I'm Ian McCallum.
I founded Beat the Clock and build Clockwork, software for home-service teams. My focus is the work between jobs: new inquiries, follow-ups, quotes, and invoices.
I'm from Naperville, Illinois, and study Finance and Data Science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign's Gies College of Business. I work between Naperville and Champaign.
- Founder
- Beat the Clock
- Building
- Clockwork
- Serving
- DuPage County
You'll speak with me, the person building the product. Have a question? Ask me directly.
Why I'm building Clockwork
A contractor can do excellent work and still lose track of the next callback. The phone rings during a job. A quote needs another conversation. An invoice waits until the evening. The problem I want to solve is the desk work that competes with the work someone hired you to do.
Beat the Clock is the business behind that work. Clockwork is the product I design and engineer through it, starting with residential HVAC service and repair. I work across the application, the AI behavior, and the experience an owner sees.
The current application supports lead intake, follow-ups, and quote and invoice workflows. It combines human-reviewed drafts with configured automatic messages. The deeper residential service workflow is still in development. In a demo, I'll walk through the current product and be clear about what depends on setup or is still being built.
Explore Clockwork or read my Clockwork engineering case study.
The work behind the name
My work also includes custom websites for businesses and creatives, including Imanol VillaGomez, Fortivus Academy, TMM Photography, and Nics Marketing. I led development of Luminate's e-commerce website, which earned first place in the Midwest regional and national Virtual Enterprise International website competitions.
Those projects sit alongside my studies in finance and data science. I like working on both sides of a problem: how the software works, and whether it makes sense for the person using it. Outside that work, I spend time on photography, video, soccer, weightlifting, and fishing.
See my project portfolio and the Luminate case study. For my full background and current work, visit my personal biography, GitHub, or LinkedIn.
How I work
Say what it will actually do
If automation will not help your shop, I will tell you that on the call instead of selling you a retainer.
Show the work
A useful demo shows the workflow, the inputs, and what needs your attention. An estimate should state its assumptions, not dress them up as guaranteed savings.
Make the boundaries clear
You should know what runs automatically, what needs a review, and what happens when something fails. Those details belong in the conversation before setup.
Work with the builder
I build Clockwork and handle the conversations about it. When you explain a problem, you are talking to the person responsible for the software.
Questions I get asked
Who is Ian McCallum?
I am the founder of Beat the Clock and the engineer behind Clockwork. I am from Naperville, Illinois, and study Finance and Data Science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s Gies College of Business.
How are Beat the Clock and Clockwork connected?
Beat the Clock is the business I founded. Clockwork is the software I design and build through it for home-service teams. They are not two separate teams or competing products.
What does Clockwork do today?
The current application supports lead intake, follow-ups, and quote and invoice workflows. It combines human-reviewed drafts with configured automatic messages. Availability depends on setup, messaging permissions, and the workflow involved; the deeper residential service workflow is still in development.
Who is Clockwork being built for?
Home-service businesses, with an initial focus on residential HVAC service and repair. Beat the Clock is based in Naperville and focuses on contractors around DuPage County. A demo is a chance to check whether the current product fits your shop.
What should I bring to a demo?
Bring one real example: a missed inquiry, a quote waiting for a reply, or an invoice you had to chase. Tell me which tools you use today. We can walk through the problem and separate what works now from what would need more setup or development.