Build something together
Have an idea for software other businesses could use?
People who run a business often see a missing tool years before any software company does. You know the problem from the inside: who it costs, how often it comes up, and what a fix would have to get right. We know how to build software. Sometimes that’s a good partnership.
What it could look like
Every idea is different, so there’s no standard deal. These are the kinds of arrangements we’d be open to talking about.
Built for you
We build the tool for your business, it’s yours, and we can look after it afterward if you want us to. This is ordinary custom work.
Built for you, offered to others
We build the tool for your business, and Porch Labs keeps the right to offer it to other businesses. Because the work has a life beyond you, you pay less for it.
Taken further together
If the idea could become a real product, we talk about building and selling it together, with each of us bringing what we know.
Or not built at all
Some ideas turn out to exist already, or cost more to build than they’d return. Finding that out early is a good result too.
A first conversation
You don’t need a business plan. A few sentences is enough to start.
What helps us understand it
- The problem, in the words you’d use with someone in your trade.
- How you handle it today, and what that costs you in time or money.
- Who else has the same problem, as far as you know.
- Anything you’ve already tried.
What you’ll get from us
- An honest read on whether it’s worth building, and whether we’re the right people to build it.
- Questions we’d want answered before anyone spends money.
- If it makes sense, a proposal for a small first step.
You decide how much detail to share. If you’d like a confidentiality agreement before going into specifics, ask and we’ll talk about it.
Said plainly
Getting in touch, sharing an idea or talking it through doesn’t create a partnership, give either of us any rights in the idea, or commit either of us to anything. Ownership, licensing, maintenance, money and every other term would be worked out together and set out in a separate written agreement before any work starts.
Most ideas we hear won’t become products. That’s normal, and it doesn’t mean the conversation was wasted. Plenty of them turn into a smaller, simpler fix for the person who brought them.
More to read
- Your marketing package, line by line
- Software you can stop paying for
- Seasonal business, year-round bills
- Your hours are wrong somewhere
- When customers ask an AI
- The spreadsheet nobody’s allowed to touch
- The thing you type twice
- You can always leave
- What AI is good for, and where we’d keep it out
- How working with us goes
- What we can help with
- Who we are
- Help and how-tos
Tell us about your idea
A few sentences about the problem is plenty. We’ll reply with what we think, including if we think it isn’t for us.