WEB AND MOBILE DEVELOPMENT BOUTIQUE STUDIO

Digital products, delivered by humans

We’re a talented and diverse team of entrepreneurs, project managers, designers, testers and engineers sweating the details to passionately design, build and ship digital projects. We’re not your “contractors” or “resources” — we’re your partners to deliver ROI-driven, thoughtful and robust products that materialize your vision.

working with entrepreneurs, startups as well as these slightly bigger companies
Our ultimate goal is to help people build the technology they need to be successful and improve their businesses.

Entrepreneurs

We help great people with solid ideas refine, visualize and eventually build and launch them. We’ve worked with young ambitious entrepreneurs as well as with seasoned professionals looking to kickstart a side-gig or a new career.

just like Mike Wong

Busy Managers

We get it. There is a ton happening. We’ve had the back of countless companies over the years — be it in developing automation to improve processes, fast-tracking the development of features or entire products or giving them the extra capacity they needed.

just like Peter Jensen

Enterprise Heroes

We know navigating enterprise environments takes a special kind of “skill”. We help entrepreneurial leaders within big organizations launch digital products with startup agility, creating measurable outcomes and internal acknowledgment. 

just like Francesca Roth

We don’t do “web development” or “mobile development” — these are nothing but the means to an end. What we actually do is build solutions that unlock value, regardless if you’re an ambitious solo entrepreneur or a flagship Fortune500 organization. Here’s a few things we do:

Complex Corporate Applications

Software
Integration

Web & Mobile
Applications

Payment Method Integration

Complex Robust
Online Stores

Cross-Platform
Products

Launch a side-business

we’ve supported many entrepreneurs (some working at FAANG or at one of the Big 4) leverage their unique business understanding to create a digital product from scratch by supporting through ideation, spec’ing and actual design and development

Create a tech business as a non-technical person

the vast majority of our clients are non-technical. We work with them to help assess what is the best potential technology (or no-code solution) to execute their vision and then as their trusted advisor and technical partner on while creating and running the business. We let you focus on what you do best.

Spot the inefficiencies and deliver solutions

it’s not that you don’t know what needs to be done. It’s just that there’s lots to do, no time to sit back and think through the problems and opportunities. We get it. We helped others identify these and then build the tech to tackle them.

Scale a team

although this is admittedly not the business we seek the most, we’ve had extremely successful experiences with our engineers or product managers helping internal teams scale to meet peak demand and deliver insanely high quality products.

Build or expand products

we helped companies of all sizes create new venture lines, new functionality for existing products or key integrations that unlocked growth. Our ROI-focused approach makes sure you’re not building tech for the sake of building tech.

Innovate in a big corp

most of our big contracts with the big brands were us knocking on their door with a polished idea for a problem they had and a sketch of a plan on how to make it a reality. We’re able to provide innovators inside bigger organizations with the structure they need to deliver enterprise products at startup speeds (well, within the known limits of the internal bureaucracy :-)).

Sed posuere consectetur est at lobortis. Vestibulum id ligula porta felis euismod semper. Nulla vitae elit libero, a pharetra augue

Jupiter Alexis Customer Success Manager @MulyaJaya

Donec ullamcorper nulla non metus auctor fringilla. Praesent commodo cursus magna, vel scelerisque nisl consectetur et.

Alex Johnson Marketing Specialist Corona Covid

Vivamus sagittis lacus vel augue laoreet rutrum faucibus dolor auctor. Cras justo odio, dapibus ac facilisis in, egestas eget quam.

Marc Leopard CEO Maju Mundur Inc

    At the end of the day, there’s thousands of mobile/web development companies out there. Picking one is a mix of credentials, availability and … chemistry. 🙂 Everyone will tell you their team is the best around. We’re probably not. But we are, however, better than most because we’re a unique mix of people that work hard, everyday, to be the best. We match a deep business understanding with extensive technical expertise. We care. Deeply. We don’t deliver code, we deliver a solution to a problem or a way to do something better. We make mistakes. And then we show up, fix it, learn and try not to repeat them.

    We focus on ROI

    we don’t do things just for the sake of it

    Quality First

    Expect test-driven development, manual and automatic QA and adherence to best practices.

    Competitive Pricing

    we price on value fairly. We build efficiencies and price accordingly.

    Deadlines Matter

    we set ourselves deadlines and pay penalties when we run late.

    Advisory

    we don’t just code, we operate as a technical and strategic advisor, providing recommendations on the best way to get things done.

    Happy to chat.

    We're here. We're happy to chat. Also, some people say we're cool to have a beer with.

    Case Studies

    How BlueGlass partnered with ColorElephant to deliver a world-class website with powerful visual editing in a headless implementation to one of Switzerland’s leading brands, Rivella.

    BOBJ – Data Model Explained

    BOBJ – Data Model Explained

    Choosing the data model for a project requires an extended conversation about the project itself. Its plans, goals and dreams. What does the project hope to be? It should not be a “choose your database and then fit your model”. You don’t buy a Ferrari and then see how much lumber you can fit on top: you choose the car for the purpose that you need it for.

    CEO = Chief Enabler Officer

    CEO = Chief Enabler Officer

    As a Founder/CEO of a small (albeit growing) tech company one of my biggest issues — to which I’ve not been able to find a solution still — is time management. I end up taking up a lot of work (some of which I probably shouldn’t) and between financials, client management, product development, roadmap structuring, hiring, and the dozen other tasks I assign myself to, I barely have time to do any of it timely and effectively — let alone spare some time to myself.

    CTO As a Service

    Many of the founders we work with don’t have a technical background. In the crucial early days of creating their new digital products, they aren’t yet at a stage where hiring a team, namely a CTO, makes sense. Given our deep knowledge of the product (that in many cases we developed) and of their business (gained during the discovery stages), we work as their trusted technical partners and as an extension of their teams, as their CTO. This helps them gain confidence in tech decisions, clarify questions with partners and get the technical juice required to prove the technology is worth of customer trust or VC bet.

    Some-Code

    We’ve helped our clients leverage existing  technology and SaaS products to build products or improve processes through low or minimal coding. We call it “Some code”. See a blog post here.

    Team Augmentation

    Although this is the business we seek out the least, we’ve been successful at lending some of our talent to companies of all sizes to augment their teams during peak needs. We like to think of those engagements as 3-12 months and feel that if you’re going to need the developer for longer, you might need to hire someone. We can give you a few tips on that as well. 

    We understand that at some point products will most likely need a rebuild but we never throw-away MVPs as we believe; that’s a waste of money. Instead, we like to think of these as building blocks. Although you can keep building you don’t need to trash everything done before.

    MVP Creation

    We work with entrepreneurs to materialize their vision. Our typical entrepreneur works at one of the FAANG or Big 4 consulting firms and has solid business and industry experience but isn’t (in many cases) technical. We work as their partner to help materialize their vision and apply their business acumen into a solid, future-proof, digital product. We don’t like MVPs and like to think of them as SLCs instead. But we help entrepreneurs balance the needs of their product and their ambitions with the pragmatism of building and launching a product that can get market validation. 

    We understand that at some point products will most likely need a rebuild but we never throw-away MVPs as we believe; that’s a waste of money. Instead, we like to think of these as building blocks. Although you can keep building you don’t need to trash everything done before.

    Design Sprint

    Similarly to the above, we’ve run many design sprints in the past helping people navigate through the needs of the product, the audience and what it would eventually look like. 

    Digital Product Strategy

    We’ve helped countless entrepreneurs go from “rough sketch of an idea” to an “actual product”. Sometimes; we end up advising them against building something from scratch and suggest they leverage no-code (or some-code) to build these instead. We work as a trusted technical partner, a CTO of sorts and help them structure their needs and navigate sometimes-complex technical questions. 

    Mobile Development

    We can build native applications or hybrid (cross-platform) ones. This depends on your needs and we’re happy to advise on that as well. In either case we have the technical expertise in-house to build these applications, test them across different devices and connect them to backend services.

    Web Development

    Our team of backend and frontend engineers (with solid backgrounds and experience in real-world applications) work together to build test-driven applications that either we designed or you brought to us. We’re able to support a variety of programming languages and frameworks and have built applications that have successfully processed hundreds of millions of processes every day. We’re able to offer competitive rates enclosed in a process designed for success. 

    Mobile & Web UI/UX

    Our experienced design team is able to help you think strategically through a given need and build a mobile or web product that satisfies the business and users needs from sketches to wireframes, designs and static prototypes. We don’t just “paint” an interface but we like to think through it (we all know a pig with fancy lipstick is still a pig). We follow some of the industries best practices (e.g. Norman Nielsen, Baymard Institute) but give room for experimentation and creativity: we call it data-backed creativity. 

    Mobile Applications

    With mobile being “first” for many consumers, the need and appetite for mobile applications has grown tremendously. Sometimes it makes sense to develop native applications, in other cases it’s better to develop hybrid applications and for a lot of businesses, it doesn’t make sense to spend the resources building an installable mobile application, but rather a browser-based PWA that works and behaves just like a normal mobile app but with a myriad of advantages. You have a vision for your mobile application, you have a clear sense of what are the outcomes you want. We work with you, as your technical partner to understand what is the best solution and technology stack for your needs and then to build beautiful, delightful, smooth mobile experiences leveraging UX research and mobile’s best practices.

    SLCs (aka good MVPs)

    We help entrepreneurs — many with a non technical background — in building their first product. We don’t like the concept of MVPs — see here why — but rather prefer to think of these products as SLCs. We work with entrepreneurs as their technical partners (co-founders if you will). We challenge their ideas and learn on their expertise and industry know-how. We help define — through user feedback and research — what is the ideal set of functionality to bring the vision to life and prove the concept. We then build their SLC from the ground up. But rather than building a timed-MVP, we work to develop a solid foundation for a future project. You don’t create a SLC (or MVP) by making the tech poor and weak, you do it by deconstructing the number and complexity of the initial functionality set — it’s harder to explain this to entrepreneurs and so many default to patching things together. But a solid base is the only way you can leverage that SLC to continuously experiment and build — which you surely need as a startup. 

    Digital Products & Applications from Scratch

    We help entrepreneurs — many with a non technical background — in building web and mobile products from scratch. We have entrepreneurs that come to us with clarity and just want to execute… to be honest, we’re not the best at it. We help develop the concept further or just make it more clear for those technically executing it. We then understand how it can be brought to life — what are the steps, the technology, the form it will take. We strategise, wireframe and design the final product and then work to build a SLC version of it that serves as both a fast product to experiment with as well as a solid foundation from where additional features can be developed as needs evolve. These can be web as well as mobile applications. 

    User Experience & Interface Design

    Although most of our UI/UX work is done in the context of building a product end to end, we’ve also provided this service separately. There isn’t a perfect User Interface. Developing effective and delightful web and mobile experiences is synonymous with continuous experimentation. It is a mix of looking at data and drawing conclusions as well as of making assumptions and bets based on existing research and, yes, hunches. When we tackle a redesign project it is much more than just painting something or just about how it looks. It is how it functions, why it works or doesn’t. We work as a team: client, users, designers, project managers, strategists. We have exploratory conversations with users and internal stakeholders, define goals and then wireframe ideas to validate them. We’ll eventually make sure it looks as good as it functions too. In the end you get a homepage or an entire product redesign that won’t be perfect but will be functional, enjoyable to use and damn beautiful. They’ll convert more or simply decrease frustration and increase enjoyment.

    Complex Robust Online Stores

    These are great ways to get started, sometimes a simple pre-built e-commerce site doesn’t have the functionality to achieve the experience you want to create. You may need a far more complex order system for your product or to connect to additional back-end applications to do tasks like inventory syncing, creating custom prices based on account details or to create contracts as part of the automated sales process. You might have subscription needs that current platforms don’t cover. We have extensive experience with e-commerce development from small stores to complex e-commerce applications supporting millions in transactions, integrating with dozens of payment gateways and serving multiple audiences with highly localized offerings. One of the key things we’ve been helping customers with is building stores that focus on conversion through better technology and UX.

    Payment Gateway Integrations

    Data shows an increase in conversions when you provide users with payment methods that meet their needs. This is especially true as you expand abroad, having only Credit Card payment options won’t cut it and you’ll see an increase in abandoned carts. We’ve got extensive experience integrating different payment gateways and methods. Alipay? WePay? iDEAL? Boleto Bancário? Multibanco? Apple Pay? Amazon Pay? Google Pay? We’ve integrated custom online stores and checkout flows with all of these and more! And we’re not saying “integrating” as in “we configured a plugin” but rather we dealt with edge scenarios and complex business cases with specific needs. We can help with the integration as well as, leveraging our experience, in finding the right providers with the lowest rates.

    Software Integration

    Don’t you hate it when you can’t find a Zapier plug-in? Or when you’re doing that manual task 1000x times and just know it can be automated but can’t seem to articulate it or find the right tool to do what needs to get done? We come in at different stages of that process: either by hearing about an internal inefficiency or problem and working to design a solution that meets your needs or by executing a clear software integration you thought of and just need to get done. You have a list of reports you’d like to run, activities you’d like to automate and delays you’d like to take an axe to – let’s work on a fix. We’ve worked with dozens of software integration services – from POS systems, to payment gateways and CRMs all the way to proprietary bank systems.

    Complex Corporate Applications

    Wondering how we got some of our big clients? We went to them with a fresh idea for a problem we knew they had and a clear plan on how to execute it in spite of the internal politics and friction.  We have experience building applications for big enterprises. We’ve helped create entire applications from scratch and internal software (CRM, POS, ERP, HR Management) to meet very specific needs, customized sales leaderboards and much more. The people that buy from us at these companies look for a partner that can help them build sexy products that look like the latest consumer product but provide the functionality, expandability and soundness of what an internal tool needs. We’ve experience in highly regulated industries as well as with complex business cases and needs.