Background
A founder-run company selling to institutions across the U.S.
Nove is a San Francisco company that designs a discreet keychain carry case for single-dose emergency nasal sprays. It sells direct to consumers and in bulk to health departments, universities and community programs, and its website, www.novedevice.com, cites more than 100 institutional clients across the U.S.
Founder Brendan Mudd, an industrial designer, runs the business himself with a few part-time freelancers. Every bulk order starts with an inquiry, a quote and a run of follow-up emails, and for a long time Brendan handled most of that in the gaps around a full-time job.
The problem
A wholesale pipeline held together by brittle automations and a busy founder
Nove’s quote process ran on a chain of four separate no-code automations that a part-time contractor maintained. They worked, but they were rigid. Follow-ups went out on a fixed timer with no context, and Brendan often had to send a second note apologizing for the first. “The message sounds kind of out of touch and out of context,” he says, “and then I have to follow up and say, sorry about our automated message.” Changing anything meant rebuilding it from the start, and waiting until the contractor had time.
After the quote, everything was manual: tax-exemption forms, revised quotes, invoices and vendor paperwork, all by email. Customer questions about orders, addresses and pricing filled the rest of the day. “Honestly, half my day now is just responding to customer emails,” Brendan said. “I’m managing orders and placing orders, and I just don’t need to be doing that.”
He couldn’t keep running it that way. “I can’t just manage it anymore in my lunch breaks and a couple of hours before and after work,” he said. “It’s a bit of a bottleneck.”
The solution
A wholesale assistant that quotes, follows up and knows when to stop
Quotes in minutes, follow-ups that know when to stop
In August, Nove replaced its old no-code chain in a single afternoon. Now a Wholesale Assistant watches the bulk-order inbox. When an inquiry arrives, it creates an estimate in the accounting system and emails it to the buyer, a median of 2.5 minutes later. 43% of those quotes went out in the evening or at the weekend.
Then it keeps the deal moving. A follow-up sequence checks the CRM every weekday and writes to buyers who haven’t replied after two, five and twenty days. 26% of those follow-ups get a reply, and it marks each of those leads as in progress so they can be picked up right away. And it knows when to stop: it held back follow-ups on estimates marked tax-exempt with no certificate on file, and held a quote when the shipping address was too incomplete to calculate tax.
2.5 min
from a bulk inquiry to a quote in the buyer’s inbox
43%
of quotes sent outside business hours
26%
of follow-ups get a reply, handed straight to Brendan
Support replies drafted before anyone opens the inbox
Customer email came next. A Customer Service specialist reads every contact-form message and drafts a reply using Nove’s FAQ and live order data, so answers about order status, address changes and bulk pricing are ready a median of 2 minutes after the email arrives. Every reply is reviewed before it goes out. “It took a couple of minutes, and it just worked,” he says.
Because every workflow is described in plain English, changing a process takes a sentence, not a rebuild. When Nove redesigned its quote form, the workflow adjusted on its own. “I completely changed the form, and it just picked it up and adapted everything automatically,” he says.
One founder, a team of specialists
The work happens in chat with the specialists, and anything that repeats becomes an automation.
0
quotes sent without a tax certificate or a complete address
2 min
to a drafted reply for every support email
24/7
quotes and follow-ups, evenings and weekends included
Beyond sales: support, operations and finance
The same approach now covers most of the business. Each specialist handles a job the founder used to do by hand, and checks in before anything that needs judgment.
Customer Service
Support replies
Drafts a reply to every contact-form email from Nove’s FAQ and live order data, ready a median of 2 minutes after it lands.
Before: half the day spent answering email
Customer Service
Address holds
Emails customers whose shipment is on hold, then updates the order address when they reply.
Before: chasing customers one by one
Chief of Staff
Daily digest
Sends a morning summary of new orders, inquiries and complaints, so nothing waits in the inbox.
Before: checking every inbox and store
Logistics Assistant
Inbound shipments
Creates purchase orders for incoming stock and books the warehouse arrival.
Before: forms filled in by hand
Production Assistant
Landed cost tracker
Works out the true cost of every product from manufacturing, freight, duty and payment records.
Before: spreadsheets and guesswork
Ledger Auditor
Accounts check
Compares the CRM with the accounting system and flags paid orders still marked unpaid. It reports, and a person fixes.
Before: reconciling records by hand
The results
A wholesale business that keeps selling while the founder works on the product
Nove’s specialists now turn out quotes, follow-ups, support drafts, digests and audits every week, and every run starts on its own, from an email arriving or a schedule. That is about 40 hours a month back for a founder who used to spend half his day on email.
The work is reliable. 96.8% of Nove’s automated runs succeed, and the only deliberate stops were the agent holding a quote or follow-up for a person to check. Customers notice the difference: one left a 5-star review about how quickly Nove fixed a problem with their order, a fix handled end to end by a General Input specialist.
Next, Nove is adding social messaging for creator outreach and order questions, and building a portal where institutional buyers can reorder on their own.
“I finally had some time to try out some automations, and I’m loving it. General Input is very impressive and super easy.”
General Input