Product
Do people want it?
Build the wrong thing well and you've just wasted money faster.
Technology
Software built by people who have to live with it
We use AI to move faster, with people responsible for the architecture, implementation and decisions. We build the websites, apps and platforms that run real businesses, including our own, and help them evolve as the business changes. Part of a growth system where design, marketing, operations and finance work together.
- MyHustle — Our own project, task and time-tracking platform
- XtraClubs — Membership, billing and access workflows
- Disport — Product and MVP development
- Sydney team — Based in Rozelle
BUILT AND RUNNING ON
- AWS
- Next.js
- React
- Node
- Laravel
- React Native
- PostgreSQL
- Stripe
The growth system
Technology works best as part of the whole business.
We've been handed plenty of beautiful platforms nobody uses. Usually because the thing got built before anyone worked out who it was for, how it would be sold, or what it cost to run. So we start with the commercial question and let it decide the technical one.
Marketing
Will anyone find it?
A platform with no demand behind it is a hobby.
Technology
Does it work, and keep working?
Built, integrated and maintained with clear ownership and a support plan suited to the business.
Operations
Can you run it at volume?
Software changes how your business works. Plan for that or it gets abandoned.
Finance
Does the maths hold?
Build cost, run cost, and what it actually saves or earns.
Included services
Building in the AI age
The code is the easy part now
A year ago, writing software was the bottleneck. It isn't any more. AI can produce a working application in an afternoon, and a lot of what's being sold right now is exactly that — generated, lightly checked, shipped.
It demos beautifully. Then month four arrives: nobody can explain how the auth works, the dependency nobody reviewed has a known vulnerability, and the person who prompted it has moved on. The bill for that arrives later and it's much bigger than the build.
AI can accelerate implementation. People remain responsible for the decisions, review and release.
We use AI heavily. It's the best tool we've had in twenty years and refusing to use it would be a strange kind of pride. What we don't do is let it make decisions.
What AI does here
What a person does here
What AI does here
Writes the boilerplate, the tests, the migrations, the repetitive glue
What a person does here
Decides the architecture before a line gets generated
What AI does here
Drafts an implementation of a spec someone else wrote
What a person does here
Writes the spec, and knows why it's that and not something else
What AI does here
Suggests fixes and refactors
What a person does here
Sets the review and testing approach for the project
What AI does here
Speeds up the parts that were always tedious
What a person does here
Defines release ownership and the support arrangement
Same people, same standards, more of their time spent on the decisions that matter.
And we build so the machines can read it
More customers are using assistants alongside search to research products and services. Clear, accessible content and well-structured information can help those systems understand a business, but visibility and recommendations are never guaranteed.
We consider semantic HTML, appropriate structured data and documented APIs where they serve the product. Any agent-enabled action needs the same permissions, validation and safeguards as the customer journey it supports.
The right approach depends on the use case. We scope those capabilities alongside the rest of the build, including their cost, maintenance and measurement.
How we work
The decisions we make before release
A dependable build needs more than working screens. We agree the delivery approach, ownership and handover for the project, including the areas below.
Code review
Agree who reviews changes, what they check and how decisions are recorded.
Build and release
Choose the right automated checks and release process for the project's scale and risk.
Testing
Identify the critical journeys, integrations and edge cases that need coverage.
Architecture
Decide how the product, data and integrations fit together before implementation runs ahead.
Security
Scope the relevant dependency, secrets and access-control checks before launch.
Handover
Agree repository access, documentation and a walkthrough so the next team can understand the system.
The stack
We pick the stack after we understand the job
That sounds obvious. It's the opposite of how most agencies work — most sell what they already know how to build, and the architecture diagram is finished before the first meeting.
Content and marketing sites
Next.js on a headless CMS
Fast by default, clean semantics, readable by crawlers and assistants. Your content team still gets a proper editor.
Ecommerce
Shopify, or headless Shopify with a Next.js front end
Checkout, payments and tax are solved problems — we build on them, not around them. Headless when the buying experience has to be unlike anyone else's.
Products, portals and platforms
React + Node or Laravel on AWS
A practical foundation for custom workflows, integrations and products, chosen around the application's needs.
Mobile
React Native, or native when the app earns it
One codebase unless there's a real reason not to — and we'll tell you when that is.
We're not religious about platforms
Every agency has a platform it sells because it's the one it knows. We'd rather tell you which of three answers fits your situation, including the one that earns us less.
Shopify is excellent and we've built a lot on it — Harbour, the luxury outdoor furniture brand, runs on it. If you're selling products and want your team running the store themselves, standard Shopify is usually right. When the buying experience needs more flexibility, we assess a custom theme, apps or a headless front end against the requirements, cost and maintenance. Headless can keep Shopify's commerce services while giving the front end more independence; it is one option, not an automatic requirement for subscriptions, configurators or search visibility.
WordPress is sometimes right too. Mostly content, published often, edited by a lot of people without training — that's a fair WordPress site and we'll build it properly. What we won't do is reach for it by default, stack fifteen plugins on it and call that a platform.
Shopify, done properly
Harbour: luxury outdoor furniture, on Shopify
Harbour, the luxury outdoor furniture brand, runs on Shopify. Shopify keeps the catalogue, checkout and tax; the storefront is built to show a premium range properly, on desktop and on mobile.
The proof
The agency runs on software we wrote ourselves
We built MyHustle to help run our own agency. It brings project work, tasks and time tracking into one place and gives the team a shared view of the work.
It is a working tool built around our own workflows. The views below show the product with client, project and team details removed.
Built for
Our own agency workflows
Connects
Projects, tasks and time tracking
Inside the Hustle platform
Time, plans and billing, in one system
The same software tracks every hour against a project and rolls it up into a monthly plan of billing against actuals. Client details are blurred here.
Hustle platformOur own agency software, in daily use
What are you building?
Websites
Websites that load fast, convert, and can be found by machines
Marketing sites, ecommerce, portals and platforms. Built on a modern stack, engineered for search and for assistants, and handed over with the keys.
For you ifYou need a site that earns its place in the funnel
Apps
Apps people open on the second day
iOS and Android, from MVP to scale. Designed around a habit rather than a feature list, built to survive real users.
For you ifYou have a product idea, or a process worth putting in people's pockets
The work
Selected technology work
Platforms for our own businesses and products we've built with clients.
Membership, billing, access control, the site and the app. Built and still run by us.
- Product
- Web
- App
- Billing
- Access control
5,000 subscribers
Car wash subscription with member perks, on a cloud-native stack: 5,000 subscribers, 200 merchants and hundreds of member products. Node, React, MongoDB, AWS and Auth0, with membership and access logic end to end, built to extend into other verticals.
- Node
- React
- MongoDB
- AWS
- Auth0
From a whiteboard sketch to a trading business. Product and platform, built in-house.
- Product
- Platform
- Payments
- Integrations
Apps we've shipped
Real screens from real builds
Sweet As is a curated food and drink discovery app for Sydney, live on the App Store and Google Play. Designed and built by us, from first screen to store listing.
Questions
The things technical buyers ask us
- Yes. We use AI to help with implementation, tests and repetitive tasks. People remain responsible for the architecture, review and release decisions. We agree the checks and delivery process for each project.
- Ask how the architecture is decided, how changes are reviewed, which journeys are tested and what you receive at handover. Those are useful questions whether the implementation uses AI or not. We can walk through the approach proposed for your project.
- Yes. The repo is yours, in your organisation, from the first commit. Same for infrastructure, domains and accounts.
- You get a documented handover and a walkthrough with whoever takes over. We build so that's possible, which is a design decision, not a courtesy.
- Usually. We'll audit it first and tell you honestly whether it's worth building on or worth replacing. Both answers happen.
- Both, when they're right. We've built a lot on Shopify and it's very good at what it does. When a store needs more flexibility, we assess a custom theme, apps or a headless front end against the requirements, cost and maintenance. WordPress is a fair choice for content-heavy sites. What we don't do is default to either one.
- It depends on scope, and anyone quoting a number before they understand the job is guessing. A brochure site and a booking platform are different species. Send us a brief or spend thirty minutes on a call, and we'll come back with a real number and what drives it.
- Agent-driven buying is still developing. We can plan for clear semantics, appropriate structured data and documented APIs where they are useful. The scope, safeguards and cost depend on what you want an agent to do; neither discoverability nor recommendations can be guaranteed.
Tell us what you're trying to build
Thirty minutes with someone who'll actually be involved in building it. We'll tell you what we'd do, roughly what it costs, and whether you should build it at all.
No sales engineer. No discovery phase invoice before you've decided anything.