AI should give people more time for people.
NextStep is two people who build the AI systems small businesses run on. This is who you would actually be working with.
The two people behind NextStep.
Dan Kemp
Dan owns the builds: your Brain, your OS, and every project. If it runs in your business, he made it run.
Dan started building businesses in his teens, and founded NextStep on a single conviction: AI should create real, measurable value, not sit in a slide deck.
He is the one at the laptop on your build days, and the one who tells you when an idea is not worth your money.
AI should create real, measurable value. Everything else is noise.
James Hollis
James owns the relationship: your first call, your monthly reviews, and making sure the work keeps earning its keep.
James spent years building and running his own business in property and lettings, learning first hand where a team’s time really goes.
He joined Dan as a director and equal partner, and now runs the day to day full time. When you ring NextStep, it is usually James who answers.
AI should carry the busywork. People do what matters.
You get the founders, not an account manager.
The person who scopes your build is the person who builds it, and the person who sold you the plan is the person accountable for it working. Nothing gets lost in a handover, because there is no handover. And because there are two of us, we take on less work and finish all of it.
NextStep runs on a NextStep Brain and OS.
Our quotes, our pipeline, our client records: all of it runs on exactly what we sell. Ask on your first call and we will screen-share it live, warts and all.
It started with one project.
One project.
James was running his property company when Dan came in to build him a single piece of AI. It was meant to be one job. It turned into the start of everything.
A partnership formed.
The work spoke for itself, and the two of them simply got on. James saw where AI was heading and what NextStep could become. He came on board as a director and took an equal share. Fully committed, both of us.
The business took off.
With both of them in, NextStep moved fast. What began as one build became a proper firm: teaching AI each client’s business, building the systems they run on, and staying to run them together.
London, Kent, and beyond.
Today we build Brains, OSes and projects for owner-run businesses, most of them near London and Kent, and we run our own company on the same systems we sell.