Chicago · South Side · Est. 2022

Native AI applications. Built for your business.

Strategic Data Products builds custom AI applications for Chicago small businesses — designed from the ground up around how your business actually works.

20+ yrs enterprise systems
$50B daily trading supported
59% YOY growth, BSB
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Brown Sugar Bakery Bakery · Greater Grand Crossing
Justice of the Pies Award-winning · Chicago
Pepe's Mexican Restaurant 10 Locations · Chicagoland
Lexington Betty Smokehouse BBQ · Pullman

Trusted by Chicago businesses you already know.

The problem

The right technology dollar is what grows your business and lets you scale.

01

You can't tell which technology will actually drive growth — and which will quietly drain cash.

02

The systems you've already bought weren't built to scale with the business you're becoming.

03

Most agencies bring you their stack. Few build around the way your business actually needs to grow.

That's the work we do.

The guide

A builder, not an agency.

RD
Founder portrait · placeholder

I'm Robert Dawson. I grew up around small businesses on the South Side and spent 20 years building data systems for places like Oracle and Invesco — supporting $50 billion in daily trading. Now I bring that same rigor to the shops in my own neighborhood. One owner at a time.

— Robert Dawson, Founder

  • 20+ years building enterprise data systems
  • Production AI shipped for working small businesses
  • Based on the South Side. Greater Chatham Initiative member.
  • Every project built and supported by me, not outsourced
Services

How we help you grow.

Two ways to work together. Both built around what your business actually needs.

S/01

Digital Storefront

A website that sells, takes orders, and runs your operations.

Modern e-commerce or a custom web platform, integrated with your point of sale and back-of-house tools. Designed around how your customers actually buy and how your team actually works.

  • Online ordering
  • POS + operations sync
  • Nationwide shipping
  • Built to grow
S/02

Corporate Gifting App

Open a B2B revenue line your competition doesn't have.

A productized gifting platform on top of your existing storefront. Companies order in bulk, you fulfill, we handle the tech.

  • Bulk B2B ordering
  • Branded landing pages
  • Fulfillment tooling
  • Recurring corporate accounts
The work

The work.

Real Chicago businesses. Real numbers. Real systems running today.

brown sugar bakery · interior · stephanie hart at counter
Anchor Case Study C/01

Brown Sugar Bakery

59% YOY revenue growth.

59% YOY revenue growth
Stack Shopify + Clover + AppSheet
Live Nationwide shipping
The challenge

A beloved South Side bakery with national press, but a website and operations stack that couldn't keep up with demand.

What we built

A unified Shopify storefront with same-day pickup tied to Clover POS, nationwide shipping built around a 6"/8"/10" cake size strategy, a Birthday Club CRM, and back-of-house tools for production planning and delivery routing.

The result

59% year-over-year revenue growth and a digital operation Stephanie's team actually wants to use.

“Robert built the system we needed, not the one a stranger would have sold us.”

Stephanie Hart, Owner — Brown Sugar Bakery
justice of the pies · placeholder
C/02 Headless Shopify + Sanity CMS

Justice of the Pies

A modern editorial storefront for Maya-Camille Broussard's award-winning brand, built to scale.

Read more
pepe's mexican restaurant · placeholder
C/03 10 locations on one AI ordering system

Pepe's Mexican Restaurant

A Next.js ordering platform unifying online orders across all 10 locations, with AI-assisted menu and customer flows.

Read more
lexington betty smokehouse · placeholder
C/04 Custom catering ordering platform

Lexington Betty Smokehouse

A custom B2B order system built around how Dominique Leach's team actually runs events.

Read more

Our case studies happen to be food businesses — that's where the proof lives. The systems we build work for any Chicago small business with a storefront, customers, and operations to run.

south side · 79th street · evening light
About

Why this exists.

Strategic Data Products is built on a simple idea: the small businesses that make Chicago what it is deserve the same quality of technology that the biggest companies in the world get. I've spent my career building those big systems. Now I build them for the shops on my block.

Member of · Featured in
Greater Chatham Initiative Press Feature TBD Press Feature TBD
Let's talk

Let's see if we're a fit.

A 30-minute call. We'll talk about your business, what's slowing it down, and whether we should work together. No pitch. No pressure.

Book a Discovery Call Or email robert@sdpchicago.com