What I actually build
Custom software isn't what you think it is. It's probably within reach.
Custom software. Two words that probably conjure a specific image: a six-month agency engagement, a hundred-thousand-dollar statement of work, a team of ten developers, a project that takes forever and comes back wrong.
That image isn't inaccurate — it describes how most custom software has been sold for most of the industry's history. It's just no longer the only option. Something has changed in the last two years that makes this conversation worth having differently than it would have been before.
The spectrum
Business software has always existed on a spectrum from cheap-and-generic to expensive-and-purpose-built. The tradeoff at every tier is the same: lower price means fitting your business to the software's assumptions. Higher price means software that fits your business.
At the generic end: Squarespace, QuickBooks, Mailchimp, Shopify. Sign up, configure, use it. Fast to start. Works well when your business happens to be shaped like what the software assumes. Becomes quietly painful when it isn't.
In the middle: Salesforce, Airtable, HubSpot, Monday. More flexible — a whole profession exists around configuring Salesforce. But still a product with a ceiling. You will eventually hit something the platform didn't anticipate, and your options at that point are bad.
At the custom end: agencies and in-house engineering teams. Built exactly for your business. Historically priced at $50K and up, with timelines to match. Reserved for companies that could afford it.
For most small businesses, the answer has always been: accept the friction. Use the SaaS that almost fits. Patch the gap with spreadsheets. Live with it.
What changed
The cost-per-unit-of-output for custom software development has dropped by roughly 5–10x in the last two years. AI tooling has changed what one experienced engineer can accomplish working alone.
Work that used to require a team of four and a six-month timeline can often be delivered in weeks now. Not by cutting corners — by using tools that have fundamentally changed what's possible for one person who knows how to use them.
This doesn't mean all software is cheap now. It means that a specific tier of project — purpose-built for a specific operational need, at small-to-medium business scale — has become genuinely accessible to buyers who were previously told to just use Shopify.
The actual competition for custom software at this tier isn't other developers. It's the buyer's assumption that custom software isn't for them. That assumption is now wrong.
What I actually build
[This section is a draft placeholder. Expand with specific project examples and concrete descriptions of each type.]
The work falls into a few recurring patterns:
Custom web applications. Purpose-built tools designed around how your business actually operates. Not generic SaaS bent to fit a workflow it wasn't designed for. This might be an order management system, a customer portal, a staff-facing operations tool, or something that doesn't map cleanly onto any existing product category.
Workflow automation. The thing you do by hand every week — reconciling spreadsheets, copying data between systems, sending follow-up emails — turned into something that happens automatically. This is often the highest-leverage work: hours saved weekly, permanently.
Data integrations. Connecting the tools you already use. Getting your CRM to talk to your billing system. Getting your e-commerce store to sync with your fulfillment operation. Replacing three tools that don't talk to each other with one system that does everything.
Dashboards and reporting. Seeing your business clearly. Real-time data. The metrics you care about, updated automatically, without asking anyone to pull a report.
Progressive web apps. Mobile-ready applications that install on any device without going through an app store. Fast, works offline, available on whatever device your staff or customers are using.
AI-augmented features. Practical AI integration — where it saves genuine time, not as a gimmick. Document processing, automated categorization, intelligent search. Built into your workflow, not bolted on the side.
What I don't build
[Placeholder — reference the fit section and be honest about what's out of scope.]
Standard five-page brochure sites — that's Squarespace, and Squarespace is the right answer. Venture-backed product startups — different model entirely. Projects requiring deep compliance infrastructure (HIPAA, PCI at scale) where solo delivery isn't the right risk profile.
The question worth asking
The question isn't whether custom software is for you. The question is whether the friction of your current software is costing you more than it would cost to fix it.
For small businesses, the answer is more often yes than people expect — and the gap between "what it actually costs now" and "what they assumed it would cost" is usually why they've waited this long to ask.