Higher SelfSystems engineering Email David

For purpose-driven businesses

A technical partner for brands worth building.

I build complex systems that feel simple to use: assistants that turn what arrives in your inbox into replies, proposals and posts for your approval, reports that show what customers actually do, tools that help them choose, and connections between the software you already use.

You work directly with David Bentley, from the first conversation to handover.

Email David See the work

Tell me what you’d like to build or fix, no matter how ambitious. We start with one clearly scoped first piece, and the outline is free.

Recent work.

Short versions here; the fuller record, with dates and method, is on each project page. Most clients aren’t named, and I only give dates I can verify.

All work

Sofema Aviation

A Knowledge Hub with its own analytics dashboard.

I built a Knowledge Hub that explains aviation regulations in plain English, and gave it a dashboard of its own: what readers search for, which pages they read, and which courses they open next. Alongside it, a Course Finder and a Training ROI Calculator help visitors choose training.

The dashboard’s searches view: each search with the pages readers opened and the links they clicked next. Search terms and page names are hidden.The Course Finder on the Sofema site, at step 1 of 4: What best describes your role?
Left: the dashboard’s searches, with search terms and page names hidden. Right: the Course Finder on Sofema’s site.

All live. Dashboard figures are its 7-day view, captured on 28 October 2026. Effects on adoption, bookings and revenue have not been measured.

Read the Sofema case study →
Evidence record
For
People choosing aviation training, and Sofema’s team.
Built
A Knowledge Hub of plain-English regulation pages with its own analytics dashboard, which records searches, page views, arrivals and the clicks that follow, live and counted anonymously; a Course Finder; and a Training ROI Calculator.
Observed
All live. The dashboard updates while it is open. Its 7-day view, captured on 28 October 2026, showed 502 visits, 560 page views, 30 searches and 15 course and package opens.
Not shown
Any effect on enquiries, bookings, adoption or revenue, which hasn’t been measured. A click is not an enquiry.
Status
Live.

A founder-led wellness brand

Jessica: an email assistant with tools.

I built Jessica, an assistant that drafts social posts, emails and page changes from her approved product and health wording, on an unpublished copy of her Shopify site. It also turns requests into proposals and prepares short social videos in Buffer for her to review. She reads each draft, edits it if she wants, and approves or rejects that exact version. Only then is it sent, and recorded.

In use since September 2026. Every piece so far has been approved by her. Time saved hasn’t been measured yet.

Jessica’s card for one email: what the founder asked for, Jessica’s answer, what the founder has heard since, and whose turn it is, with buttons to prepare a brief or leave it for now.The founder’s email beside Jessica’s reply as sent, a short note that two more videos are waiting in her Buffer to review and send.
From the design for Jessica’s control panel, drawn from real records. Names, the email address and the brand are hidden.
See the full record →
Evidence record
For
One founder.
Built
An assistant that drafts social posts, emails and page changes on an unpublished copy of her Shopify site, using only approved product and health wording. It also turns requests into proposals and prepares short social videos in Buffer for her to review. When she corrects a draft, it can propose a lesson, which applies only if she approves it.
Observed
Every piece approved by the founder, with a record of each approval and send.
Not shown
Time saved, which hasn’t been measured yet.
Status
In use since September 2026.

Email recovery · A UK wellness brand

2,151 profiles recovered and verified.

I traced an account-wide email suppression event and recovered the affected profiles within the platform.

Platform status verified in July 2026. This is not a claim about contact permission, delivered messages or sales.

Read the investigation →
Evidence record
For
The brand’s team.
Did
Traced an account-wide suppression event dated 4 April 2025, then recovered and verified the affected profiles within the platform.
Observed
2,151 profiles recovered and verified within the platform, in July 2026.
Not shown
Permission to contact anyone, delivered messages or sales.
Status
Completed.

A private engagement

Six failures between a store, its email platform and connected tools.

I investigated the business’s store, email platform and connected tools, and reproduced each failure before reporting it. The largest: the store believed 5,490 customers could be emailed, while the email platform could reach about 150. Neither system flagged it.

Revenue impact wasn’t measured. The business isn’t named.

Read the findings →
Evidence record
For
The business’s owners.
Did
Investigated a store, an email platform and connected tools, reproducing each failure before reporting it.
Observed
Six failures, the largest a gap between 5,490 customers the store believed could be emailed and about 150 the platform could reach.
Not shown
Revenue impact.
Status
Completed.

What people ask me to build or fix.

You don’t need a specification. If it sounds like one of these, it’s worth a few sentences.

  • A report that says what’s actually happening

    Built from what customers do: what they search for, what they read, where they came from, what they open next.

  • Two systems that finally agree

    Integrations between your store, email platform and other tools, and fixes where they quietly disagree.

  • A tool that helps customers choose

    Finders, calculators and pages that help people pick the right thing, built from your own product information.

  • Someone to find out why

    An investigation of what’s broken between your systems, with each failure reproduced before it’s reported.

  • Something that drafts, and waits for me

    Assistants that draft from approved material, with every consequential action waiting for a named person’s approval.

  • The thing you’ve been describing for a year

    A first version of the tool you keep sketching, scoped tightly enough to test with real use.

Built with Python and TypeScript, on the platforms you already use, such as Shopify and Klaviyo.

How I work.

It starts with the problem you actually have, not a specification. Then a short path to a tested system, with control built in from the beginning.

  1. 1

    A few sentences

    You describe something you’d like to build or fix. “We keep struggling with this” is enough. Free.

  2. 2

    An outline

    How I’d approach it, what a first version would do, and a fixed price. Free, with no commitment.

  3. 3

    A first version

    For a clearly scoped problem, often within days. It’s a prototype for testing with real use, not yet a production system.

  4. 4

    Testing and handover

    We test it in your actual work. You get documentation, and control of your accounts, your data and the agreed code.

  5. 5

    Continuing care, if you want it

    One improvement at a time, at a budget you set.

Control, built in

  • Nothing consequential happens without a named person’s approval.
  • Approval applies to the exact version you were shown.
  • Every draft, edit, approval and action leaves a record.
  • Limits are enforced in the software, not just written into the AI’s instructions.

See approval work, in an example

A weekly brief of the kind I can build from a business’s own store, search and email data. Open the review tab to inspect a draft, edit it, and approve or reject that exact version, then see what’s recorded.

The data is fictional, and nothing here connects to a real system. In a real brief, every figure links back to its source.

Monday briefIllustrative example with fictional data. No live actions.

This example needs JavaScript to run.

Community work

Community-governed systems in Peru.

On trails in the high Andes there’s often no mobile signal. With LAAD, a research lab at UNSAAC in Cusco, I’m helping develop an offline way for someone to call for help, and for the community to respond and keep a record, designed for the community to govern.

It’s a research prototype, first tested in the field in July 2026. It isn’t an emergency service, and LAAD’s involvement isn’t an endorsement of my commercial work.

Different settings. The same responsibility to build systems people can understand, rely on and control.

About the community work

First field test, July 2026

Where
A hillside at about 4,300 metres.
What worked
A simulated call for help crossed the hillside by radio, and the bell rang.
What didn’t yet
The bell wasn’t loud enough to wake someone at night. A responder who left the app couldn’t get back in while the alarm rang. The node’s clock ran ten days behind.
Who decides
The community’s assembly reviewed the project and agreed to the next stage. If it proceeds, the name, the data, the keys and the decisions would be theirs.
Next
With the assembly’s approval, mapping the area on foot with the community, then bringing a production design back to the assembly before anything is built.

Notes.

All notes

What would you like to build or fix?

A few sentences is enough, no matter how ambitious the idea. “We keep struggling with this” or “could something like this be built?” is a fine place to start.

I’ll reply with questions, or with a short outline: how I’d approach it, what a first version would do, and a fixed price. The outline is free, with no commitment, and no call needed unless you’d like one. Any build is paid work, at a price agreed in writing. Please leave out passwords and customer records.

Email David Message on WhatsApp

david@higherself.aiWhatsApp +44 7749 776805David Bentley, near Cusco, Peru, working New York hours