The Lab

One man. One laboratory.

Websites, AI tools, apps, books, music, video, computer repair, and whatever is half-finished on the bench this week — all of it built by the same person, in the same room, in Hot Springs, Arkansas.

Most shops this size pick one lane and stay in it. This one didn't. Twenty-five years of fixing local computers turned into building the software, then the sites, then the tools, then the books and the video that go with them. Nothing here is subcontracted, white-labeled, or waiting on a partner agency — if it's on this page, it came off this bench.

Get a Free Website Preview Bring me a problem

Books published

Apps on the App Store

25+

Years of local tech help

Person doing all of it

Walk the benches

Nine benches, one person at all of them.

Each one is a real, working lane with something shipped behind it. Pick the bench closest to your problem — or send the problem over and let me tell you which bench it belongs on.

Bench 01

Websites & Local SEO

The bench that pays for the rest of the lab. Mobile-friendly small business sites, redesigns, landing pages, and the local SEO foundations that make them findable — no agency layers, no account manager between you and the person writing the code.

What's actually shipped

Fresh Cut Property Care, Deep Well Audio, Kelsey's Kustom Kreations, and GoneFishin Keychains all run on sites built here
Free homepage preview before you commit a dollar
Starter sites from $400 with pricing posted publicly

Topher's Web Design Website samples Pricing

Bench 02

In-Home Computer Repair

The original bench, running since 2000 as Cook's Computer Service. House calls for slow machines, virus removal, Wi-Fi that keeps dropping, upgrades, and the everyday problems that are faster to fix in person than to explain over the phone.

What's actually shipped

Hot Springs, Benton, Hot Springs Village, Lake Hamilton, Fountain Lake, and nearby
Remote help when the issue allows it
Straight diagnosis before any work starts

In-home computer repair Book a house call

Bench 03

AI Tools & Automation

Practical automation with guardrails — the boring, specific kind that actually saves hours. Lead-response bots that reply while you're on a ladder, quoting calculators, intake forms that route themselves, and internal dashboards you own outright instead of renting by the month.

What's actually shipped

Henry AI — a workspace build for organizing drafts, tasks, and guarded AI workflows
The CRM and lead routing behind this very site were built on this bench
Drafts stay draft-first: nothing sends to your customers without a human saying yes

AI & automation Henry AI spotlight

Bench 04

Apps & Games

Real shipped software, not mockups. Text adventures, word games, study companions, and scanning tools — written, signed, submitted, and maintained by one person, including the parts nobody enjoys like App Store review.

What's actually shipped

Six apps live on the App Store: Answering the Dark, James: My Companion, Pic Pop Word Game, The Hollow Gate, The Whispering Woods, and Whispering Hollow
StrainSpotter — an app-style scanning product on its own domain
Signed, submitted, and maintained solo — including the parts nobody enjoys, like App Store review

See the apps StrainSpotter

Bench 05

Books & Audiobooks

Written, edited, formatted, covered, and published from this desk. Reference collections, faith fiction, memoir, and family history — plus narrated audio produced in the same room, with voice work done locally instead of licensed by the minute.

What's actually shipped

61 titles published across Lost Scriptures, faith fiction, memoir, reference, and family history
Print and ebook interiors formatted in-house — covers included
Audiobook production run on the same bench, ACX-spec

Browse the catalog Ask about a book project

Bench 06

Music & Video

Original music, book trailers, cinematic montages, and the pop-out video ads that break out of the frame mid-scroll. Made here rather than pulled from a stock library, which is why the squirrel on the homepage is tearing through the actual page.

What's actually shipped

Pop-out ads built as ready-to-post social creative for local niches
Book trailers, demo reels, and the signature Dragon ad
Original music beds and full tracks scored locally

Pop-out ad gallery Videos & ads

Bench 07

Digital Products & Tools

Templates, checklists, kits, and small web tools — each one shaped around a problem that showed up in real client work first. If it saved time here, it gets cleaned up and handed over.

What's actually shipped

Website starter checklists, audit sheets, and project capture sheets
Free website check and website roast tools
Free homepage preview generator

Templates & kits Free website check Resource library

Bench 08

Property Care

Not everything in the lab is on a screen. Lawn care, cleanup, and outdoor help around Hot Springs runs through Fresh Cut Property Care — a real local service with a site and CRM built on these same benches.

What's actually shipped

Mowing and cleanup around Hot Springs, Arkansas
Estimates requested straight through the Fresh Cut site
Same builder behind the service and the software running it

Property care Fresh Cut Property Care

Bench 09

Experiments

The half-finished corner. Weather stations running on solar and LoRa radio, offline AI tooling, and ideas that haven't earned a price tag yet. Some become services, some quietly die — either way you can watch it happen and vote on what's next.

What's actually shipped

Off-grid LoRa weather station with edge AI and no cloud subscription
Idea Lab voting on what gets built next
Builds write-ups for the ones that shipped

Idea Lab Builds & write-ups The weather station build

Fair questions

The ones people actually ask.

Is MixedMakerShop really one person?

Yes. Topher Cook designs, builds, ships, invoices, and answers the phone. There is no junior developer, no offshore team, and no account manager — the person you talk to is the person doing the work.

How can one person cover that many benches?

Twenty-five years of local tech help, plus heavy use of AI tooling built and hosted here rather than rented. The benches also feed each other: the CRM behind a client site is the same kind of tool sold as automation, and the video work started as ads for the shop itself.

What if my project spans more than one bench?

That is usually the point. A website with an AI helper on it, a book with a trailer and an audiobook, or an app with a landing page behind it are all one conversation and one invoice instead of three vendors.

Where do most projects start?

With a free homepage preview. It costs nothing, takes about two minutes to request, and shows you the direction before you commit to anything.

Got something that needs building?

Describe the problem in plain language. If it belongs on one of these benches, I'll tell you which one and what it costs. If it doesn't, I'll tell you that too.

Contact Topher Free Website Preview

Or email the lab directly: [email protected]