What we do
Four ways this usually starts.
Most people arrive with one of these four. Find the one that sounds like your week — or skip the lot and describe the problem in your own words, which is usually quicker.
From scratch
Build it from scratch
You have a process that spreadsheets stopped holding a year ago. We design it, build it, put it live, and show you how it works.
Who it’s for
You are running something real on a spreadsheet, a shared inbox and one person who remembers how it all fits together. It held fine until it didn’t. Nobody sells the thing you need, because the thing you need is the way your own business already works.
What happens
The first week is spent on paper. We sit with the people who actually do the job, write down what the software has to do, and put a price and a date on it. If you would be better off buying something off the shelf, you hear that in week one — it costs you a week, not a quarter. After that we build in the open: every fortnight there is something new you can click, on a real web address, and you tell us where it is wrong while it is still cheap to change.
- Starts with
- One week of scoping, written down and priced.
- Then
- Most builds run two to eight weeks after that.
- Price
- Fixed, agreed before a line of it is written.
- You get
- The code, the servers, the instructions, and an hour with whoever inherits it.
- Not this if
- You need it live on Tuesday. We would rather say no than say yes badly.
Half finished
Rescue a stalled build
Someone else started it and stopped answering. We read the code, tell you honestly what is worth keeping, then finish it.
Who it’s for
There is a half-built system somewhere and the person who built it has gone quiet. You have paid for it once already and would rather not pay for all of it twice. Nobody still in the building can tell you how much of it actually works.
What happens
We start by reading it, not rewriting it. Within a week you get a note in plain English: what is there, what works, what is worth keeping, and what it would cost to finish it against starting again. Sometimes the honest answer is start again, and you get the reasoning as well as the number. If you want us to carry on from there, we finish it the way we build anything else — something you can click every fortnight, and a date.
- Starts with
- A week reading the code, ending in a written verdict.
- You get first
- A note you can hand to a board without translating it.
- Then
- We price the finish once we have seen what is actually there.
- Price
- The review is fixed. So is the work, once the work is known.
- Also fine
- Taking the verdict and finishing it yourself. It is your code.
Two systems
Join up your systems
Your CRM, your accounts package and your warehouse should be talking to each other. We make them, and we check every night that they still are.
Who it’s for
Right now somebody in your office is the integration. They export a file on Friday, tidy it up in a spreadsheet, and paste it into the other system on Monday. It works, until they are on holiday, and then it goes wrong quietly in ways nobody notices for a month.
What happens
We work out what actually has to move between the two systems and how often — usually less than everyone assumes, and more urgently than anyone admits. Then we build the link, and we build the part that watches the link. If the two sides disagree overnight, a person hears about it in the morning. A link nobody is watching is a link that has already broken.
- Starts with
- A morning with whoever currently does it by hand.
- Length
- Usually two to four weeks for the first link.
- Price
- Fixed per link, so the second one can wait until you want it.
- You get
- The link, the nightly check, and the message when the two sides disagree.
- Worth knowing
- If the other system has no way in, you hear that before you pay us.
Already live
Keep it running
Hosting, monitoring, backups you have actually restored from, and a named person who picks up when something breaks.
Who it’s for
The software is live and it matters. It might be ours, it might be something you inherited. Either way, the plan for the day it falls over is currently to phone somebody and hope.
What happens
We take the hosting on, or work alongside whoever has it. We watch the things that actually break — the disk quietly filling up, the certificate about to expire, the nightly job that stopped running in March and told nobody. We restore a backup on purpose, on a schedule, because a backup nobody has ever restored is a folder, not a backup. And you get a name and a number that answers.
- Starts with
- A look at what is there and an honest list of what is missing.
- Runs
- Month to month. A month’s notice, both ways.
- Price
- A fixed monthly amount. Anything extra is quoted before it is done.
- You get
- Hosting, monitoring, restored backups, and someone who picks up.
- Not included
- Building new things. That is one of the other three.
Still not sure
Most jobs turn out to be two of these.
Plenty start as a rescue and end up a rebuild, or start as one link between two systems and become the thing that runs the place. Describe it in your own words and we will tell you which it is — and if it is none of them, who to ask instead.