Services / Web apps
Software for the part of your business that runs on spreadsheets.
Custom internal tools, dashboards, booking systems and customer portals, with logins, data and real workflows.
- Best for
- Businesses running a real process through a spreadsheet, a WhatsApp group, or a piece of software that never quite fit.
- What it costs
- From SGD $5,000, fixed against a written scope and agreed before anything starts. Changes after launch are quoted as small fixed pieces of work. There is no retainer.
- How it runs
- Cut down to the smallest version that replaces the spreadsheet, then working software in front of your team every week. No fixed duration is quoted before the process is mapped.
01 / Summary
The short version
There is a point where a spreadsheet stops being a clever workaround and starts being a liability. Usually it is when two people need it at once, or when the one person who understands the formulas goes on leave.
This is the work I did inside a production SaaS platform before going independent: logins, permissions, data models, the reporting layer on top, and the reliability work that keeps it standing when everyone uses it at the same time. The same discipline, at a size that suits a smaller business.
02 / Deliverables
What you get
- 01Data model built around the way your process runs today
- 02User accounts, roles and permissions
- 03The screens your team uses daily, built for speed of entry over visual novelty
- 04Reporting and export, so the data can leave the system when you need it to
- 05Automated tests over the paths where a bug would cost money
- 06Deployment, monitoring, and a written handover of how it all fits together
03 / Process
How it runs
- Step 01
Map the process
I sit with whoever does the work day to day and follow the current process end to end, including the parts that are officially not supposed to happen.
- Step 02
Scope the first version
We cut it down to the smallest thing that replaces the spreadsheet. Everything else goes on a list for later.
- Step 03
Build and review weekly
Working software in front of your team every week. Things that are wrong get found in week two instead of month three.
- Step 04
Deploy and hand over
Live on your infrastructure, in your accounts, documented well enough that another developer could pick it up.
05 / Questions
Common questions
01How is this different from buying off-the-shelf software?
Usually it is not better, and I will say so. If an existing product covers eighty per cent of what you need at a monthly subscription, buy it. Custom software is worth it when your process is genuinely specific, when the per-seat cost of a SaaS product has grown past the cost of building, or when the tools you have tried all force you to work in a way that does not match reality.
02What if we need changes after launch?
You will. Everyone does. The first month of real use always surfaces things no amount of planning finds. I quote changes as small fixed-price pieces of work. No retainer that bills you whether you use it or not.
03Who can maintain this after you are gone?
Any competent developer familiar with TypeScript and React. I build on mainstream, well-documented tools specifically so you are not dependent on me. The code is in your repository with a written handover explaining the architecture and the decisions behind it.
04Can you work with our existing systems?
Usually yes, if they expose an API or a database. Integration work is often the most valuable part: a tool that talks to your accounting or inventory system saves far more time than one more place to type things in twice.