Hey everyone 👋

I'm Justin, founder of Sidekick.

TL;DR Sidekick is an AI assistant that frontline manufacturing workers use over text message. They text a number and it answers from the company's own documents, creates and routes work orders, and syncs with the software the company already uses. No app, no login, no training. I built Sidekick for my dad's manufacturing shop. It’s now live at facilities across the globe.

Ask: Do you know anyone who owns or runs a manufacturing plant, warehouse, or industrial facility? I'd love an intro! Email justin@textsidekick.com or book a demo.

Check out our launch video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxwq5ZAojXg

❌ The Problem

I grew up in my dad's manufacturing plants and spent summers working on the factory floor at EDS Manufacturing.

Here's what I watched happen repeatedly. A machine goes down, everyone's waiting, and the person who can help is in a meeting or on another line. Half the time the answer already existed. Nobody could get to it.

Why it keeps happening:

• No computer access. Nobody on that floor has a company login or an email address, so none of the plant's software reaches them.
• The answers are scattered. An SOP in a binder, a manual on a shared drive few have permissions to, a safety procedure someone printed and taped to a wall in 2019.
• The best answers were never written down. Thirty years of tribal knowledge lives in one guy's head, and when he retires it leaves with him.
• So the same questions get asked over and over. Shift after shift, and every one of them costs somebody their afternoon.

There are 239,000 manufacturing plants in the US, and only 29% of the people working in them have advanced digital skills. Any tool that requires a download, a login, and training makes adoption difficult.

✅ Our Solution

Workers text the Sidekick phone number. Problems, photos, voice memos, in any language. No app to download, no account to create, nothing to learn. Every worker on the floor already knows how to send a text, which is why adoption isn't a fight.

• Answers from your own documents. SOPs, manuals, safety procedures, tribal knowledge. Sidekick responds in the worker's language, in seconds.
• Creates and routes the work order. The issue gets logged and sent to the right person, without anyone needing a laptop.
• Syncs with the software you already run. Sidekick pulls from and writes to your existing systems instead of replacing them, and integrates directly through PLC and SCADA systems so the floor and the software finally see the same thing.
• Captures tribal knowledge. Every exchange builds a searchable knowledge base the company owns, so the know-how stays when the veteran leaves.

Here's a full walkthrough:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5zBRSXi-90

👤 The Team

I'm Justin, founder and CEO. I'm the third generation in a manufacturing family, and I've been around plant floors since I was a kid. I studied Computer Science at the University of Pennsylvania, worked in finance at Arm, and left both to build Sidekick after watching the same problem play out on every floor I'd been on.

🙏 Our Ask

If you answer "yes" to any of these, I'd love your help:

• Do you know anyone who owns or runs a manufacturing plant, warehouse, or industrial facility? Even a name and a "you two should talk" goes a long way.
• Have you sold software into manufacturing? I'd love to hear what actually worked and what didn't.

Contact me at justin@textsidekick.com or book a demo here.