Drew Fabian

Fractional COO · Orange County, CA

I fix how small businesses run and build what's missing.

Twenty years running wine bars, a franchise territory and sales routes. I work out the order things should happen in, then build the systems that keep it that way. AI does the heavy lifting on the build, so you get working tools in weeks.

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Selected work · 2026

What I've built

Client names and numbers are kept private. Everything here is live and in daily use.

Sales systemField rep CRM
Live web appShared databaseAI drafting

A field log that runs a two-portfolio wine route

Problem
A sales rep carrying two distributors' books across three territories. Orders lived in a paper notebook, follow-ups lived in his head, and nothing tied a tasting to an order to an invoice.
Built
A mobile-first log with follow-ups, orders, accounts and visit notes. Overdue follow-ups surface at the top. Each tasting records which wines landed, which got a pass, and what to bring next time.
Result
Every account has a history. Nothing falls through between the tasting and the reorder.
WorkflowOrder to invoice
GmailGoogle SheetsApps ScriptDistributor ERP

From a notebook photo to a checked order in one step

Problem
Orders went out with the wrong price tier, a vintage that had sold through, or an account name the warehouse didn't recognize. Errors showed up on the invoice, days later.
Built
  • Snap the handwritten order. It gets read and matched to the account.
  • Each wine is checked against the month's price book, case-tier pricing and that morning's warehouse inventory, pulled automatically at 7am.
  • The order email is drafted in the house format and logged. The rep reviews and sends.
  • When the invoice confirmation lands, it's reconciled line by line and any mismatch gets flagged.
Result
Mistakes get caught before they reach the warehouse. Order entry dropped to a couple of minutes.
WebsiteDesign + build
Hand-built siteNetlifyMonthly upkeep

A full site for a boutique wine distributor

Problem
A small-production importer and distributor with a strong portfolio and no web presence that matched it. Buyers had nowhere to send a colleague.
Built
Brand-matched site with producer pages and a portfolio book that updates every month. I stay on as consultant of record and handle the updates.
Result
Live in under a month on a fixed fee, with a small monthly plan after launch.
MotionAnimation direction
CanvasCSS animationMobile variants

Two homepage hero concepts that show the portfolio instead of describing it

The live route map, recorded on the client's homepage.
Brief
The homepage needed to say "we carry real producers from real places" in the first five seconds.
Built
  • The route. An animated map of the wine regions, with every AVA drawn in. It tours stop by stop and pins each winery in the portfolio, labeled with the winemaker.
  • The list. A restaurant wine list that writes itself in, line by line, with tabs to flip between whites, reds and the rest.
Both include phone versions and respect reduced-motion settings.
Result
About ten hours from brief to two working concepts. The route map is now live on the client's homepage, and tapping a winery pin opens a card with its story, the wines carried and a jump to its page in the portfolio book.
Agent hubMonthly site updates
AI agentsQuality gatesNetlifyInvoicing

Five AI agents that run a client's monthly website update

Problem
The distributor's portfolio changes every month, and the site has to change with it. By hand, that's a long night of retyping wines, and one typo puts the wrong vintage in front of a buyer.
Built
  • The Assayer reads both new price books blind, lists every change, then checks its list against a second, independent report
  • The Mason is the only one allowed to touch the site. It makes the changes as small edits and runs five checks before anything ships, including desktop and phone renders
  • The Illuminator turns design ideas into mockups for the client to approve before anything gets built
  • The Clerk of Works writes everything the client sees: the change report, build announcements and the monthly invoice
  • The Architect maintains the system itself: the roles, the rules and the hub
Each agent leaves a handoff note, so the next run picks up where the last one stopped, and the whole setup backs up to a private repository.
Result
October's update: 40 site changes, every one checked against a second source, zero mismatches. I approve every release and every email before it goes out.
Agent hubIdea pipeline
AI agentsUnit economicsRegulatory check

The Forge, where business ideas get graded before they get money

Problem
Plenty of ideas, limited hours and capital, and no consistent way to tell which ones deserve either.
Built
  • The Assayer grades each idea against fixed filters, like whether it can run without me behind the counter
  • The Smelter works the unit economics: cost to stand up, earnings per unit, hours it asks for
  • The Warden checks licensing and regulatory exposure
  • The Forgemaster calls it Viable, Not viable or Gated, and logs it in a running ledger
Result
Every idea goes through the same four gates, and the ledger shows what's worth chasing and what's waiting on what.
E-commerceArtifact1337
ShopifyMade to orderAffiliatesPinterest feed

An art brand you can wear

What it is
artifact1337.com sells original sci-fi, fantasy and anime-inspired artwork as hooded cloaks, tees, sneakers, mouse pads, blankets and puzzles, all made to order for gamer and anime communities.
Run
  • The Shopify store, catalog and product feeds
  • Every sales channel judged on margin and customer cost. High-margin products go after new buyers, puzzles keep existing ones coming back.
  • An affiliate program rolled out in phases, starting with the products that can afford the commission
  • Copy that sounds like the audience, since this crowd tunes out the second anything sounds corporate
Result
Six product types with no inventory sitting on a shelf. Made to order is pitched as craft, so the wait reads as part of the story.
Product designDesign + curation
FootwearOuterwearApparelCollections

Turning artwork into product lines

Brief
A deep library of digital art, and the job of deciding which pieces become which products and how the whole catalog hangs together.
Designed
  • Sneaker designs, placing artwork on a shoe so it reads from across a room
  • Hooded cloaks in black and natural colorways, each one named for its piece
  • T-shirt styling across two collections, including a 50+ design streetwear line and a pocket-tee series
  • Mouse pads, blankets and puzzles sized and cropped to each format
Curated
The store is sorted by mood (Celestial, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Abstract Geometrics), so a shopper can find a look and then pick the product. Pricing holds steady within each category.
Result
A catalog that shops like a gallery and still works like a store.
AuditE-commerce UX
WooCommerceLive testingPrioritized fixes

Why a wine shop's traffic wasn't buying

Problem
An online wine retailer with good wines and a forgettable store. The owner knew it felt off but couldn't say where.
Found
  • Top menu items that went nowhere if the hover menu failed, cutting off whole sections of the catalog
  • About half the catalog missing style tags, and whites showing up under the red wine filter
  • Filters exposing a fraction of the regions the menu promised, and no grape filter at all
  • A great founder story buried in one dense paragraph
Result
A fix list ranked by what it costs in revenue, trust or compliance, one recommended fix per issue.

Smaller builds

Tools that save an hour a week

Email

Weekly lineup system

A repeatable format for the weekly "what I'm pouring" email, one paragraph per producer built on the fact that sells it.

Brand

Signature makers

Fill-in tools that produce on-brand email signatures for two companies, so every rep's looks the same.

Billing

Consulting time tracker

Timer with half-hour rounding and an invoice builder for any date range and client.

Inventory

Sample list checker

Compares a rep's sample list to the day's warehouse stock and flags what to pull before a tasting.

How I work

Process first, tools second

I trained franchise owners across the country on how to run their territories. Same method here, for any business that runs on repeat work.

  1. Watch it runI sit in on the work as it happens today, including the workarounds nobody wrote down.
  2. Find where it breaksEvery process has a spot where things get retyped, forgotten or argued about. That's where the hours go.
  3. Write the order of operationsWho does what, in what order, and what done looks like at each step.
  4. Build around itThe tracker, the template, the automation. The tool follows the process.
  5. Hand it offA checklist your team runs without me, and a check-in once it's been used for real.

Ways to work together

What I take on

Fractional ops

A standing weekly block. I find the friction, fix the process and own the projects that never get done.

Sales systems

Trackers, order flows and follow-up systems built around how your team already works.

Web & e-commerce

Websites, Shopify stores, store audits, product lines and the small tools that make a business look as good as it is.

AI workflows

Repetitive admin turned into a checked, reviewable step: drafting, reconciling, reporting.

Background

Twenty years on the operating side

I've run the floor, the books and the territory. I spot what's broken fast, and I show up with a fix along with the problem.

  1. NowWine sales & business developmentBoutique OC distributor. Built the systems above for my own route.
  2. NowFounder, Artifact1337Built and run a made-to-order art apparel brand: product design, catalog curation and store operations.
  3. 8 yearsGeneral manager, wine bar & shopCosta Mesa. Staff, buying, events, P&L.
  4. 5 yearsFranchise owner-operatorMulti-county Southern California territory. Named a national franchise trainer.

Got side quests piling up?

The projects that keep sliding to next month. I take those. Tell me what's on your list and I'll tell you how I'd handle it and what it costs.

Projects
Fixed fee, scoped up front
Retainer
Weekly, up to 20 hours
Response
Within one business day
Elsewhere
LinkedIn: /in/drewfabian