Hobfolk
HOBFOLK.

(A hob is the household spirit of Northern English folklore — it works a building overnight and asks for nothing but a bowl of cream. Hobfolk: a company of them. That is what we are — your back office, working while you sleep.)

Back office · Run as a company · On retainer

The back office,
actually working.

Everyone is trying to point AI at their own operations right now, and almost nobody has got it past the demo. Hobfolk is what it looks like when it works: nine departments that answer enquiries, issue drawings and quotes, chase suppliers, file compliance, book freight and reconcile the books — all day, and then all night as well.

Start a conversationSee how it works
You go home. It doesn't.Every promise gets a row and a due dateAnswered the same day, not the next working dayA drawing before the quoteUnverifiable is never a passNine desks, one address eachNothing is sent that a human cannot read backThe folder exists before you price itYou go home. It doesn't.Every promise gets a row and a due dateAnswered the same day, not the next working dayA drawing before the quoteUnverifiable is never a passNine desks, one address eachNothing is sent that a human cannot read backThe folder exists before you price it
What this actually is

Not a tool you have to learn. A department that turns up.

Anyone can automate. Knowing what to automate, and what to leave alone, is the job.

There is a lot of software that promises to automate your office, and it demos beautifully. Then somebody has to configure it, connect it, decide what it is allowed to do, notice when it silently stops, and keep it current while the business changes underneath it. That work never gets done, so the tool quietly becomes another tab nobody opens.

Hobfolk sells the finished thing instead. We design the roles, write the job descriptions, build the systems that fill them, connect them to what you already use, and then run them as a service with our name on the outcome. You do not learn a product. You get a department, on a retainer, with somebody accountable.

The night work is the part people repeat back to us, and it is real — the desks do not stop at six. But it is a consequence, not the product. The product is that the work is done properly at all.

The work is designed by people who have done it
The work is designed by people who have done it
The boardroom

“Superpowers”

Gordon Aitcheson · Managing Director · 0:55

What the desks actually synthesise — run on our own companies first, with real orders and real money, before any of it was sold to anyone.

Captions on · the sound is worth it

Last night

What happens between the last person out and the first person in

Every line below is the kind of work that normally waits for someone to be free. None of it waited.
Hobfolk · overnight Local time --:--:--
  • 22:41NellEnquiry from Halden Leisure read, answered, folder opened — 21 minutes after it landed.
  • 23:26KeddieGA drawing and a render issued against the Halden brief. Scale figure in frame.
  • 00:58PriaBank reconciled. Two payments matched, one short by the carriage line — flagged, not guessed.
  • 01:44GarrowNDA sent to the new fabricator. Drawings held back until it comes back signed.
  • 02:37TamConsignment 4471 has not scanned in 26 hours. Carrier case opened.
  • 03:52CorrNine posts scheduled. Last week's read: 3 of 11 carried the traffic, the rest are being cut.
  • 04:19WenDelivery date on the Brayfield job is going to slip by four days. Client warned tonight.
  • 05:41HeskOvernight run verified at the far end. One send claimed and not found — reopened.
  • 06:48NellThree enquiries answered. Two quotes drafted and sitting in your approvals for the morning.
Nine desks · nobody was awake · every line filed against the job it belongs to
The problem

Work does not fall through because your people are bad at their jobs

A promise nobody wrote down is a promise that dies.

It falls through the gaps between them. A concept studio, a fabrication floor and an install crew all touch the same project from different buildings, sometimes different countries, and the handovers are held together by somebody remembering to send an email.

So an enquiry sits for three days because the person it landed on was on site. A quote goes out without the drawing. A supplier is never chased because the person who was chasing them left. An invoice ages quietly because asking for money is nobody's favourite job and everybody's optional one.

None of these are hard problems. They are attention problems, and attention is the one thing a busy company has none of at half past six.

The problem is not that your people left. It is that nobody was there.
The problem is not that your people left. It is that nobody was there.
What we run

Nine departments

The nine we lead with. Each is a desk with its own address, its own remit and its own idea of what finished looks like — and there are more we build to order, because every company has one function that is peculiar to it.
01

Enquiries & quoting

Every enquiry answered the day it lands, filed, owned by a named desk, and priced.

Open 02

Project office & programme

The won job sequenced, the people it depends on told, and the promised date and the real date kept from drifting apart quietly.

Open 03

Drawing & visualisation

A dimensioned drawing and a picture of the thing, back before the client has finished thinking about it.

Open 04

Demand & marketing

Content planned, posted and measured. Campaigns designed. Ads managed. Outreach that gets replies.

Open 05

Studio & materials

Everything that carries your name — flyers to signage, identity to websites, renders to film.

Open 06

Compliance, documents & contracts

RAMS, O&M manuals, handover packs and a confidentiality agreement out before the drawings are.

Open 07

Assurance & verification

Independent proof, taken at the far end, that work which reported success actually happened.

Open 08

Logistics & dispatch

Booked, tracked, cleared through customs, and chased when it stops moving.

Open 09

Invoices out, cash in

Invoices raised, books reconciled, cash position current, and a separate desk that does the asking.

Open
Plainly

What that buys you

07days a week
The desks do not observe your opening hours, or anyone else's.
~20min
Typical time from an enquiry landing to a considered answer leaving.
100%
Outbound work logged where the job lives — not in somebody's sent items.
3human gates
Quotation, anything contractual, and anything that spends money. Never automatic.
The crew

Nine desks. None of them is a person.

Hobfolk is software given a company's shape: named desks with defined remits, an address each, and a coordinator making sure two of them never work the same thread. We say this on the front of the page rather than the back of it, because it is the entire product.

What that changes for you: the desks do not get ill, do not resign, do not forget what was agreed in March, and do not need managing. What it does not change: a person still signs the quotation, the contract and anything that spends your money.

Meet the nine desks
Computer-generated portrait representing the Enquiries deskComputer-generated portrait representing the Project office deskComputer-generated portrait representing the Drawing deskComputer-generated portrait representing the Demand deskComputer-generated portrait representing the Studio desk
Why it holds

Anyone can automate. The hard part is proving it happened.

Most automation reports success while failing. A send returns a message id and the mail never arrives. A deploy exits zero and the page is unchanged. A watcher runs perfectly for weeks and cannot actually see the thing it was built to watch.

So Hobfolk carries a department whose only job is to disbelieve the others. It checks at the far end, never from the actor's own log, and returns pass, fail, or unverifiable — which is never treated as a pass.

How the machine is built
Under the cog — the mechanism, not the promise
Under the cog — the mechanism, not the promise
Before you ask

The questions everyone asks

Is this a software product or an agency?
Neither, quite. It is a service company whose staff are software. You get named desks with addresses, a monthly retainer and someone accountable — not a licence, a login and a training course. There is nothing for your team to learn to drive.
Do we have to replace the systems we already use?
No, and we would advise against it. Hobfolk works inside your existing email, accounts package, drive and CRM. Ripping out working systems to accommodate a back office is the wrong way round.
What happens when it gets something wrong?
The same as when a person does: it is caught, it is corrected, and the specific failure becomes a written check so it cannot recur silently. We publish what went wrong to you rather than absorbing it quietly, because a failure you never hear about is one you cannot price.
Who is actually accountable?
We are, as a company, under a written agreement with service levels in it. That is the difference between this and a tool — a tool's licence disclaims everything.
How much of our data does it need?
As little as does the job. Access is scoped per department, logged, and revocable in one action. Personal mailboxes are out of scope, permanently and by policy, not by configuration.
What size company is this for?
Roughly ten to two hundred and fifty people, making or building something physical, with more work in flight than the office has hands. Below ten it is usually more than you need. Above that we are an addition to a back office rather than a replacement for one.
Can we start with one department?
Yes, and most do. Enquiries or Money are the usual first two, because both produce a number you can see moving within a month.
Is our work used to train anything?
No. Your material is used to do your work. It is not pooled with other clients' and it is not used to improve a model. That is in the agreement, not just on this page.

One conversation, and a written answer on whether we can help.

Tell us what falls through. If Hobfolk is the wrong shape for it, we will say so — that answer is free and it is quicker than a pitch.

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