From a one-line script to a whole platform: what you can actually ask for

A lot of people never ask, because they assume the answer is no.

They have a Python script that needs one change and they think it is too small to bother anyone with. Or they have an idea for a mobile app and assume they need to raise money first. Or they have a WordPress site doing something odd and they only know agencies who want to rebuild the whole thing.

So, plainly: any software work. Here is what that means in practice.

Something small, on software you already have#

The most common request, and the one most companies quietly avoid because it is not worth their sales process.

• A new field on a form, and everywhere that field then needs to appear
• A report or export that finance keeps asking for and nobody has built
• A change to how something calculates: tax, discounts, shipping bands, commission
• Text, layout or branding changes nobody left you a way to edit
• A bug that has been on the list for a year because it is nobody's job

None of these are too small. Small jobs are the business model rather than a favour, which is why they are priced individually and you approve each one before it starts.

A script, a tool, or a bit of automation#

Work that never becomes a product but saves somebody hours every week.

• A Python or PHP script that takes one file and produces another
• Something that runs on a schedule: a nightly import, a weekly report, a reminder
• Moving data out of one system and into another, once or repeatedly
• A small internal tool so a team stops keeping the real process in a spreadsheet

If you have a person doing a mechanical thing every Monday morning, that is usually a couple of days of work and then never again.

A website, or a change to one#

• A new site, built rather than assembled from a theme
• A change to an existing one, including WordPress, and including WordPress that has been customised past the point where the original developer wanted to know
• An e-commerce site, or a change to a checkout that is losing you orders
• Performance work when pages are slow and you do not know why

A mobile app#

• An app from an idea, on iOS, Android, or both
• Changes to an app you already have, including one somebody else built
• Getting an app through App Store review when it keeps being rejected

An integration between two systems#

Usually the highest-value thing on this list, because it removes manual work permanently.

• Your website talking to your accounting system
• Your CRM talking to your order system
• Anything involving an API somebody else provides: payments, couriers, suppliers, marketplaces
• Getting data into a warehouse or dashboard so somebody can actually see the business

A full bespoke system#

When off-the-shelf genuinely does not fit and you have stopped pretending it does.

• A system built around how your business actually works, not how a product assumed it does
• Replacing a spreadsheet that six people depend on and one person understands
• A platform with users, permissions, reporting and the boring parts done properly

These start with a written specification before anyone writes code, because the expensive mistakes in bespoke software are all made in the first fortnight.

Software somebody else built#

• Taking over a codebase when the original developer has moved on
• Finishing something that stalled halfway
• Working out what you actually have, when nobody can tell you

We do a lot of this, and it is where the rescue work sits. It is a specialism rather than the whole business, but if that is your situation it is worth knowing it is normal and usually recoverable.

What we would turn down#

Being straight about this makes the rest believable.

• A full-time developer embedded in your team. If you need someone at your stand-up every morning for a year, hire a person. Buying jobs from a supplier is the wrong shape for that.
• Twenty-four hour emergency cover. If your system cannot be down at 4am, you need a support contract, which is a different arrangement.
• Work where you would not own the result. We insist the code is yours, so if a project requires otherwise it is not for us.
• Rebuilding something that does not need rebuilding. If the honest answer is that your existing system is fine and you need one change, we will say so.

The part that needs a developer#

You can usually tell whether a job is big or small. What is harder from the outside is knowing what it touches: whether the small change is genuinely small, or whether it lands in four places you cannot see. That is the part worth handing over.

Tell us what you need and you will get a fixed price back, without a call and without committing to anything.

Where to start#

If you have something specific, describe it in a sentence or two and we will price it. If you are earlier than that and still working out what you need, say that instead; working out the shape of the job is itself a piece of work we do.

We take on the jobs other companies turn away: other people's code, half-finished projects, one small change. There is no contract, no retainer and no minimum, and you own everything we write.