Dazza's Blog

Building the secretary is one thing. Teaching it where all the loose ends live is another. This week's Dazza Follow-Up update isn't about announcing a release date. We're still developing DFU, and some of the work currently depends on answers and access from external providers. But that work highlights something important about what we're trying to build. A useful digital follow-up secretary can't live in one little box. The things you're waiting on don't. Follow-ups start al

“Yeah mate, I'll get back to you.” Famous last words. You're waiting on the supplier for the roof sheets. The plumber owes you a price. The electrician was going to confirm whether he can make Tuesday. The customer needs to choose something before you can order it. None of those things sounds particularly difficult. But while you're actually doing the job, another day disappears. Then somebody asks: “Whatever happened with that?” And the answer is: “I rang him. He never rang

Five words that can turn a perfectly good job into a surprisingly long conversation. Most tradies have heard some version of it. The job is underway. Something small comes up. The customer asks, “While you're here, can you just do this as well?” It doesn't seem worth stopping everything over. You talk about it, agree on what needs doing and get on with the job. Then the invoice arrives. “Hang on. I thought that was included in the quote.” And now two people can remember the s

As DFU gains more connections, the product still comes back to one simple promise: remember who you are waiting on, who is waiting on you, what the loose end is and when it needs attention.

Connected follow-up software can cause real friction if it chooses the wrong customer, duplicates a reminder or marks the wrong thing complete. DFU is being designed to fail safely and keep the person in control.

A Connect button is the easy part. A useful DFU connection has to know whose data it is, keep access secure, survive reconnects and produce the right follow-up without pretending uncertainty is certainty.

Follow-ups do not arrive in one neat queue. They hide across email, website forms, quotes, invoices, phone calls and notes — which is exactly why DFU is being built around connections.

There’s a big gap between “we built an app” and “we're ready to hand it to customers”. This week I've shown a bit more of what Dazza Follow-Up actually looks like. Not a mock-up. Not a sales page promising fifty features. The real product that is being worked on. So it is probably worth finishing the week with a straightforward progress report. The core secretary exists The main DFU experience has been built. You can create follow-ups. See who is waiting on whom. Set follow-u

There’s not much point being reminded about something when you can’t do anything about it. A reminder system can become annoying very quickly. Ping. Ping. Ping. Eventually you stop reading it. That is why Dazza Follow-Up isn't being designed around sending as many notifications as possible. The better question is: When do you actually want your secretary to put things back in front of you? Your day, your reminder times The current DFU build allows reminder times to be configu

If recording a follow-up is harder than remembering it yourself, the software has already lost. One of the traps with business software is that a five-second thought turns into a five-minute data-entry exercise. You think: Ring Steve Thursday about that quote. Simple. Then the software wants a customer record, opportunity type, sales stage, category, probability, project, tags and probably your mother’s maiden name. By then, writing “Steve Thursday” on the back of a Bunnings

Most small businesses don’t have a follow-up problem because nobody cares. They have one because everybody is busy. A quote goes out. A customer says they’ll get back to you. A supplier promises something Tuesday. You’re waiting on a subcontractor. Someone is waiting on you. None of those jobs are difficult by themselves. The problem is remembering all of them while you’re also quoting, driving, answering the phone, ordering materials and trying to get some actual work done.

A good follow-up system does not need to remember everything about your business. It needs to remember the loose ends that become expensive when you forget them.

Plenty of small trade businesses are too small to justify a full-time office employee, but they still have the exact same problem a good secretary solves: keeping track of what needs to happen next.

Email is brilliant at delivering messages. It is much less brilliant at remembering which message still needs an action three days from now.

Most follow-ups only take a minute. The trouble is they have to be remembered later — after another day of jobs, calls, suppliers and interruptions.

Sending the quote feels like the job is done. But for plenty of small businesses, the real leak happens after the quote leaves the inbox and nobody remembers to chase it.