Jordan Batsford started Batsford Systems at 22, after building what became Tally for a working container and recycling business and watching it take over the day-to-day running of the place — the dispatch board, the scale, the billing prep, the paperwork the state asks for at year-end.
The pattern turned out to be everywhere: a capable operation held together by a whiteboard, a stack of duplicate forms and one person who knows how the software really works. The off-the-shelf options were either a toy or an enterprise suite priced and shaped for a company ten times the size. Nothing in between was built for a yard that runs on schedules, scales and carbon-copy forms.
Sit with an operator, learn the trade properly, and build the system of record they should have had all along.
Why it stays small
One product, one database, one release train. That's a deliberate limit, not a stage to grow out of. It's what keeps the software legible — when something needs explaining, there's a person who wrote it, and a fix reported on Monday can ship on Friday to everyone at once.
It also sets the honest edges. Batsford Systems is a short list of people who know the code deeply, and a source-escrow arrangement so customers aren't stranded is being put in writing rather than promised loosely.
How the work actually goes
Jordan still writes the code and still does the site visits — time at the scale, in the dispatch chair, in the cab, learning why this load bills at the end of the month and that one bills per pickup. The rules of these trades are specific and mostly unwritten, and the only way to get them right is to be standing next to someone when they explain them.
What's next
More operations on Tally, and in time more products — the same method pointed at the next industry the tech world skipped. The company grows by taking on one operation at a time and not leaving until the software knows the trade. That's the whole plan.
— Jordan Batsford, Batsford Systems