For the businesses
that actually built Portland.

“The people running independent shops around here are some of the hardest-working, most resourceful people I know. They shouldn’t have to choose between running their business and keeping up with technology.”

Aelvar was started in Beaverton, Oregon by Josh Hackett — a lifelong Oregonian who spent years watching friends and neighbors run incredible local businesses while quietly drowning in the admin work that surrounds them.

Every headshop, coffee shop, salon, restaurant, and neighborhood retail store that makes this city what it is has the same problem: there’s more work than there are hours. Google reviews pile up unanswered. The email list never gets a campaign. Hiring takes forever. Nobody posts to Instagram because nobody has time. And the promise of “AI for small business” has mostly meant confusing software, expensive subscriptions, and nothing actually solved.

Aelvar exists to fix that — by building the systems, not selling the tools.

How we work

We operate as an outsourced operations team that happens to use AI to do the work. You don’t need to learn anything, subscribe to anything, or manage anything. We set up the stack, connect it to your business, and run it on an ongoing basis. You focus on the thing only you can do — running your business, serving your customers, being present in your shop — and we handle the everything-else.

Everything we build is designed to sound like you, not like a corporate chatbot. The AI is a tool; the brand voice is yours. Customers should feel like they’re still dealing with your business when they interact with a response, a post, or an automated message.

We’re based in Beaverton, we work primarily with businesses across the Portland metro, and we’re committed to the long view. This isn’t a SaaS company chasing a billion-dollar exit. It’s a consulting practice built for real relationships with real operators.