Applied AI / Small Business

Where your business loses hours,
we apply torque.

Torque Laboratories helps small businesses find the workflows bleeding time — and replace them with AI systems that actually work. No hype, no retainer games. An audit, a plan, a shipped solution.

Typical audit
2 weeks
Typical build
4–8 weeks
Engagement
Fixed-scope
Outcome
Measured
Process

Three stages. No ambiguity.

01 Audit

Find where force is lost.

Two-week discovery: we shadow workflows, pull data, and map every place where your team loses time to work a machine should be doing.

02 Identify

Target the bottleneck.

You get a prioritized list of bottlenecks, each with a projected hours-saved figure and a build estimate. No theater. No slide decks with robots on them.

03 Apply

Ship the fix. Measure it.

We build and deploy the solution — inside your existing tools where possible. You see the before/after metric, and you own the system when we leave.

Services

What we actually do.

Small engagements with clear deliverables. Pick what you need; we don't push what you don't.

SVC / 01

Bottleneck Audit

Standalone discovery engagement. You walk away with a ranked map of AI-solvable bottlenecks in your business — with or without us building them.

SVC / 02

Custom AI Workflows

We build the automations: inbox triage, document processing, lead enrichment, reporting, customer support deflection. Integrated into the tools your team already uses.

SVC / 03

Internal Tooling

Purpose-built interfaces for your team — dashboards, admin panels, knowledge bots — powered by your data and the right model for the job.

SVC / 04

Model & Vendor Strategy

Cut through the noise. We evaluate vendors, compare model choices, and give you a straight answer on build vs. buy — without a kickback agenda.

Pricing

You pay when it works.

Most consultants bill for time. We bill against the result. Skin in the game — the only honest way to sell AI right now.

[01] Audit
Free.

Two weeks, zero cost. You walk away with a prioritized map of AI-solvable bottlenecks — whether or not we build them.

[02] Build
Outcome-based.

We agree on the metric before we start — hours saved, errors eliminated, throughput gained. Hit the number, we get paid in full. Miss it, you don't.

Why Torque

You have a choice.

Here's what most small businesses are weighing — and where we land.

  Retainer Consultancy DIY AI Tools Doing Nothing Torque
Cost model
Monthly retainer Per-seat SaaS $0 today Free audit. Outcome-based build.
Skin in the game
None None Tied to your metric
What you own
Slide decks A subscription The problem Code, prompts, system
Time to result
Quarterly Depends on you Falling behind 4–8 weeks, measured
Example Bottlenecks

The kinds of things we solve.

Representative patterns, not case studies. If any of these look like your week, we should talk.

EX / 01
−5.5 hrs/wk
Before
Ops manager spends 6 hrs/week categorizing and routing support email
After
AI triage agent routes 92% automatically; manager reviews exceptions only
EX / 02
+3x outreach
Before
Sales rep manually enriches 40 leads/day from LinkedIn & web
After
Enrichment pipeline delivers full profiles to CRM before first outreach
EX / 03
−12 hrs/wk
Before
Bookkeeper re-keys invoices from PDF attachments into accounting system
After
Extraction pipeline pushes structured line items with human-review queue
EX / 04
−70% tier-1
Before
Founder answers the same 20 customer questions across email & chat
After
Knowledge assistant resolves tier-1 questions with founder-approved answers
About

An engineer's approach to applied AI.

Most small businesses don't need another platform or another consultant on retainer. They need a specific bottleneck removed, and they need someone who can actually build.

That's what Torque Labs does. Fixed scope. Best model for the job. Our own code. When we're done, you own what we built and you know how it works.

Skeptical of AI hype? Good. We are too.

FAQ

The questions you're already asking.

What counts as 'hitting the metric'? +

We define it together before the build, in writing. Measurement uses your existing systems where possible — call logs, ticket counts, time tracking, CRM exports. The numbers come from your data, not ours.

What if my data isn't ready? +

That's part of what the free audit catches. We tell you upfront whether your data needs work before AI can help — and roughly what that costs. Sometimes nothing. Sometimes a week.

Do I own what you build? +

Yes. Code, prompts, configurations, documentation — all yours. We're not a SaaS, we're not licensing anything back to you, and there's no monthly fee to keep using what we built.

What if it doesn't work? +

You don't pay full freight on the build. The metric and the payment terms are tied together — agreed before we start. Worst case: you got a free 2-week audit and a working pilot you can keep poking at.

Why is the audit free? +

We're new. Case studies are more valuable to us right now than audit fees, and we'd rather find the businesses where AI actually helps than collect retainers from ones where it doesn't.

What tools do you work with? +

Whatever you're already using. The point is to plug into your stack, not migrate you to ours. Common: HubSpot/Salesforce, Gmail/Outlook, QuickBooks, Slack/Teams, custom databases, whatever phone system you're on.

Start Here

Where's your bottleneck?

Tell us the workflow costing your team the most time. If it's a fit, we'll start a free 2-week audit. No credit card, no contract, no retainer pitch at the end.

Torque Laboratories · Est. 2026 · New York City