What is Porter Intelligent Systems?
title: "What is Porter Intelligent Systems?" date: "2026-03-14" excerpt: "Why I started this company, what I'm building, and why I'm documenting the whole thing in public." tags: ["meta", "building-in-public"] status: "published"
The Short Version
Porter Intelligent Systems builds bespoke AI-powered tools, data pipelines, and automation for small businesses. The kind of tools that big companies take for granted but small businesses can't realistically access — custom dashboards, automated workflows, AI assistants that actually understand your business.
I'm Mason Porter, and this is my company's site. But it's also something else: a living portfolio and a dev log. Everything I build here demonstrates what I can build for you.
Why This Exists
Most AI consulting firms show you a polished brochure and a list of Fortune 500 logos. That's not what I do.
I work with small businesses — the ones that are still running on spreadsheets, manual data exports, and "we've always done it this way." The ones where a single well-built pipeline or a simple AI tool can save 10+ hours a week.
This site is proof of that approach. It's not a static brochure. The analytics dashboard pulls real data. The contact form stores submissions in a real database. The blog documents real projects. If I'm going to tell you I can build data pipelines and dashboards, I should be able to point at my own.
What I'm Building (Right Now)
This weekend, I'm taking this site from a scaffold to a working product:
- A real contact form — backed by Supabase, with email notifications via Resend. Eventually this becomes an AI-powered project scoping tool.
- A live analytics dashboard — pulling real traffic data and lead metrics. The same kind of dashboard I build for clients.
- This blog — documenting every step of the process. Not just the wins, but the decisions, tradeoffs, and things I'd do differently.
The Tech Stack
For the curious:
- Next.js 16 with App Router — server components for data fetching, client components only where needed
- Tailwind CSS 4 — the dark HUD theme you're looking at right now
- MDX — blog posts are markdown with embedded React components (diagrams, charts, videos)
- Supabase — database and auth (contact form, eventually more)
- Vercel — hosting and analytics
- Resend — transactional email
Nothing exotic. The right tool for each job, nothing more.
Where This Is Going
Over the next few weeks and months, this site will grow:
- More blog posts — each feature I add gets documented
- AI chatbot — on the contact page, to help prospective clients scope their projects interactively
- Richer analytics — Google Ads ROI tracking, conversion funnels, the kind of dashboard I'd build for a client
- Case studies — real project walkthroughs with architecture diagrams, before/after metrics, and honest retrospectives
If you're a small business owner wondering whether AI and automation could actually help your business — follow along. I'm building the proof right here.
Follow the Build
Every post on this blog is a chapter in the build process. Start here, and watch the site evolve. If something I'm building looks like what your business needs, let's talk.