Kraken: The Lead System for the Trades
Kraken is the shared system of Anton Hocking, Erik Laine, and Taylor Southerton. Companies keep their own brand while Kraken runs the lead engine underneath.
The System
Kraken is our lead system for the trades. It delivers client systems on one side and generates and routes homeowner demand on the other, on the same underlying engine.
Companies that Taylor and partners bring in are delivered as client workspaces: website, CRM workspace, AI agent, funnels, training, and an ongoing content cadence.
The Kraken client board tracks every client from intake to live, so delivery is visible at every stage.
A consumer facing lead engine: the lead hub, quizzes, niche pages, and per company pages that generate homeowner demand and route it to member companies.
Every lead lands inside the company's own CRM, where AI follow-up works it within minutes.
Lead marketplaces sell the connection and stop at the handoff. Kraken owns everything after it. The lead lands in the company's own CRM, not an email inbox. An AI agent calls and texts the lead in minutes, qualifies further, and books the job. Photo qualification captures homeowner photos and project scope up front, so a lead is worth more than a name and a ZIP code. Network routing matches leads to member companies by trade and location.
The Platform Underneath
Every Kraken company runs on the same platform, the Business Hub OS platform underneath the lead system. Fourteen modules in one workspace per company, configured during setup. The components below describe what the system does with them; this is the full map, nothing held back.
A note on Invoices, in the open: invoicing is a platform module inside the company's own CRM workspace, where deposits and job paperwork can live with the customer file. Kraken is the lead system; invoicing is configured as part of the company's CRM setup, not sold as a separate Kraken product, and never padded into the pitch as one.
Components
Ten components, each with a clear job. Together they cover the full path from a company's knowledge, to lead capture, to follow-up, to growth.
What it is
One knowledge vault per company: the single place everything the company knows lives, including services, process, policies, brand voice, photos, price sheets, and FAQs. Every agent and page in the system is trained on it.
How it operates
The client facing training folder lets the company comment, answer the marked YOUR TURN questions, and drop in their own documents. Those facts flow into the agent's training and back out to every surface.
What setup takes
The company provides whatever they have: site copy, brochures, price sheets, and answers to the starter questions. We configure the vault structure, the company Brain document, and the hard rules: no invented prices, reviews, or service areas, ever.
What it is
Each company gets its own CRM subaccount on Business Hub OS, duplicated from a proven template, with one pipeline per subaccount. Kraken also runs its own delivery subaccount with the pipeline every client moves through.
How it operates
Delivery moves through Intake, Discovery, Build, Training, Live, and Growing. Leads and clients carry source tags, custom fields, and stages, so nothing moves without a record.
What setup takes
The company provides who needs access and their pipeline stages, starting from our template. We configure the subaccount, timezone, business profile, branded login, stages, custom fields, and lead source tagging. A fresh subaccount stays inert until it is approved for activation.
What it is
The curated directory at the front of the system: Contractor Hub. Handpicked member companies are listed trade by trade, each with its own profile page wearing its own logo and brand colors.
How it operates
One shared introduction form routes a homeowner's request to the right company. Kraken is credited as the operator; the companies keep the spotlight.
What setup takes
A company is confirmed for the roster, its facts are verified from our records, its real logo is collected, and its profile page is generated from the single data source the hub is built on. New trades open as coming soon slots until a member is confirmed, never before.
What it is
Every member company gets pages that look like the company, not like Kraken: their logo, their colors, their voice, on the company's own domain wherever the company has one.
How it operates
Pages are built from the Kraken standard template, the same generated page system the hub runs on. Kraken is the engine underneath, credited at the bottom, and a brand's surfaces carry only that brand's imagery.
What setup takes
The company provides logo and brand assets and approves its facts. We build, verify at phone and desktop widths, and ship.
What it is
One capture pattern everywhere: the shared introduction form on the hub and profiles, quizzes and calculators on niche pages, and the company's own site forms.
How it operates
All forms post into the company's CRM subaccount with the source tagged. Every lead path runs through links we control, so every lead is attributable.
What setup takes
The company's capture form is created in its subaccount, the endpoint is wired into the pages, and a live test submission is verified end to end before anyone calls lead capture operational. Until that wire exists, forms carry an honest not open yet notice and a phone path, and simulate nothing.
What it is
Each company gets an AI agent trained only on that company's vault. Sarah at Pegasus Surfaces is the working example. Photo qualification captures homeowner photos and project scope up front.
How it operates
The agent answers, captures, and follows up by voice and text within minutes of a lead arriving, runs the company's nurture and rehab follow-up, and books the appointment. The company quotes a qualified job, not a cold name.
What setup takes
The company completes its training folder answers, provides real phone numbers, and approves the agent's name and voice. We train, test, and push live at the Training stage, then keep training current as the company feeds the vault.
What it is
Reviews are collected honestly at the win moment, right after a job lands well: a short video or written review, three prompts, permission first.
How it operates
A company's review slot on its pages renders only when a real review exists. Nobody writes, picks, or posts a review as the customer, ever.
What setup takes
The company's pages carry the dormant review slot from day one. We switch collection on at the Live stage and fold real reviews into the company's pages and hub profile as they arrive.
What it is
Demand the hub and the niche pages generate is pooled and matched to member companies by trade and location. Companies can also run their own exclusive flow: their site, their pages, their leads.
How it operates
Routing follows trade and location tags in the CRM. The co-op is a reason to join and stay: the lead system keeps working for members between their own jobs.
What setup takes
The company confirms its trades and the areas it actually serves, confirmed in conversation, never published as a claimed service area.
What it is
The operator view across the whole system: every member company, leads by trade, follow-up status, and pipeline health in one board, the same way the Kraken client board tracks delivery.
How it operates
It is how Anton, Erik, and Taylor run the bench: one view across every company, every trade, and every lead.
What setup takes
Nothing for the member company. Mission Control reads from the subaccounts and the hub data the system already keeps.
What it is
Each company and each niche gets a compounding content layer: blog posts on a numbering standard, video, podcast and audio briefings, and social packs.
How it operates
Content is cross linked through the hub and the niche pages, so authority compounds instead of scattering.
What setup takes
The company feeds its vault with photos, job stories, and answers. We run the cadence from the Growing stage.
Live Proof
These are live, working systems. The hub is public and the flagship client is operating inside the system today.
The curated contractor directory at the front of the system, live with three confirmed member companies and one shared introduction form:
The flagship client inside the system: a live site, its own CRM, and Sarah, its AI agent, capturing and following up leads.
Pegasus is a client inside the system, not the brand on it. The lead system brand is Kraken.
Partners
The first partners on the system. Listed means powered by Kraken: every partner is moving onto the full system, its own CRM, its own lead capture, its own follow-up agent.
Contractor Hub is Kraken's public storefront and roster, and its member companies are presented here as Kraken Partners. Only Pegasus Surfaces has a full build today; the other founding partners are onboarding through the same pipeline.
Concrete Coatings
Full system live: site, CRM, and Sarah, its AI follow-up agent.
General Contracting
Founding partner. System onboarding in progress.
Bathroom Remodeling
Founding partner. System onboarding in progress.
The public roster lives on Contractor Hub, Kraken's storefront: see the live roster on the hub.
Trades
Kraken serves trades companies that live on local demand. The first three trades below are live on the hub; the rest are part of the system's trade map as companies onboard.
Setup
Six stages, the same sequence every company moves through in the Kraken delivery pipeline.
The company comes in through a partner or the hub and submits the structured intake, landing in Intake with partner and scope tags.
Kickoff call held, facts gathered and verified, training folder and knowledge vault created.
Website and per company pages, CRM workspace, hub profile, and capture wiring, in production.
The company answers its YOUR TURN questions; the agent is trained on the vault and pushed live.
Systems on, agent answering, leads flowing, capture verified end to end.
Content engine on, reviews collecting, co-op routing active, monthly cadence running.
Ownership
Kraken is the engine underneath, credited as operator. The company stays the brand the customer sees.
Each company keeps its own brand, logo, colors, and voice on every surface. Kraken does not put its brand over the company's.
Each company keeps its own domain and its own data, held in its own CRM subaccount.
If a company ever leaves, its assets go with it. Kraken is credited as the operator while it runs the system.
Social, Everywhere
Write it once. It runs everywhere.
The content engine publishes from one composer to the channels each company connects: the same job story, sized right for every platform, without fourteen separate logins. A channel the company has not connected simply stays off. Nothing posts anywhere the company has not approved.
One composer · Fourteen channels