Building Beamo - a personal SaaS for local businesses

About this project

Beamo is a managed digital signage platform for local businesses in Australia. The full product includes a client-facing web app for content submissions, approvals, and invoicing; an AI-powered content pipeline for generating on-brand screen content; and remote device management running on Raspberry Pi hardware with Anthias, Tailscale, and Cloudflare.

The target customers are cafes, gyms, salons, medical practices, and retail. Businesses with foot traffic and a TV they're not using well.

The marketing site, which is the primary surface shown here, is one part of a larger system. The web app and device management infrastructure are in active development. Working prototype complete.

What we were up against

Most digital signage products are built for enterprise. They assume an in-house marketing team, a dedicated IT person, and a willingness to pay for software that's complex to set up and maintain.

Local business owners don't have any of that. They have one TV behind the counter, a staff member who might know how to plug in an HDMI cable, and no time to learn new software.

The market gap was clear: a fully managed service that removes all technical friction. No app to learn, no logins to remember, no content tool to navigate. Just a screen that shows the right thing, and a phone number to call when you want it changed.

How I worked

The product design started with the service model itself, not the website. I mapped the end-to-end customer journey, from first contact to installation to the ongoing update cycle, and identified every point where the customer might need to do something technical. The goal was to eliminate all of them.

I spoke with local business owners early and informally, across cafes and gyms, to understand how they currently manage their in-store screens and what their actual pain points were. The consistent finding: they weren't looking for a tool to manage content themselves. They wanted someone else to handle it entirely.

From there, I designed the content submission and approval workflow: a lightweight process where business owners can request updates via email or a simple form, changes are turned around within 24 hours, and the screen updates without them touching anything. The workflow was designed to be operable without a purpose-built client app in the early stages.

From there, I defined the pricing structure. The $65/month retainer covers hosting, monitoring, and two content updates, enough for most businesses, with a clear path to add more. The setup fee ($349-$599) covers hardware and installation and ensures the business is committed before we show up.

The marketing site was designed to do one job: convert a sceptical local business owner who's never considered digital signage before. That meant leading with the outcome ("Your TV, working for you"), making the process feel effortless (three steps, then it just runs), and being completely transparent about pricing upfront.

I also built the full site in Nuxt with a contact form backed by Resend, so enquiries land directly in email without needing a CRM or third-party service.

Results & impact

The site launched as a live marketing tool. The service model is operationally ready: installation, content design, and the remote update workflow are all defined and documented. Working prototype complete.

The pricing page has had the strongest engagement. Being upfront about cost was a deliberate decision to build trust with a customer segment that's been burned by opaque SaaS pricing before.

The project reinforced something I already believed: good product design starts with the service model, not the interface. The website only works because the underlying offer is simple and honest.