Applied AI — Case Study
Townhome
Private members' club platform
We rebuilt an entire members' club — recruitment, payments, check-in, and daily life — as one branded platform, replacing an enterprise stack that would have cost six figures a year.
~$150k → sub-$50k
first-year cost, rebuilt from scratch
$30k+/yr
recurring license spend eliminated
700
members run end to end on one platform
4–6
separate systems collapsed into one
The problem
Townhome, a Nova Hospitality concept opening in Austin, had committed to a roughly $150k first-year path — enterprise CRM licenses plus a separate build quote on top — with no portal actually running yet, and around $30k a year in recurring software costs baked in forever.
That stack was built for global hospitality groups with hundreds of properties. For a single 700-member club it was overkill, brittle, and expensive.
Members had no way to see their account, RSVP to events, or check their F&B credit. The front desk checked people in on paper. Recruitment lived in a spreadsheet. The marketing site was disconnected from the member database entirely.
The bottom line: Townhome would have been adding subscription software on top of bloated services and still never gotten exactly what they needed.
What we built
Member portal
Dashboard, event RSVPs with waitlists, an F&B credit ledger, member directory, a cross-venue 'Book a Table' hub, perks, and a profile with per-field privacy controls.
Editorial marketing site
A single-page, invitation-only experience gated by phone number — only prospects on the curated list can claim a membership.
Living membership card
A live member card with a rotating security token, plus a branded Apple Wallet pass. The same token gets you through the door.
Front-desk check-in
Two paths at the door — a browser camera QR scanner and a USB NFC reader for tap-to-enter straight from iPhone Wallet.
Admin console
Three role-aware personas with a full recruitment funnel, event lifecycle, member↔prospect reversibility, perks, tier configuration, and audit logging.
Lifecycle email engine
Transactional mail (magic links, RSVP and renewal notices) and marketing lifecycle email (welcome, invitations, newsletters), with a clean per-event cutover.
The pieces most teams glue together — we built in.
One member identity flows through payments, the door, and daily life at the club — no third-party patchwork.
Apple Wallet
A brand-designed membership pass members add to their iPhone — the digital key to the club, signed with an Apple Developer Pass Type ID.
NFC tap-to-enter
A WalletMate II reader over Apple VAS lets members tap their iPhone Wallet at the front desk to walk in.
Rotating-QR check-in
A 60-second HMAC-signed token on the live card verifies identity at the door — impossible to screenshot and reuse.
Stripe
Five membership tiers, spouse add-ons, founder comps, refund handling, and an automatic suspend flow when a renewal fails.
Supabase
Postgres with row-level security, passwordless magic-link auth, and secure storage for member photos and residence proofs.
How it was built
- Directed and shipped end to end as creative director and executive producer — every product, scope, architecture, UX, brand, and engineering decision.
- Built AI-native: paired with Claude Code as engineering counterpart, which is exactly how one director ships a platform that replaces a six-figure enterprise stack.
- 150+ pull requests covering the portal, marketing site, admin console, recruitment pipeline, check-in system, Wallet pass, perks, and all email infrastructure.
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