Build the system Keep the system
If you’re paying someone to fix your code, build your website, post your content, run your research, design your ads, you’re renting pieces of a system you should own.
Ask how you build an AI system around it.
A free 15 minute call. No pressure.
What you rent
What you own
Where this started
Video and photos were the trade. I learned the rest because nobody was going to come do it for me. Then Zanity Clothing, a real label with a store and a campaign that went to 50 states. Then Curb-side Delivery in Woodbridge, New Jersey.
Curb-side put 22 restaurants that did not deliver onto one menu. Olive Garden paid us $150 a month to be on it. Darden cut the check from corporate. We had corporate accounts on prepaid balances and a driver manual I wrote myself. That was August 2013. Uber Eats did not exist yet. Not the product, not the app. Uber started delivering food a year later in Santa Monica, and it took two and a half years before it had its own app.
So in December 2014 I sat down to build the software version. The developer I took it to told me the competition had venture capital and I had about $500 a month, and that I should go drive for one of them instead. I wrote back and asked whether I should call one of these companies that already had the system and sell them my territory.
I was running the idea a year before Uber was. I was pitching the software version a year before Uber had an app. And I had no capital to carry either one. That is the honest version. Every business I built before this one needed money to get big and did not have it. So I built a way to get paid that does not need a check from anybody. You own the system. I get paid for the thinking.
Then I ran accounts at Pinpoint Promotions and Marketing, then my own shop, WK Strategic Business Development, which is what A Cali Collective came out of.
What I sell now is that method. Not a video. Not a website. The thinking that makes them work, in a container you own.
What I ran, in order
Six runs at it. Same method every time: build it, then rewrite it until people connect.
The receipts
Everything here is from a file, an invoice, or an archive. The parts I cannot prove are not on this page.
Curb-side Delivery, 2013
Call the restaurant, call us, we verify the order, we deliver it. $11 flat, any size, eleven miles out of the Woodbridge mall. EZ PAY for the regulars.
Olive Garden, 2014
$130 a month for menu distribution, $20 for logo space. Then Darden's corporate accounts payable reissued the check. That is a national restaurant group paying a two-man operation in Woodbridge.
The driver manual, August 2013
Efficiency, teamwork, detailed worker. Show up 15 minutes early. Uniform clean. Email on your phone, Life360 on your phone. Triple-check the order and call the customer before you leave.
Woodbridge Township, September 2014
Two people and a car, and the town showed up with the big scissors. Alongside that, corporate accounts on standing balances along Route 1: Wiss and Company, Castle Financial, Buckley Madole.
Zanity Clothing, 2012 to 2015
Hoodies, tees, snapbacks, photo shoots, a real checkout. The tagline was Question Everything. We ran a campaign called 50 States of Zanity. We ran a skate team, a BMX team and a flow team with written guidelines, weekly responsibilities and signed contracts, years before brands called that an influencer program.
The PLUS Program, 2009
Student athletes, a written mission, and a visit to the New Jersey Veterans Home for the Pumpkin Spice Festival. Community service, volunteering and reflection, in the program's own words.
Sources on request: archived curb-sidedelivery.com menus from June 2014, the February 2014 invoice, and the Darden accounting thread from September 2014.
Cali Collective Academy
A membership for local business owners. Three or four classes a month on AI, content, Google Ads and video, plus notes on your own account. $497 a month, cancel any time.
AI system
One director, a crew of specialists and Wilson’s yes on everything that goes out.
What we do
Four parts. You do not have to buy all four from me, and most people should not. Here is what each part does and what it is worth.
Photos and video that show the work the way it actually looks. This is the part nobody can fake, and it is why I still shoot.
in 30 days for a plumbing client, 80 of them billable.
Google, Local Services and Meta, set up so you can see the calls and the leads rather than the clicks.
A clear site that makes it easy to call or book. Built with AI, checked by a person, and yours.
Before
After
The part that runs without you. For Chandler’s Roofing I cut a contract writing step, so quotes reach yes faster. It sits in their accounts, and it keeps running.
You do not need all four. Tell Wilson the problem and he will tell you which part is actually costing you money.
A free 15 minute call. No pressure.
The work
Featured project
A custom quiz, dock tablet and dashboard we built for the marina. 413 captains took the quiz in season one. The dock tablet logged 192 check ins and 10,427 gallons.
Featured project
A collaborative video project. Beach houses, a tag wall and a stadium stage, all on camera.
How it works
A free 15 minute call. Tell him what is on your list. He’ll tell you honestly where he would start.
One session and you leave with the plan. Or join the Academy at $497 a month and learn to build the next one yourself. Both are on the booking page and the Academy page.
It runs on your accounts. If you stop working with me, it keeps running. That is the whole point.
A free 15 minute call. No pressure.
Who you work with
Wilson Kowaleski, Founder & Creative Director, leads the creative work. Patti helps local businesses show up when customers search. We run the ad campaigns. No account managers.
Quick answers
Yes. Based in St. Augustine, Florida. We’ve worked with businesses in California, New York, New Jersey, Utah, Idaho, West Virginia and Mexico, and we travel anywhere.
The first call is free. The Strategy Session is $400 for 60 minutes. After that, you decide what, if anything, comes next. Details are on the booking page.
No. It is 15 minutes about what is on your list. If a Strategy Session would help, Wilson will say so once, and the choice is yours.