Highland Willow LLC · Boone, North Carolina
Make a small company run like a big one.
Operations, ERP and analytics for owner-operated businesses. We replace the spreadsheets, the re-keying and the numbers nobody trusts with one system that tells you the truth about your own company.
Where we help
ERPNext implementation
Moving a business onto one system without interrupting trading, including the migration of accounts, prices and customer records.
Process and throughput
Finding the constraint that is actually binding, which is usually not the one everybody is arguing about.
Analytics and econometrics
Studies over your own transaction history that answer a pricing or capacity question with a number you can defend.
Websites and training
Small, fast sites that do the qualifying for you, and the written procedures and onboarding that make a new system stick.
The engagement, named
Shipley Farms
Vilas, North Carolina · Signature beef since 1872
A North Carolina Century Farm, raising beef in the Southern Appalachians since Nathan and Sarah Shipley bought the land in 1872. Six generations later the orders, stock, pricing and accounts were spread across spreadsheets and re-keyed by hand.
They now trade on one system, built and run by Highland Willow, and named here with their permission.
What we actually replace
Hover or tab a source to follow it.
Where your site would actually live
Great circle distance from Boone, computed here. The millisecond figure is the physical floor at about two thirds of light speed in glass, not a measurement: real round trips run one and a half to two times it. Schematic, not to projection. Read the full piece.
What each service is, and when it is the wrong choice
| Service | What you get | When it is the wrong choice |
|---|---|---|
| ERPNext implementation | One system for orders, stock, pricing and accounts, migrated without interrupting trading | If the process itself is undecided. A system will set it in concrete, including the parts nobody agreed. |
| Process and throughput | The binding constraint identified and measured, not the one everybody is arguing about | If the constraint is already known and the problem is funding the fix rather than finding it. |
| Analytics and econometrics | A study over your own transaction history answering one pricing or capacity question with a defensible number | If the transaction history is thin or untrustworthy. The study would describe the data, not the business. |
| Websites and training | A small fast site that qualifies enquiries, plus written procedures that make a new system stick | If the site is the whole engagement. It is support work, and on its own it rarely moves anything. |
How an engagement runs
Indicative, from the one engagement described above. Yours will differ, and the first conversation is where that gets established rather than assumed.
From the journal
- 29 October 2026
The Ship of Theseus Paradox Is Hiding in Your Customer List
An old paradox about identity, and the very practical question your database has to answer about every customer who changes.
- 29 October 2026
Frappe ERP and AI: Why Your Chatbot Doesn't Know Your Numbers
What it takes for AI to work with a company's real numbers, using ERPNext as the example, and the two new rules that come with it.
- 29 October 2026
Dunbar's Number: Your Business Has One Too
The famous limit of about 150 relationships is disputed. The idea underneath it explains when a small business runs out of memory.
What is the one number your business cannot produce?
True cost per unit. Where a job actually is. What a customer is really worth. If your system cannot answer it, that is the conversation worth having, and it is a short one.