Custom software development
Vertical market applications built around the operation, rather than the operation reshaped around the software. For when the off-the-shelf product is 70% right and the missing 30% is the business itself.
Thirty-six years of
business software.
And a new way of building it.
Custom software & databases · Fishers, Indiana · Since 1990
What the firm does
One principal, direct engagement, no layer of account management. The work runs from a first conversation about how the business actually operates through to a system running in production with someone accountable for it.
Database development
Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Access. Schema design, normalization, reporting, and the unglamorous work that decides whether a system survives its second decade.
Legacy modernization
Access, FoxPro, Visual Basic and spreadsheet systems carried into modern web applications — with the business rules buried in them preserved rather than guessed at, and thirty years of messy real data migrated with its history intact.
Web development & APIs
C# and .NET web applications and REST APIs, from the data model up. Integrations for payments, messaging, e-signature, document AI and PDF generation.
AI-assisted development
Specification-first delivery with AI in the loop and an engineer accountable for every line. The measurable result is scope that used to require a team, delivered by one person — see the DispatchIQ build.
IT consulting & infrastructure
Windows Server, Active Directory, Terminal Server, SharePoint, virtualization and system integration — and today Azure App Service, Key Vault, Blob Storage and automated deployment.
- Microsoft SQL Server
- C#
- .NET
- Microsoft Access
- REST APIs
- Blazor
- Entity Framework Core
- PostgreSQL
- Azure
- Active Directory
- SharePoint
- Virtualization
DispatchIQ — what AI-assisted development actually produced
DispatchIQ began as exactly the kind of job this firm has taken for thirty-six years: a roofing and restoration contractor running three decades of their business on a Microsoft Access database that had reached the end of what it could carry. The brief was to move it to the web.
What it became is a multi-tenant field-service platform for roofing, restoration and remodeling contractors who run most of their work through subcontractors — a small office, a large bench. It is in active development, built by one developer working with Claude.
The figures below are counted from the repository, not estimated. They are the reason this section exists: they are what a thirty-six-year engineering practice looks like when the typing stops being the constraint.
Build record
Counted from source control · 10 May – 15 Sep 2026 · 1 developer
- 18wks
- Elapsed build time
- 672
- Commits
- 218k
- Lines of application code
- 1,866
- Automated tests
- 231
- Screens & UI components
- 476
- Service classes
- 304
- Database migrations
- 67
- Written design specifications
Those 67 specifications run to more than 28,000 lines of written design work — authored before the code, and kept current with it.
Multi-tenant by construction
Per-tenant databases with connection strings held in Azure Key Vault, wildcard subdomain routing, and reserved-label resolution — not a shared table with a tenant column.
Receipt capture with document AI
Azure AI Document Intelligence extracts merchant, date, total and line items with per-field confidence, pre-filling job expenses for a human to review before save.
Aerial roof measurement from open data
An address becomes a roof-square estimate in seconds using the US Census geocoder, OpenStreetMap footprints and Microsoft's ML Building Footprints — replacing a paid per-report vendor call for rough numbers.
Subcontractor onboarding
W-9 e-signature, a certificate-of-insurance vault, Stripe Connect onboarding, and role-based portal access that can be revoked and restored.
The money loop, end to end
Tiered proposals, online bid signing, interim invoices, Wisetack customer financing, job costing, and subscription billing — through to the payout recorded against each job.
A field app built for the phone
An installable progressive web app whose service worker caches its static assets for fast repeat loads, built mobile-first for crews and subcontractors rather than retrofitted from the desktop screens.
How AI-assisted development works here
AI does not replace thirty-six years of judgment about how businesses run. It removes the typing. The discipline that separates a fast prototype from a system somebody can run a company on is the same discipline it always was — applied at a pace that used to be impossible.
The specification comes first
Every feature is written down before it is built — what it does, why, what it deliberately does not do, and which decisions are still open and who owns them. On DispatchIQ that is 67 living documents. The specification is what the AI is held to.
Claims are traced to sources
Competitive figures, pricing and technical constraints carry citations. A number that cannot be sourced does not get written down, and does not end up in the product or on a page a customer reads.
Tests are the contract
1,823 automated tests exist so that speed does not quietly become fragility. Generated code is worth exactly as much as the harness that proves it still works after the next change.
A human stays accountable
Nothing ships because it was produced quickly. Architecture, data model, security boundaries and the honesty of what the software claims remain a person's responsibility — and on your project, that person is the one you talk to.
The hard part of business software was never the code. It was understanding the business. That part still takes thirty-six years.
Mark Powers
Mark Powers has been writing business software since 1984, when he customized and installed turn-key systems for car dealerships at American Financial Resources. He studied Computer Science and Management Information Systems at Indiana University Bloomington, on an individualized major spanning Computer Science and the School of Public and Environmental Affairs, and built a management information system for a local business as part of the program.
He incorporated Marquise Micro Applications in March 1990 and has owned and run it ever since — custom software, databases, C# .NET web sites and APIs, Windows Server technologies, system integration, virtualization, and IT consulting, on Microsoft and Apple platforms.
Between 1992 and 2001 he served on the board and as past president of the Entrepreneurs Alliance of Indiana, organizing monthly networking events for local business owners — which is roughly the same instinct that makes the software good: time spent with the people who actually run the business.
1984 – 1987
Software Customization
American Financial Resources
Customized software systems for car dealerships and installed turn-key systems on site.
1986 – 1989
Computer Science & Management Information Systems
Indiana University Bloomington
Individualized major across Computer Science and the School of Public and Environmental Affairs, including building a management information system for a local business.
1990 – present
Owner
Marquise Micro Applications, Inc.
Custom software development, databases, C# .NET web sites and APIs, Windows Server technologies, system integration, virtualization and IT consulting.
1992 – 2001
Past President & Board Member
Entrepreneurs Alliance of Indiana
Organized monthly networking and dinner events for local entrepreneurs.
2026 – present
AI-assisted development practice
DispatchIQ
A multi-tenant field-service platform built specification-first with Claude, documented in the DispatchIQ section above.
Start a conversation
The useful first conversation is usually about the system you already have — what it does well, where it stops, and what it would cost to leave it alone for another year. That conversation is free and takes about thirty minutes.
Email
mpowers@marquise.com
Phone
(317) 823-1155
Web
marquise.com
LinkedIn
linkedin.com/in/markpowersmma
Location
Fishers, Indiana