FILE 04 — CUSTOM SOFTWARE SERVICE / 3S · SCALE

Enterprise software, without being an enterprise.

The brief

When off-the-shelf SaaS stops fitting how your business runs, the answer usually isn't a twelfth tool. It's software built around your operation. We build it for one business at a time, which means you and not a startup trying to launch a product. Builds start at $7,500, most land between $15k and $60k, soft-capped around $250k.

CUSTOM SOFTWARE · BUILT TO YOUR OPERATION · NOT A TEMPLATE
Starts at
$7,500 typical $15–60k
YOU OWN THE CODE SENIOR TEAM ONLY FIXED SCOPE FIXED PRICE NO OFFSHORE JUNIORS NO DISCOVERY-PHASE-AS-QUOTE SHIP EVERY TWO WEEKS BUILT TO YOUR SHAPE NOT A TEMPLATE YOU OWN THE CODE SENIOR TEAM ONLY FIXED SCOPE FIXED PRICE NO OFFSHORE JUNIORS NO DISCOVERY-PHASE-AS-QUOTE SHIP EVERY TWO WEEKS BUILT TO YOUR SHAPE NOT A TEMPLATE
§ 01 / THE SAAS CEILING

The stack that got you
to a million in revenue
is holding you back from ten.

Six signs your off-the-shelf software has quietly become the most expensive thing you own. Most owners spot four of these before they finish reading.

A SaaS is built for the median of its market — the company that's good for one seat, one workflow, one quarterly invoice.

You are no longer that company.

SIX SIGNS YOU'VE OUTGROWN IT
— Symptoms —
  • 01 You have a department whose job is, essentially, making the SaaS work.
  • 02 The reports that matter live in a spreadsheet someone exports every Monday — because the tool can't quite produce them.
  • 03 Onboarding a new hire takes two weeks, because there are nine tools and the instructions live in one person's head.
  • 04 Every quarter, you pay more for seats. Every quarter, you get less of your team's time back.
  • 05 You've heard "we'll add that to the roadmap" so many times it's a punchline internally.
  • 06 The one thing that makes you different from your competitors is the one thing your software has no field for.
§ 02 / THE THREE-TIER MARKET

Custom software
used to be a Fortune 500 luxury.
Not anymore.

For a long time there were two options: be Walmart and build your own, or be everybody else and rent. We work in the third tier, for the businesses too small to staff an engineering team and too big to keep renting software that doesn't fit.

TIER 01

The Fortune 500

How big companies have always done it

Builds it
In-house engineering team
Pays
$2M+ /yr engineering payroll
Time to v1
12–24 months
Ownership
Internal · all source code
Fits operation
Yes — built around it
You qualify if
You are Walmart, Delta, JPMorgan…
TIER 02

Today (without us)

What you're running on right now

Builds it
Nobody. You rent eleven tools.
Pays
$20–120k /yr in SaaS · plus the leaks
Time to v1
"It works… mostly. Since 2019."
Ownership
None. Renting forever.
Fits operation
You bent your operation to fit it
You qualify if
You exist
TIER 03

Today — with us

Custom, without the engineering department

Builds it
Vynxlabs · senior team, no juniors
Pays
Fixed-scope build · $7.5k–$250k
Time to v1
2–10 weeks (most)
Ownership
Yours · full source + repo
Fits operation
Built around how you actually work
You qualify if
Real ops · SaaS stopped fitting

The Fortune 500 figured this out forty years ago: your software should fit your business, not the other way around. The only thing that's changed is that it doesn't take a Fortune-500 budget anymore.

§ 03 / WHAT WE ACTUALLY BUILD

Six shapes
the work usually arrives in.

Most projects sit in one or two of these. Occasionally a project starts in one box and turns out to live in a different one entirely, which is exactly what the audit is for.

— 01 —

Internal operations apps

Dispatch boards, route planners, inventory, scheduling. The back-of-house software the SaaS aisle almost built for you, then stopped an inch short.

Dispatch · Inventory · Field ops
— 02 —

Customer-facing portals

Client logins, project status, billing, document signing — branded as you, integrated with what you already run, not a Frankenstein of vendor logos.

Client portal · Booking · Self-serve
— 03 —

Workflow & process automation

The steps your team does by hand because no single tool covers the whole path. We map how the work actually moves, then automate it.

Approvals · Routing · Hand-offs
— 04 —

Reporting & dashboards

The numbers an owner actually needs, on one screen, pulled from every system you already pay for. Monday's export ritual can end.

Ops · Finance · Sales
— 05 —

Integration & glue layers

The bridge between systems that should have been talking years ago — CRM to ERP, calendars to dispatch, accounting to ops — so the numbers stop disagreeing with each other.

CRM ↔ ERP · API · Webhooks
— 06 —

AI-native internal tools

Software that uses your data and sounds like you: call summaries that route themselves, intake forms that sort themselves, agents that write the first draft your team then rewrites.

Agents · Summarization · Drafts
§ 04 / HOW WE BUILD

Five phases, and none of them
are a discovery phase in disguise.

This is what a real build looks like. You get the cost of each phase before it starts, and whatever comes out of a phase is yours whether or not you do the next one with us.

01
AUDIT

A week with your operation.

Before we draw anything, we sit with your team — sales, ops, finance — and watch how the work actually moves. Where the SaaS is winning, where it's leaking, what gets done in spreadsheets at 11pm.

Deliverable Operations map · System inventory · Build/buy recommendation
02
SCOPE

One opinionated proposal.

Not three watered-down options. One recommendation, scoped, priced, and timed — with a clear line between what we're building from scratch and what we're integrating.

Deliverable Fixed scope · Fixed price · Fixed timeline
03
BUILD

Senior engineers, demos every two weeks.

No offshore junior team, and no "discovery phase" that's secretly a second quote. We ship working software every two weeks so you can use it and tell us what's wrong while it's still cheap to change.

Deliverable Working software every 2 weeks · You can break it
04
SHIP

Migration, training, handover.

We migrate your data, train your team in plain English, and document the system for whoever touches it next — written on the assumption that it won't be us.

Deliverable Source code · Docs · 30-day hypercare
05
STAY

Stick around, or don't.

An optional retainer for changes, new modules, and the inevitable third question that shows up a month after the first two got answered. Cancel whenever. The code is yours either way.

Deliverable Retainer or pay-as-you-go · You own the repo

The numbers,
on the page.

Nobody here is going to make you book a call to find out what something costs. Builds start at $7,500, most projects land between $15k and $60k, and we've soft-capped ourselves around $250k. Past that you're describing a SaaS product, which is a different conversation. Every quote is fixed against a fixed scope, so there's no hourly bill quietly doubling because somebody misjudged week four.

— 01 / Audit — The blunt audit · always
Free 45 min

We sit with your operation, map your stack, and tell you straight whether a custom build is worth the money. Plenty of these end with "go fix how your current CRM is configured and call us in a year."

— 02 / Build · starter — Single workflow · starts at
$7,500 one-time

One focused tool or workflow, 2–4 weeks. The smallest scope worth doing: useful from week one, source in a repo you own, full handover.

— 03 / Build · typical — Department-level · most projects
$15–60k one-time

Multi-workflow internal tool, customer portal, or operations app. 4–10 weeks. Where most projects land. Working software every two weeks, source in your repo.

— 04 / Build · ambitious — Phased · soft-capped
Up to $250k phased

Multi-system replacement, deep integrations, AI-native components. Broken into release-shipping phases. Soft-capped here on purpose — past $250k you're really asking for a SaaS product, and that's not what we build.

Book a blunt audit Call (208) 361·0360 Fixed scope · Fixed price · You own the code
§ 05 / READ THIS BEFORE YOU REACH OUT WARNING · OPINIONATED

This is not the build for you if —

— 01 —
You want us to build your SaaS product to sell. We build software for one business — yours. Not multi-tenant platforms for someone else's customers. Past about $250k in scope, that's the conversation you're really having — and it's not ours.
— 02 —
You're pre-revenue or pre-customer. Custom software makes a working operation faster; it can't invent one. Go get your first customers, then come back.
— 03 —
Your problem is "we need a CRM." That's a SaaS problem, not a software problem. Try Operations Hub instead.
— 04 —
You want a "quick MVP" you can show investors. We don't build pitch decks dressed as software.
— 05 —
You want the cheapest team you can find. There's a shop that'll quote $40/hr, and we'll probably meet you again in nine months, rebuilding it.
— 06 —
You want software, but you don't want to change any part of how you currently work. Something has to move, and it won't always be the code.

If any of those is you — no hard feelings, and we'll tell you on the call instead of selling you anyway.

If none of those is you → talk to us
§ 06 / HONEST ANSWERS

Questions we
actually get.

Plain English. If yours isn't here, the audit call is free.

01 / How is this different from hiring a freelancer or an offshore shop? +
On a slide, the work looks identical. What you're actually buying is a senior team that's shipped systems like yours before, in your timezone, who'll read your operation, argue with you about a bad idea, and still answer when something breaks at 4pm on a Friday. The cheap version tends to come back around eighteen months later, as a rebuild.
02 / What's the floor? Who is this actually for? +
Builds start at $7,500 and most projects land between $15k and $60k. The audience is an individual business that's outgrown SaaS configuration and needs software shaped around how it actually runs — not a startup looking for a software shop to build a SaaS product. If you have customers and the off-the-shelf tools have started costing you more than they save, the math works.
03 / How much does it cost? +
Builds start at $7,500, most projects land between $15k and $60k, and we've soft-capped ourselves around $250k. Past that you're describing a SaaS product, which is a different game and not ours. Every quote is fixed against a fixed scope, so there's no hourly bill quietly doubling because somebody misjudged week four.
04 / How long does it take? +
Starter builds ship in 2–4 weeks. Department-level systems get a working v1 in 4–10 weeks. We demo every two weeks, so you're clicking around in real software by week two instead of waiting six months for a reveal. Anything bigger gets split into phases with actual releases between them.
05 / Who owns the code? +
You do. Full source, full repo, day one. We push to a repo you own, on infrastructure you own, documented for an engineer who isn't us. If you ever fire us, you leave with everything we built and none of the usual "well, we'd have to rebuild it."
06 / Will it integrate with what we already use? +
That's most of the job, honestly. We start by mapping every system you already pay for — CRM, accounting, dispatch, calendars, the spreadsheet somebody keeps calling "the database" — and then the build either replaces them or talks to them properly. Adding a twelfth disconnected thing would defeat the whole exercise.
07 / What happens after launch? +
You can take the code and walk. Most people don't, because operations keep changing and somebody has to change the software with them. There's an optional retainer for that, or pay-as-you-go when it's occasional. Neither one is a condition of keeping what you paid for.
§ 07 / NEXT STEP

One conversation from software that fits.

Forty-five minutes. We'll map your stack, find where it's leaking, and tell you whether a custom build is the right call right now or whether something much cheaper fixes it. Plenty of these end with the cheaper answer.

Book a blunt audit Call (208) 361·0360
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