Most weeks I don't think about it. I run the stable, I teach Tuesday and Thursday evenings, I muck out, I deal with the farrier, I send a few invoices. Normal stable-owner life.
Then it's Sunday. The kids are asleep, the kitchen is quiet, and I open the spreadsheet.
The ten-tab Sheet
Our Sheet had ten tabs by the end. Rides, Riders, Horses, Instructors, Passes, Payments, Payouts, Costs, Stable income, and a tab called "random" which was where things went when I didn't know where else to put them.
It worked. I want to be honest about that — for years it really did. A spreadsheet is the most flexible tool ever invented for a small business. We had every number. We had every rider's birthday. We knew which horse refused which child.
What actually breaks
Three things broke, always in this order:
- Memory. A rider asks how many rides they have left on a pass. I have to open the Sheet, find their row, count the marks. By Friday evening, with twelve riders in the arena, I just guessed.
- Instructor cuts. Three instructors, each on a different percentage, each teaching different lessons. Calculating their payout took the entire Sunday evening. I dreaded it.
- Handover. When a friend covered for me for two weeks, I had to write a six-page document just to explain how the Sheet worked. She still got it wrong.
The fourth thing that broke, which I didn't admit to anyone for a long time, was me. I'd sit at the kitchen table at 9pm thinking about lessons and money and which horse needed the vet, and it would be midnight before I got up.
What we tried first
In 2025 I tried six different products. Two were gym-management tools that someone had pasted a horse on. One was for tennis clubs and didn't understand that a horse is also a resource that gets tired. Two were enterprise SaaS that wanted €400 a month and a two-day onboarding. One was actually for stables but only ran on a desktop computer, which is hilarious if you've ever been in a tack room.
None of them solved the Sunday evening.
So we started building. Slowly. For our stable first. The first version of Nose was a single screen — today's rides, who's paid, who hasn't — and it ran on my phone. That was December. By February two neighbour stables were using it.
The first week with Nose
The first week is the test. If a stable owner doesn't get value in week one, they go back to the Sheet. We've watched this happen with other tools.
What we ask new stables to do, in order:
- Add your horses. Ten minutes.
- Add your instructors. Five minutes.
- Add this week's rides — just this week. Half an hour for a normal stable.
- Stop. Go ride a horse. Come back tomorrow.
By Wednesday they've sold a pass. By Friday they've done a payout calculation that used to take Sunday evening. By the second Sunday, they tell us, the kitchen table is empty.
What changed on Sundays
I still do the books on Sunday. Not because I have to — because I like to. Twenty minutes, with a cup of tea. I review the week, I check instructor payouts (which Nose calculated on Monday), I read what riders wrote in the notes.
Then I close the laptop and watch a film with my husband. That's the whole change. It's not dramatic. There's no before-and-after photo.
But every stable owner I've shown Nose to has said the same thing in their own words: I got my Sunday evening back.
That's what we're selling. The software is the means.
~ Daniel ✌️