About Danielle Butler
Thirty years of running things. I know exactly how they break.
Kia ora — I’m Danielle Butler. I’ve spent about thirty years running things. A national uniform company for eighteen years. A bakery and diner for ten, at the same time. Other people’s operations when they needed sorting out.
I built them, and I lost two of them.
Both were useful.
Now I help people running businesses and organisations see what’s going on underneath, and what to start on.
Where I am Now
I live in a one-room cottage on a ranch in California. Cold tap, compostable toilet, four tree frogs in the sink.
The ranch is HorseSpeak, a small equine-therapy nonprofit. They’re a client – I do for them what I’d do for anyone: their systems, their digital footprint, and at the moment a whole adaptive riding program.
I muck in with ranch operations too, because I live here.
They pay me in a cottage. Both of us think we got the better end of it.
I’d done this once before, in New Zealand, after the bakery closed – two years volunteering at Riding for the Disabled. Twice now I’ve ended up in a barn after losing something.
In the evenings I’m building Roundela – software for small organisations drowning in the stuff that isn’t the work.
It’s not where I expected to be in my fifties.
It’s the most useful I’ve been in years.
How I Got Here
Theatre, retail, manufacturing, importing, hospitality, events, and a lot of other people’s businesses when their systems needed sorting out.
Different industries, different sizes, different problems.
And underneath, the same handful of things going wrong. Every time.
That’s why I can walk into a place I’ve never been and see it fairly quickly. Not because I’m clever – because I’ve watched it break in the same places for thirty years.
My Philosophy
Horses taught me the most about systems.
Show up honest. Set a steady rhythm. Don’t force it. Listen more than you speak. Build trust first – everything else follows.
The right system is the one you’ll actually use.
Fancy tools don’t matter if they exhaust you. Ease always wins.
Clarity comes from space, not pressure.
Your systems should match how your life actually runs, not how a software company thinks it should.
What Shaped My Thinking
Kyoto, Japan
I spent days walking temple to temple, learning their stories and observing the rituals that keep meaning alive.
It was at Seiryoji Temple, in a long quiet moment where I was the only one left in the hall, that an elderly attendant beckoned me past the barrier. She led me into the inner sanctuary — the space once held by Shoguns and Princesses. Up close, the altar felt charged, almost humming with the weight of centuries. It was one of those rare moments where history breathes on your skin.
The air felt electric — like time itself was holding still.
Nothing about it was loud. That’s the part I took with me.
What I Do
I come in, work out what’s actually going on, and help you fix the parts that matter. Sometimes that’s a conversation. Sometimes it’s staying until it’s sorted.
The work itself is usually systems, processes, and how you show up online. But that’s the output.
What people come for is someone to look at the whole thing honestly and say what they see.
Good Things
Horseback treks through wild places. Slow mornings with River, my mokopuna. And four tree frogs living in my sink that I’ve decided I like.
Where This Started
I was farm-sitting on a third-generation farm in Pakiri, north of Auckland. Thousands of sheep, six dogs, and a porch with a view that drops your shoulders without you thinking about it.
“My digital world didn’t match how I actually lived.
It was too loud. Too fast. Too heavy.”
That’s when LiftBound started, though it didn’t have a name for a while.
If You’d Like to Work Together
The first conversation is free and there’s nothing to prepare for. Half an hour, and you’ll know whether I’m any use to you.
No pitch, no follow-up sequence. If it’s not a fit, I’ll say so.