What kinds of businesses does nanushi work with?

nanushi works with businesses of all sizes — from local cafes and retail shops to tech startups and established companies. If you need a website, web app, mobile app, or AI integration, nanushi can help.

How long does a project take?

A simple marketing website can be delivered in 1–2 weeks. A full web application or mobile app typically takes 4–12 weeks depending on scope.

Does nanushi build AI chatbots?

Yes. nanushi builds custom AI assistants and chatbots using Claude (Anthropic) and OpenAI. These can be integrated into websites, mobile apps, or internal business tools.

Where is nanushi based?

nanushi is based in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The team works remotely and serves clients globally.

What is a nanushi mission?

A mission is a 6-week collaborative React Native app-building challenge. Teams of developers work together to ship a real, production-quality mobile app.

case study: how a new website helped an ottawa restaurant recover post-pandemic

note: the business and people described below are fictional, but the problems, solutions, and results are based on patterns we see regularly with ottawa small businesses.

the business: taza kitchen, a Lebanese restaurant on Bank Street in the Glebe, in business since 2018. nine tables, a small patio, and a loyal neighbourhood following. the owner, Mira, runs the kitchen herself with a small team.

the problem: taza's website was built in 2019 by a freelancer who had since moved on. it ran on an outdated wordpress theme, loaded slowly on phones, and featured a menu that was two years out of date. the online reservation link pointed to a booking service taza had cancelled in 2020.

more concretely: taza was getting roughly 400 website visitors a month based on google analytics (which Mira had never actually looked at). the site wasn't showing up in google map results for searches like "lebanese food glebe" or "middle eastern restaurant ottawa." a competitor that had opened in 2021 was consistently ranking above them despite being newer.

the diagnosis

a quick site audit turned up the expected issues:

pagespeed score: 31 on mobile. the site took over 7 seconds to show meaningful content on a phone.
google business profile: unclaimed. taza had never set up or verified their google business profile, which is why they were invisible in map searches.
no ssl certificate. the site was loading over http, which chrome marked as "not secure" — a trust red flag.
the menu was a single large jpeg. not searchable, not mobile-friendly, and impossible for google to index.
zero local citations. taza wasn't listed on yelp, tripadvisor, or any local directory.

what was done

over six weeks, the work covered three areas:

1. new site on a modern stack. the site was rebuilt — not reskinned — on a lightweight, fast framework. all images were compressed and served in webp format. the menu was converted to real text on the page. mobile load time dropped from 7+ seconds to under 1.5 seconds. the ssl certificate was installed and http traffic redirected to https.

2. google business profile setup and optimization. the profile was claimed, verified, and fully populated: accurate address, hours (including holiday hours), photos of the space and dishes, and the correct category (lebanese restaurant). within three weeks, taza appeared in the map pack for local searches it had been invisible for.

3. local seo foundations. citations were built on yelp, tripadvisor, foursquare, and the ottawa restaurant association directory. the site was updated with a dedicated page that mentioned bank street, the glebe, and nearby neighbourhoods. a schema markup was added for the restaurant.

the results (90 days out)

organic search traffic: up from 400 to 1,100 monthly visitors
google map impressions: taza now appeared in the map pack for 12 local searches where they had zero visibility before
online reservations: the new site integrated with opentable; online reservations went from essentially zero to about 30/month
google reviews: Mira started asking for reviews after positive meals; 38 new reviews in 90 days, average 4.7 stars

Mira estimated that the increase in reservations attributable to the site change — roughly 25–30 additional tables per month — added around $4,000 in monthly revenue. the total project cost was $7,200.

the lesson

taza's situation isn't unusual. a lot of small ottawa businesses built their web presence in 2018–2020 and haven't touched it since. the technology has moved, google's expectations have changed, and competitors who invested in their web presence have moved ahead.

the fixes weren't exotic — fast site, accurate local listings, google profile setup. but the cumulative effect of ignoring the basics compounds negatively over time, and fixing them produces compounding positive returns.

if your ottawa business hasn't looked at its web presence seriously in the last two years, there's a reasonable chance you're leaving customers behind. nanushi offers free initial assessments for local businesses — we'll tell you honestly where you stand.