THE PERSON BEHIND INSTEP / MATT DORON

Someone who
understands the work.
And builds with you.

I bring a sales and operations perspective to AI integration. My starting point is your day-to-day reality: the request that needs an answer, the quote waiting on information, the handoff that keeps getting missed.

Understand the business.

Build a useful solution.

Prove it in real work.

01 / THE BACKGROUND

Close to the customer.
Close to the operation.

My background spans B2B sales, account management, operations, and design. That work has put me close to quoting, customer requests, and the coordination that happens between sales and the people fulfilling the work.

That experience shapes the questions I ask. Who needs this information? Which details have to be right? What happens when a customer changes the request? Who has authority to approve the next step? A workflow only works when those answers are clear.

I also studied architecture at NJIT and have worked with design and visualization tools. That background taught me to think about systems, constraints, and how people move through an experience. Today, I apply that same habit to software and business processes: make the structure understandable, then work through the details.

Building AI tools grew out of that practical interest. I use AI in my own research and development, and I build working applications and workflow prototypes to turn ideas into something people can evaluate. The objective is to make useful improvements visible, testable, and manageable.

02 / WHAT I BRING

Business judgment.
Hands-on execution.

A project needs both: someone who can understand why a process exists and someone willing to work through how the solution behaves.

01

Translate real work into a plan

I help unpack a process into its inputs, decisions, handoffs, exceptions, and owners. We identify where a change can help and where the current process needs to become clearer first.

02

Make ideas tangible early

Forms, interfaces, demonstrations, and focused prototypes give your team something concrete to react to. We can uncover misunderstandings before investing in a larger rollout.

03

Connect the workflow

I work across intake, structured data, business rules, application interfaces, and supported integrations. The scope depends on your systems, permissions, and the quality of the available information.

04

Design for the exceptions

Missing information, duplicate requests, unavailable systems, and uncertain AI output need a defined response. Review steps, clear status, and a manual fallback belong in the design.

05

Keep the team involved

I bring a customer-facing communication style to technical work. We discuss tradeoffs in plain language, demonstrate progress, and make sure the people using the solution can shape it.

06

Stay accountable to the scope

We agree on what the solution will do, how we will test it, and what remains outside the project. New ideas can follow once the first improvement is working.

03 / THREE BUILDS, IN DETAIL

Workflows that connect
the whole process.

Selected work from my project portfolio, with organizations and product names omitted. Status labels describe each project at the documented stage. Demonstrations use sample data; business outcomes require separate measurement.

01 / PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
Public demo · launch preparation

A unified swim-club operations platform

I’ve developed a platform around the way families and staff actually use a sports program: multiple guardians, multiple children, schedules, registration, billing, communication, and performance information in one connected experience.

The user experience

Families work from a household account with their swimmers and shared schedule. Staff manage registration, squads, lessons, billing, and meets through an administrative workspace. Different roles need different views of the same underlying records.

Where AI helps

A meet-results PDF or photo is converted into a strict structured format. Application logic matches swimmers and events, then an administrator reviews the proposed import. Results are saved only after approval. Personal bests and time changes are calculated with arithmetic inside a database transaction, not guessed by a language model.

Operational design

The project includes payment-event handling, duplicate-event protection, money stored in integer cents, and club-scoped administration. Communication about swimmers is directed to guardians. Access to sensitive notes is recorded for review.

My development approach

I expanded an initial application through iterative implementation, debugging, and automated tests, using AI development tools under my direction. The work also included product positioning, a business plan, and a production-readiness audit so launch decisions had an explicit checklist.

Status and boundaries

The portfolio describes a public demo and launch preparation, not a fully cleared production rollout. Live payment validation, recovery exercises, key management, accessibility, load testing, and specialist reviews remain distinct acceptance gates. A working demonstration does not replace those checks.

What this brings to your business

I can think across the whole application: users, permissions, data relationships, AI-assisted imports, financial events, and the practical work needed before launch.

02 / COMMUNICATION WORKFLOWS
Deployed project · portfolio record

Scheduled outreach with AI drafting and reply handling

This project connects prospect data, timing, individualized drafts, and reply handling into one managed workflow. It was developed for a service business whose outreach depends on a customer’s renewal cycle.

The workflow

A scheduled process selects records within the relevant time window and checks address format and mail-domain availability. AI drafts a subject and message from known attributes. Code then checks the draft before it enters a paced sending queue.

Controls around generation

The prompt prohibits invented facts. Deterministic checks enforce the signature and remove details that should not be presented as exact dates. A reply stops the follow-up sequence and alerts the person responsible for the conversation.

Delivery and opt-out handling

The project includes authenticated sending, gradual volume increases, suppression of bounced or complained-about addresses, unsubscribe handling, and a switch to stop sending. Those controls are part of the operating workflow, not just the email template.

What I learned

Early delivery problems led to changes in domain authentication, pacing, and address checks. That experience reinforced the need to treat delivery signals as operating feedback. A domain check alone does not prove a mailbox exists or establish permission to contact it.

Further development

A related version applies the workflow pattern to another sales process and adds AI-assisted reply sorting. Sending volume is not evidence of revenue impact; business results require their own measurement.

What this brings to your business

I can combine scheduled processing, constrained generation, operational monitoring, and human handoff. Outreach policies and requirements must be agreed before any sending is enabled.

03 / DOCUMENT INTELLIGENCE
Deployed pipeline · partial source coverage

Public-record research and document extraction

I built a scheduled pipeline that gathers newly available public filings, extracts relevant fields from document images, checks the results, and prepares a daily research digest.

The workflow

Source-specific adapters search recent filings and capture document images. Previously processed records are skipped before an AI call. Relevant new documents are interpreted into structured fields, then checked and scored before a digest is prepared.

Keeping extraction grounded

The extraction instructions distinguish property addresses from attorney or lender addresses. Confidence depends on what the document actually says. Application logic flags geographic inconsistencies, and uncertain results remain visible for review.

Cost and reliability

Deduplication avoids repeatedly paying to interpret the same document. Records that do not need extraction are handled separately. Source-level status makes it possible to distinguish a successful search from a source that could not be reached.

Coverage limits

The portfolio records eight active county sources out of 21 mapped sources at that stage. Other sources require additional adapters, permitted access, or manual research. Unavailable sources are a coverage limit, not something to silently treat as having no new records.

What this brings to your business

The transferable capability is a structured research pipeline: source collection, document interpretation, validation, deduplication, and a useful summary. People review uncertain information before acting on it.

HOW I BUILD WITH AI

AI accelerates the build.
Judgment directs it.

I use AI to help develop specifications, prompts, application code, tests, and debugging approaches. My role is to understand the problem, set constraints, review the behavior, and decide what is ready to use.

01

Start with real examples

Representative requests and documents expose the details that a generic demo misses. I look for repeated patterns and the awkward cases that change the workflow.

02

Separate interpretation from rules

AI can interpret a message or document. Explicit logic should calculate amounts, enforce permissions, validate fields, and decide whether an action is allowed.

03

Define human decisions

High-impact actions need an approval boundary. Review queues, administrator approval, and escalation to a person are designed into the relevant workflows.

04

Test the failure paths

Missing data, retries, duplicate events, uncertain matches, and unavailable services deserve attention alongside the happy path. Tests support decisions; they do not replace operational review.

05

Roll out in stages

Use demonstrations, shadow operation, and bounded pilots to learn. Expand only when the process, access, and results justify the next step.

06

Own the maintenance question

Prompts, APIs, records, and interfaces change. Before handover, clarify who monitors the workflow, what can be changed safely, and what happens when something stops working.

Capabilities across the stack

Business discovery and process mapping · AI extraction and structured outputs · workflow orchestration · API integration · web interfaces · relational data models · document generation · geographic analysis · role-based access · automated checks and operational handover.

04 / WHAT WORKING TOGETHER FEELS LIKE

Clear conversations.
Visible progress.
Shared decisions.

You work directly with me.

I stay close to discovery, scoping, and the build. You have a clear person to talk to about the business problem and the decisions being made.

We start with a focused problem.

We choose a workflow that matters, establish what happens today, and agree on an achievable first step. A bounded pilot gives us a way to learn before expanding.

You see the tradeoffs.

We discuss software costs, integration access, maintenance, and human review before committing to an approach. If a process change is enough, that belongs in the recommendation.

Success has a practical definition.

We choose measures that fit the work: preparation time, rework, response time, or handoff quality. We compare results with a baseline instead of treating a demo as proof of savings.

The handover is part of the work.

Account ownership, usage instructions, known limitations, and support arrangements should be clear. Where specialist security, legal, or infrastructure expertise is needed, we identify it in the scope.

05 / A GOOD FIT

You know there’s a better way.
Let’s find the right place to start.

We’re likely a good fit if you run a small or midsize business, can point to a recurring operational frustration, and are willing to involve the people who do the work. You don’t need an AI strategy already written. You do need a real problem, access to the right people, and room to test a better approach.

I’m best suited to practical discovery, focused pilots, and iterative application and workflow development. Projects requiring enterprise-scale delivery teams or specialist certifications need those requirements addressed explicitly.

Bring one process you’d like to improve.

We’ll talk through how it works today and whether there’s a useful next step.

Start a conversation ↗
matthew@instepops.com ↗