existence of several NZ AI receptionist and automation providers is useful evidence that the category exists and customers are being asked to pay for it.

Competitor snapshot · checked October 2026

Competitor prices are point-in-time observations and can change. They are included to demonstrate category validation and positioning, not to claim a permanent market rate.

Research still to strengthen

• 5–10 documented conversations with target business owners.
• At least 2–3 written expressions of interest or pilot discussions if obtainable.
• Measured time/cost data from the first live pilot deployment.
• Customer willingness-to-pay notes against the proposed pricing hypotheses.

Expected-case assumptions

Expected-case monthly cash view

Draft Start-up Payment budget

Already-paid website/domain/name-reservation expenditure should be presented as founder contribution unless Work and Income explicitly confirms retrospective reimbursement. Significant new purchases should be approved before spending.

Draft Business Training & Advice Grant request

Privacy approach

• Founder to act as initial Privacy Officer.
• Conduct a Privacy Impact Assessment or proportionate documented review before deployments involving personal information.
• Collect only information necessary for the agreed workflow.
• Clearly disclose call recording where recording is enabled.
• Clearly identify AI where appropriate to the interaction.
• Document vendors, data locations and retention/deletion settings.
• Keep secrets server-side, apply least privilege, key rotation and audit logging.
• Provide human escalation for uncertainty, complaints, safety issues and exceptional decisions.
• Account for Information Privacy Principle 3A obligations for indirect collection where relevant.

12-month target

Expected planning scenario: approximately 12 active managed clients, 7 custom projects over the year, roughly NZ$46,533 trading revenue and NZ$26,333 operating cash surplus before founder drawings, income tax, startup capital and GST effects. Actual results will be reviewed monthly against the conservative/expected/optimistic scenarios.

Programmes to ask to be assessed for

1. Flexi-wage Self-employment — temporary support during the commercial ramp-up.
2. Self-employment Start-up Payment — approved essential establishment costs.
3. Business Training and Advice Grant — independent business/financial/pricing advice and plan validation.

Private documents to bring separately

• Original/accepted identification if Work and Income still requires verification.
• WINZ client number and IRD number/evidence as required.
• Bank account evidence showing account name, full number and bank logo.
• Evidence of current income/assets requested for eligibility.
• Company-name reservation confirmation and receipt.
• Current CV plus relevant technical/business experience evidence.
• Supplier quotes for the proposed startup budget.
• Adviser/accountant quotes for Business Training and Advice Grant support.
• Any customer interview notes, expressions of interest or pilot discussions obtained before assessment.

Questions for the case manager

• Can I be assessed for all three parts of the self-employment pathway rather than only the company-registration expense?
• Which proposed start-up costs do you consider essential and potentially eligible, and what approval/quote process must I follow before spending?
• Can the Business Training and Advice Grant fund an accountant or adviser to review this plan, pricing and financial forecast before independent viability assessment?
• What evidence does the independent assessor normally expect for a software/service business like this?
• How should I report the hours I currently spend developing the business while the application is being assessed?
• At what point should Jobseeker obligations transition to a Flexi-wage self-employment arrangement if approved?
• Who should receive revised quotes and updated plan documents after this meeting?
• What date should the first actual-versus-forecast financial review be prepared for?