Software that puts theuser first.
Custom web apps, mobile apps, AI, chatbots, automations and the systems that run behind them. We start where most shops skip — understanding the business and the person who’ll use the thing — then design and engineer from there. Research and UX writing first, React and infrastructure second. We sweat the word that goes on the button before we ship the button.
We’re consultants who happen to code.
Our take
Custom software fails when it’s built to a spec instead of to a user. So before we write code, we do the unglamorous work: understand the business, research the product and the people who’ll use it, study the competition, and map the flows. Then theUX writing — because the word on a button is a design decision, not a label we add at the end. Only after that do we build, in React, on infrastructure we run ourselves. The same discipline that makes a store convert makes an app worth opening twice: design to the human, measure what they do, keep tightening.
Design that feels inevitable.
User-centric design is the centre of everything here — research, flows, interface and thewords in it. By the time a product ships, using it should feel obvious.
- Product researchWho the user is, what job they’re hiring the product for, and where today’s experience fails them. The brief comes out of evidence, not assumptions.
- Design research & competitive analysisWe study how the best in your category solve the problem — and where they leave a gap we can take. Patterns worth keeping, conventions worth breaking.
- UX writingIf we’re designing a button, we decide the exact word that goes on it. Microcopy, empty states, errors, confirmations — the language that carries the user through.
- Flows & design systemsWireframes to high-fidelity to a reusable system — so the product stays coherent as it grows, and engineering builds from one source of truth.
Pretty isn’t the goal — obvious is. We’ll argue for the plainer screen and the clearer word every time, because that’s what users reward. Design that draws attention to itself is usually getting in the way.
Software shaped to your business.
Dashboards, portals, internal tools, SaaS — when off-the-shelf won’t fit how you actually run, we build the web app that does. React on the front, real infrastructure behind.
- Apps & platformsCustomer portals, admin dashboards, internal tools, marketplaces and full SaaS products — built in React and Next.js around your real workflow.
- Backend & dataNode.js, NestJS and Express services — and PHP or Python where it fits — over Postgres, MySQL or MongoDB, with clean REST and GraphQL APIs. The engine that holds your logic, your data and your integrations together.
- Hosting, done rightWe host and configure on AWS and Vercel — set up for speed, scale and uptime, not left to a default.
- Cron jobs & scheduled workThe background jobs that quietly run the business — syncs, reports, reminders, clean-ups — scheduled, monitored and reliable, not a script someone forgets to run.
Custom software is a commitment — it has to be built well and kept running. We architect it to last and we stay on to run it, because an app nobody maintains is a liability, not an asset.
In your customer’s pocket.
iOS and Android apps — native and cross-platform — built with the same user-first discipline, and wired to the same systems your store and back office already run on.
- Native & cross-platformReact Native and Expo for speed across both platforms; native Swift or Kotlin when the product needs it. We pick by the brief, not the trend.
- Connected to the storeAn app beside your ecommerce store, sharing one inventory and one database — sell on web and in-app off a single source of truth.
- Loyalty, push & bookingCompanion apps for loyalty, notifications, bookings and accounts — the reasons a customer keeps your icon on their home screen.
Not every business needs an app — a great mobile web experience often beats one nobody downloads. We’ll say so. When an app does earn its place, we build it to be opened twice.
AI that actually sells.
Our headline build: a WhatsApp AI that runs your chat for you — answering, selling and upselling — trained on your own products, turning conversations into orders while you sleep.
- WhatsApp AIHand WhatsApp to an AI that knows your catalogue. It answers questions, recommends, handles objections and upsells — intelligent selling in the channel your customers already live in.
- Trained on your productsPoint the engine at your products and policies and it speaks for your brand — so any visitor can be guided to the right thing and converted, not left on read.
- RAG, agents & classifiersRetrieval-augmented chat, task agents, routing and classification — across OpenAI, Anthropic and Gemini, or local models when data has to stay home.
- Python & the ML stackThe AI work runs on Python — LangChain and LlamaIndex for orchestration, FastAPI for serving, embeddings and vector databases for retrieval, and Hugging Face models where a custom or local model beats an API.
- Built into the productOn-site assistants, support copilots and back-office AI wired into the app and the data — built in, not a widget bolted on.
An AI that doesn’t know your products is just a chatbot that annoys people. The value is in the training and the wiring — which is the part we obsess over, and the part most “AI” add-ons skip.
Custom software, faster and cheaper.
We’re big fans of AI coding — ‘vibe coding’ done properly. It lets us build small, bespoke software fast and affordably, with senior developers supervising every line that ships.
- Fast & affordableAI coding collapses the cost of bespoke software. The tool that used to be ‘not worth building’ is now an afternoon’s work — so you actually get it, at a price that makes sense.
- Senior-supervisedAI writes fast; it doesn’t own the outcome. Every build is architected, reviewed and tested by senior developers — the speed goes up, the standards don’t come down.
- Live product recolouringInstead of shooting every product in every colour, we built a tool where a shopper clicks a colour and the product re-renders in it, live on the page — powered by Gemini image generation. One store photo, every colour, no reshoot.
- Small tools, one jobA daily weather-fetch utility we built for Sierra; little single-purpose tools wired to do one thing well. We drop pockets of the newest AI into the software we ship — features that draw real compliments from clients and users.
AI coding is a tool, not a miracle — left unsupervised, it ships confident nonsense. Our edge is the senior eye on top, and spotting where a small AI tool creates delight before anyone thinks to ask for it.
Let the boring parts run themselves.
We have automation engineers on the team whose whole job is removing manual work — and we’ve automated whole stores into quiet profit for clients who used to do it all by hand.
- Store & ops automationOrder routing, stock syncs, pricing updates, supplier feeds, fulfilment triggers — the repetitive work that eats margin, handed to software that doesn’t tire.
- Cron jobs & pipelinesScheduled jobs and data pipelines that run on time, every time — reports, reconciliations, exports and clean-ups, monitored so you know they ran.
- Marketing automationLifecycle flows, audience syncs and the plumbing between your store, CRM and ad platforms — so the right message fires without anyone pressing send.
- AI in the loopWhere it helps, an AI step inside the automation — sorting, drafting, deciding — so the workflow gets smarter, not just faster.
Automation pays back fast, but only if it’s built on solid data and watched. We instrument it so a silent failure doesn’t quietly cost you for a month — the point is fewer surprises, not more.
The engine behind the business.
When the software that runs your operation has to fit you exactly, we build it — order systems, ERPs, CRMs and chatbots shaped to your process, not bent around someone else’s.
- Order-taking systemsCustom software for taking and managing orders across channels — built around how your team actually sells and fulfils, online and off.
- ERP & CRMInventory, operations and customer systems custom-built when off-the-shelf can’t fit the ops — one place where the business actually runs.
- Chatbots that close the loopWhatsApp, Instagram and on-site assistants tied back to the CRM — so a conversation becomes a record, a task and, often, a sale.
Proof we ship our own software
Zento is custom software we built and run ourselves — an order and offline-conversion app that feeds real sales back to the ad platforms. It’s how we know this works: we don’t just build systems for clients, we run our own in production.
The same engineering goes into the order systems, ERPs and CRMs we build for you.
zentodash.comWhat we actually build with.
Custom means React, every time — on infrastructure we configure and run, with the AI and automation layered in where they earn their place.
- FrontendReact · Next.js · React Native · Expo · Vue · JavaScript · TypeScript · Tailwind · Liquid — one component philosophy from web to mobile.
- Backend & dataNode.js · NestJS · Express · PHP · Python · Postgres · MySQL · MongoDB · Supabase · Redis · REST & GraphQL — the logic and data behind the interface.
- Hosting & opsAWS (RDS · CloudFront · Lambda) · Vercel · Docker · GitHub Actions · CI/CD · cron jobs · monitoring — configured, deployed and kept running.
- AI & automationPython · OpenAI · Anthropic · Gemini · LangChain · LlamaIndex · FastAPI · RAG & vector DBs · embeddings · Hugging Face · WhatsApp API · n8n — the intelligence and the plumbing that removes manual work.
Proof, not promises.
Custom builds from the library — apps, systems and automations, tagged to this discipline. Most cross into Grow and Systems too.
Software is one half.
We build the product; these get it found, fill it with customers, and turn more of them into revenue. One team across all of it.
Tell us what you want it to do. We’ll design it around the people who’ll use it.
An app, an automation, an AI that sells on WhatsApp, or the system that runs it all — brief us in a paragraph and the first reply comes from a partner, not a form.