Your most valuable asset might be a 20-year-old database

A lot of small firms are sitting on something valuable and don't think of it that way.

It's the database somebody built in Access or Excel fifteen or twenty years ago. It holds every client, order, deal or vendor the business has ever had. And usually there's exactly one person who knows how to get a real answer out of it.

That used to be just how it was. It doesn't have to be anymore.

Years of history, one key holder

If this sounds familiar, you're not alone:

• Somebody built it a long time ago, and it still runs the business.
• It holds decades of clients, deals, orders or research nobody else has.
• Getting an answer means asking the one person who knows the queries.
• When they're out, or retire, the data is effectively locked.

What changed

AI can now read a database like that and answer questions about it in plain English. It learns how your tables fit together, writes the query for you, and explains what it found. Nobody has to learn SQL, and nothing has to be migrated to a new system first.

Same question, very different afternoon

Before: find the person who knows the database. Wait for them to build a query, join three tables, export it to Excel and clean it up. Ask a follow-up, and start over.

After: ask, "Which customers ordered from us last spring but haven't ordered this year?" You get a list in a minute, and you can ask the follow-up right away.

That changes which questions get asked at all. These are the kind that usually weren't worth the hassle:

Which vendors have raised prices the most since 2020?

Who were our ten biggest clients five years ago, and where are they now?

What sold best in the fourth quarter of each of the last ten years?

Need a hand with this? I set this up for small firms, starting with a look at what’s in your database. Let’s talk →

What it doesn't do

It doesn't replace what already works.

• Your database stays where it is. No rebuild, and no new system to learn.
• You decide which tables it can see, and it can be set up to read only, so it can't change your records.
• It won't fix bad data. If the records are messy, it will tell you where.

Who it's a good fit for

• A small firm with a database that has quietly grown for ten years or more.
• An owner who is still the only one who can pull a real report.
• A business thinking about succession, a sale, or simply what happens when that one person takes a vacation.

If you have one of these quietly running your business, I'd like to hear about it. Tell me what's in it, and I'll tell you honestly whether this is worth doing.