AI training and IT for small business

Your team already has AI.
Most of them have never opened it.

PortLAN teaches small companies how to use the AI that is already sitting inside the software they pay for every month. When the network and the hardware are not ready for it, we handle that part too.

Call (208) 297-3263 Send an email

Calls go to Kris Fischer, the owner. Based in Boise, Idaho. Onsite across Idaho and Utah.

The problem

Most AI rollouts stop at the invoice.

A subscription gets purchased. An email goes out announcing it. Six weeks later two people are using it and nobody wants to bring it up in the meeting.

The software was never the hard part. Nobody showed the front desk what to type. Nobody showed the estimator that the button was already sitting in the toolbar he opens every morning. Nobody came back a month later to check whether any of it saved a single hour. That is the actual work, and it is the part almost nobody sells.

What we do

Three things, and we say no to the rest.

AI training, inside your own software

We do not run a slideshow about the future of work. We sit down with your people, open the programs they already use, and work through the jobs they actually do. Onsite if you are in Idaho or Utah, over video if you are not.

  • Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, and the assistants bundled into both
  • The industry software your team lives in all day
  • Writing prompts that fit your work, not somebody's demo
  • Recognizing a confident wrong answer before it reaches a customer

Proficiency checks built around your business

A generic AI quiz tells you who skimmed an article. We write the scenarios out of your own work, so what comes back tells you something useful: who can do the job faster now, and who needs another session before it sticks.

Optional. Some clients want the number, some do not.

IT groundwork, when there is nothing to build on yet

Some companies call us and the foundation is not there. Aging machines. A network held together by whatever the last person did. Accounts nobody has looked at in three years. We do that work too, onsite across Idaho and Utah, because there is no point training anyone on tools their equipment cannot run.

  • Workstations, laptops, and the hardware refresh nobody wants to think about
  • Network, wiring, and the closet full of unlabeled cables
  • Accounts, access, and permissions that should have been cleaned up years ago
  • Writing down how it all works, so you are not dependent on one person's memory

How it goes

Start with a phone call.

  1. You call, or you email and we call you.

    The first conversation does not cost anything. We ask what your people do all day, what software is on their screens, and what keeps taking longer than it should.

  2. We look at what you already have.

    Usually a short visit or a screen share. We are looking for two things: the AI you are already paying for and have not touched, and the equipment that is going to get in the way.

  3. You get a written scope and a quote.

    Both in hand, both in writing, before anything begins. Nothing starts until you have said yes to them.

  4. We run the training, then we come back.

    If you want the proficiency check, this is where it lands. If half the team still is not using anything a month later, we would rather find that out than not.

Kris Fischer, owner of PortLAN

Who you are calling

Kris Fischer

Owner, PortLAN LLC

I run PortLAN out of Boise. Before this I spent two years doing IT at Utah State University, which is where I learned that the gap between what software can do and what people actually use it for is enormous, and that it has almost nothing to do with how smart anybody is.

PortLAN is new and it is small, and I am not going to dress that up. It is also the reason you get me on the phone instead of a sales team, and the reason a twelve-person company is worth the drive.

Kris on LinkedIn

Questions we get

Before you call.

Do you resell software or take a cut of our subscriptions?
No. We hold no reseller agreements with Microsoft, Google, OpenAI, Anthropic, or anyone else, and we make nothing on what you spend with them. That matters more than it sounds like it does. It means when the honest answer is that you already own the tool and simply need somebody to teach it, that is the answer you get. Occasionally the recommendation is to cancel something.
Will you build us custom AI software?
No. We are not a development shop. We teach people to use what already exists and we make sure the infrastructure underneath it works. If what you need is custom built, we will say so and point you elsewhere.
How small is too small?
There is no floor. We work with companies up to roughly a hundred people, and the ones under twenty are often where a single afternoon changes the most.
We are not in Idaho or Utah. Can you still work with us?
Training, consulting, and proficiency checks, yes, over video. Onsite IT work, no. We are not going to bill you for a flight.
Nobody here is technical. Is that going to be a problem?
That is the normal case, and it is who this was built for.
What does it cost?
It depends on headcount, how many locations, and whether there is IT work standing in front of the training. We quote after the first call, in writing, before anything starts.

Get in touch

Call. It is faster.

(208) 297-3263

Or email [email protected]

Boise, Idaho. Onsite across Idaho and Utah. Training and consulting available remotely.