About
A small, opinionated AI shop
for the trades.
Hewstone builds AI operating systems for residential trades businesses — roofing, solar, HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and other home-services companies. Based in Minnesota, and singularly focused on this one industry.
The thesis
Most contracting businesses are losing 25-40% of inbound revenue to operational gaps that have nothing to do with the quality of the work.
Missed phone calls. Web leads that sit in inboxes for hours. Proposals that arrive three days late. Reviews never asked for. Project updates that never happen. Five years ago there wasn't much you could do about most of this — the technology either didn't exist or didn't fit the operational reality of a contracting business.
In 2026, the technology finally fits. AI voice can hold a real conversation. AI text can write in your specific brand voice. Automated workflows can plug into the CRMs and phone systems contracting businesses already use. The opportunity is to deploy these capabilities in the 3-4 workflows where they actually compound — and ignore the hype around everything else.
That's what Hewstone builds.
The shop
Independent, founder-led, and built in Minnesota.
Hewstone comes out of real time spent alongside residential trades businesses — building AI tools, sitting in on sales calls, and watching revenue leak through gaps that didn't need to exist. The focus is narrow on purpose: where AI actually compounds in a contracting business, and where it doesn't.
We're intentionally small. No VC backing, no sales team, no acquisition incentives pulling us away from the work. When you sign on you get a direct line to James Cannaday, the founder — the same person who builds your system. That's the whole sales process.
How we operate
Six things we put in writing.
We build inside your stack.
Your CRM, your phone, your calendar. We don't make you switch tools. The systems we ship plug into JobNimbus, AccuLynx, ServiceTitan, HubSpot, Pipedrive, your existing phone — whatever you already run.
You own everything.
If you cancel, the workflows, prompts, configurations, and integrations come with you. We hand off the code and the documentation. We don't trap clients with proprietary platforms.
Cancel any time.
Month-to-month after the 30-day refinement window. No annual contracts, no early-termination fees, no lock-in.
Half our discovery calls end in "not yet."
If we don't think AI will pay back for your specific operation, we tell you. We don't sell capabilities you don't need.
Every claim has a source.
Look at our blog posts. Every statistic links to its source. Every modeled scenario is labeled hypothetical. We won't make up numbers to win a deal.
Approval queue, then trust.
For the first 30 days of any engagement, every customer-facing message goes through your approval queue. You see what we're sending before it ships. After 30 days, you pick which workflows to auto-publish.
Things we won't do
- ✕Replace your CRM, your phone system, or your calendar.
- ✕Lock you into an annual contract.
- ✕Warehouse your customer data on our side.
- ✕Ship customer-facing AI without your approval queue for the first 30 days.
- ✕Tell you that you need all eleven capabilities. Most contractors should deploy one or two and stop there.
- ✕Quote you a price before we understand your specific operation.
- ✕Take your phone records, contact lists, or any other proprietary data with us if you ever leave.
Let's talk.
30 minutes to walk through your operation, where the revenue is leaking, and which capabilities (if any) would actually move the needle. No sales pressure — half end with us saying "not yet."