About Pilla

Built by an operator, for operators who already know how the work should run.

Pilla is a work automation app for deskless teams. It exists because we spent years running multi-site operations and could not find software that ran the way we actually wanted to work.

  • 2018

    Company Founded

    Pilla started as a hands-on operations and compliance consultancy, working side-by-side with multi-site retail and hospitality teams. Those years on the ground taught us one thing: every operator has a playbook in their head, and no software lets them implement it the way they actually run things.

  • 2019

    Paper-Based Diary System

    We launched a structured paper diary system for consultancy clients, giving managers a way to track daily routines, handovers, and checks the same way at every site. It worked, but it did not scale. The insights from this product shaped what Pilla would later become in software.

  • 2020

    COVID Safe Programme

    When the pandemic hit, frontline businesses needed guidance fast. We launched a COVID Safe inspection programme and started providing online support for the first time, helping hundreds of operators navigate rapidly changing regulations and reopen with confidence.

  • 2022

    Web App Beta

    We took everything we had learned and built the first version of the Pilla web app. For the first time, customers could implement their operational routines in software instead of on paper. Early adopters helped us refine the canvas with real feedback from the shop floor.

  • 2023

    Mobile App Beta

    Deskless teams do not sit at desks, so we built the Pilla mobile app. Workflows could now be executed by staff on their phones, wherever the work actually happens. Photo evidence, checklists, and timestamped logs flowed back into the canvas in real time.

  • 2024

    General Release

    Pilla reached general availability. A flexible canvas, a mobile execution layer, and the early shape of the bet that would later define the product.

  • 2025

    Poppi AI Launch

    We launched Poppi, a native AI agent built into Pilla, to watch the work as it runs. Catching missed steps, generating follow-ups, and surfacing patterns operators would never have time to spot themselves.

  • 2026

    Pivot to Work Automation

    In early 2026 we made the bet we had been circling: Pilla is a work automation app for deskless teams. We stripped out the team-management features that competed with apps like Connecteam, and focused on the one thing nothing else does. Automating the work itself, across apps and the people running it on the ground.

Built by an operator with two decades of experience on the ground

Pilla was founded by Liam Jones, who has spent close to twenty years running and supporting frontline teams across multiple industries. His career began as a graduate manager in the builders merchant sector, where he learned the fundamentals of team leadership, stock management, and daily operations.

From there, Liam moved into health and safety within the construction industry, where he ran training teams responsible for keeping people safe on site. He later founded a health and safety consultancy, advising businesses on compliance, risk management, and operational standards.

In 2018, Liam left construction to focus on retail and hospitality. He saw the same thing in every business he worked with: experienced operators with strong opinions about how their teams should work, and software that handed them someone else’s template instead. That gap became the foundation of Pilla.

Liam Jones, founder of Pilla

Liam's Qualifications

Level 5 NVQ Diploma in Management
Senior management and leadership qualification
PRINCE2
Structured project management methodology
PTTLS
Preparing to Teach in the Lifelong Learning Sector
NEBOSH Certificate
National qualification in occupational health and safety
Level 3 Food Safety
Advanced food safety management for supervisors and managers

Our goal

Every check completed, every photo logged, every number recorded, every workflow signed off. Each one is a deskless worker carrying out an operator’s playbook exactly the way they wanted it to run.

When we reach 100 million operational steps a year on Pilla, it means operators across multiple industries are running their own way of working at scale, without compromising it to fit the software.

100,000,000

operational steps a year