Getting off Salesforce
Big CRMs charge per seat for features you'll never use. We build a CRM around how your team actually works, then host it for you or train your IT staff to run it in AWS or Azure.
Custom CRM →Software Consulting & Development
Software consulting without the big-firm overhead
We're Ernest Cronin and Ben Mitchell. We build custom CRMs, get vibe-coded apps ready for real users, and move small businesses off spreadsheets and back-closet servers into AWS or Azure. You work directly with us, and you pay less than you would at a larger firm.
Who We Are
Two engineers who got laid off and started building
Ernest and Ben worked together at Medecision for more than ten years, building healthcare software. In January 2023 we were both laid off, and that same month we started The Cronin Group.
For the last three years we've also worked together as engineers at one of the world's largest banks, so we spend our days on current cloud and data tools at enterprise scale. Between us we hold Spring Boot, AWS, Terraform, and Airflow certifications. When a project needs more hands, we bring in a couple of experienced developers we've worked with before.
Our approach is simple: if the price and the timeline make sense, we'll build it.
What We Do
What clients usually hire us for
Most of our clients are small and mid-sized businesses that have outgrown the tools they started with, or are paying too much for the ones they have.
Vibe-coded apps that need to go live
You built something with Cursor, Lovable, or Claude and it works on your laptop. We add proper logins, close the security gaps, set up a real database, and deploy it to the cloud.
AI to Production →Running the business from Excel
If your customers, orders, or inventory live in spreadsheets on a shared drive, we can turn them into a web app with a database, user accounts, and reports, and import the data you already have.
Process Automation →A server in the back closet
Physical servers fail, need patching, and usually only one person knows how they're set up. We migrate them to AWS or Azure and can manage the hosting afterward.
Cloud Consulting →AI that does one job well
We build focused AI tools, like a lead finder that reads Reddit and uses Claude to flag people who are looking for a lawyer.
Custom Software →Starting a new business
One price, $5,000: your LLC, domain and email, a five-page website, and search setup, all in your name.
Launch Package →Something else entirely
Data pipelines, integrations, internal tools. Describe it, and we'll tell you honestly whether it's worth building and roughly what it would cost.
Custom Software →Recent Work
Projects we've delivered since 2023
Patient billing CRM
Brought in by a managed hosting provider to build a CRM-style application for a Michigan medical billing company to manage patient billing.
Electricity purchasing in the PJM market
A complete system for an energy company to submit electricity purchases to PJM. It imports customers' Excel files so staff can review and edit the data in a web interface, and uses Airflow to pull real-time market data from PJM.
Health plan data pipelines
Data pipelines in Databricks and Jupyter notebooks for a university, processing student health data (PHI) to help set the cost of the university's student health insurance plan.
Pendant, a CRM for law firms
A Philadelphia attorney was tired of fighting Salesforce. We built Pendant, a CRM designed around how a law firm actually manages its clients.
Reddit lead finder
Another attorney finds clients on Reddit. We built a scraper that collects posts and comments from chosen subreddits and uses Anthropic's Claude to filter them down to likely leads.
Cloud migration and hosting
In progress: moving a print shop to AWS and a pharmacy to Azure. Once they're migrated, we'll host and maintain both.
Client Reviews
What clients say
In their own words, shared with permission.
The Cronin Group helped me develop custom software for my business. The project required them to quickly have a nuanced understanding of a niche professional need and develop a brand new type of software program to improve our workflows and outputs. Their team put the project together quickly, professionally, and most importantly, delivered a phenomenal product we use on a daily basis.
Running a medium sized business has proven to be difficult without a knowledgeable software expert and IT management company. The Cronin Group has proven over and over again to provide solutions for us to solve complex problems.
All our custom processes are now up and running consistently with backups in place.
Ernest and Ben are exceptional — I had a loose idea of a software tool I thought might help my business. They're professional, insightful, and extremely talented engineers. They had a solution for me months before I expected one and the project they worked on exceeds all expectations. Strongly recommend.
Ernest does great IT work, expert in all coding projects and cloud hosting ect.
Doing It Yourself With AI
Why not just build it yourself with AI?
Sometimes you should. AI app builders can turn a description into a working app in an afternoon, and for a simple tool or a first test of an idea, that's hard to beat. We use AI every day too.
Things change once real customers, real money, or private information are involved. That's when an app that works in a demo and an app your business can rely on stop being the same thing.
Who owns it? Apps made with a builder usually live on that company's platform, under its prices and rules. What we build is yours: your accounts, your code, your data.
Is it safe? AI can write an app that works perfectly and still leaves your customers' information open to anyone who knows where to look. We check every line before it goes live.
Does it work with what you already use? Your accounting software, your customer list, the spreadsheets everyone depends on. Connecting those is where builders tend to get stuck.
Who do you call when it breaks? A chat box can't take responsibility for your app. We can, and we'll already know how it works.
Already built something? Bring it. It shows us exactly what you want, and we'll keep what works and fix the rest.
Bring Us Your App →Why a Two-Person Firm
What you get by skipping the big consultancy
Lower prices. We have no office, sales team, or account managers to pay for, and AI tools write most of our code. So our quotes usually come in well below what larger firms charge for the same work.
Quotes based on how fast we build today. When we estimate a project, we quote the time it takes us to build it with AI, not the time it would have taken a few years ago. Smaller projects get a fixed price; larger ones get a detailed estimate up front. AI writes the first draft; we review, test, and secure every line before it ships. That's also why we're good at fixing apps that skipped that step.
The people you talk to write the code. There's no handoff from a senior partner to a junior team you've never met.
You're not locked in. We can host what we build, or train your IT staff to run it themselves in AWS or Azure.
How It Works
How a project goes
01
Talk
A call about what you need and whether we're a good fit.
02
Estimate
We send a scope and a cost estimate before work starts.
03
Build
We work in short cycles and show you working software as we go.
04
Deploy
We launch it on AWS or Azure, in your account or ours.
05
Host or Hand Off
We keep running it for you, or train your team to take it over.
Get in Touch
Tell us what you're trying to build
A rough description is fine. We'll follow up with questions and talk it through.