The Business of Starting Again

A business owner can spend a day doing everything except the work that made them start the business. A booking needs chasing. A screen is showing yesterday’s offer. Someone cannot find the latest customer note. The marketing is still waiting. Each problem is small enough to tolerate. Together, they consume the day.

Herman Vermaak has built StartMadeSimple’s VCMP product family around that accumulated friction. Its range stretches from venue bookings and counter sales to property marketing, field coordination and security administration. The connection between those markets becomes clearer when the products are viewed through the work people actually do: receive a request, make a decision, hand something over and leave a record that the next person can use.

“I’ve built businesses. I’ve failed. I’ve started again.” Vermaak’s published LinkedIn launch is unusually direct about the experience behind his new work. He describes more than 28 years from operational roles to CEO level, creating products and leading teams. That history gives the VCMP story its central tension: a founder pursuing a broad software vision while trying to preserve a simple experience for people whose day already contains enough complexity.

The result is a family of specialist products. Solo brings websites, bookings and customer administration together. Encore organises venue enquiries, the diary and run sheets. Solo POS supports the counter and the costs behind sales. Estate connects property content and branch displays with distinct customer enquiry routes. Amplio combines a managed content service with a marketing workspace.

The newer operational products extend the same approach into more accountable environments. FireTrack Pro organises personnel credentials, asset registers and custody records. Waypoint brings sourced country information alongside journey reviews and voluntary team check-ins. Command connects security contract obligations with shifts, patrol observations, incident records and evidence submitted for review.

This breadth makes AI part of a more interesting story than another content generator. Vermaak’s approach combines product direction with AI-assisted work, including the use of OpenAI tools. StartMadeSimple also offers a scoped OpenAI and Codex implementation service, beginning with a business workflow and agreed acceptance criteria. The emphasis is on turning an idea into work a team can inspect and use.

That still leaves the decisions that matter with people. Someone must decide which problem deserves a product, whether a screen makes sense during a busy shift, and what should happen when a record is incomplete. AI can help produce code, explore alternatives and prepare content. The organisation remains responsible for the resulting service and the decisions made through it.

The clearest expression of that philosophy is often an unglamorous feature. Amplio requires approval before publishing. Waypoint displays the age of a reported position. FireTrack keeps handovers attached to the relevant records. Command gives obligations an owner and a due date. These choices make the software more legible to the person who must take the next action.

The public product pages also invite visitors into demonstrations. That matters for a founder-led business seeking attention in crowded markets. A reader can inspect a workflow and ask a practical question about it, rather than relying entirely on the promise of a launch announcement.

VCMP’s commercial challenge is substantial: each sector has its own habits, established suppliers and buying standards. Its proposition will stand or fall through implementation, support and the usefulness of the individual products. A large range alone does not establish those outcomes.

Yet the founder’s ambition is easy to recognise. Software should give a business owner a clearer grip on the working day. AI creates more possibilities for building it. Vermaak’s contribution is the decision about which possibilities deserve to become products, and how plainly those products should explain the work.

Herman Vermaak is putting more than 28 years of operating experience and AI-assisted development into VCMP, a software family built around the working day.