Hello,
I'm Carly Cauthen, Founder & CEO of Trellis, and I wanted to personally welcome you to my website.
I grew up in McKenzie, Alabama — a small town where everybody knows everybody, where the local businesses aren't just stores, they're the backbone of the community. That's the world I come from.
I was also born with Spina Bifida. If you're not familiar, it's a congenital neurological defect that affects the opening of the spine and can cause you to either be in a wheelchair or make walking and other daily tasks difficult. Growing up, there were days that were harder than others — days where the world felt like it wasn't built for me. But McKenzie taught me something: when things get tough, you find a way to show up anyway. You contribute. You build something that matters.
That feeling never left me. I always knew I wanted to create something that helped people — something that made someone else's hard day a little easier. And when I looked around at the small business owners I grew up watching — people pouring their hearts into their work — I saw a problem nobody was solving for them.
They were losing customers. Not because of bad service. Not because people didn't want to come back. But because life gets busy, and nobody followed up. The big corporations have entire teams dedicated to customer retention — automated texts, email sequences, loyalty programs. But the small businesses where I come from don't have that luxury.
That's why I built Trellis.
Trellis is an AI employee that handles customer follow-ups, review collection, and re-engagement for local service businesses — automatically, 24/7. It's the tireless team member that never forgets to check in, never misses a follow-up, and never lets a good customer slip away in silence.
My mission is simple: no small business should ever lose a customer to silence.
I built Trellis for the business owner who's doing everything themselves. The one who's incredible at what they do but doesn't have time to also be a marketing department. The one who might be facing their own challenges — health, finances, time — and just needs something that works without adding more to their plate.
This is just the beginning. My goal is to give every local business — from the corner salon to the neighborhood dental office — the same customer retention power as a Fortune 500 company. Where a first visit always becomes a second one. Where the businesses that hold our communities together don't just survive, they thrive.
Trellis grows because they grow. That's the only way I'd have it.
Thank you for believing in what I'm building.
