A lot of SMEs and non-profits struggle with technology. The “brochure” part of your website might be mostly accurate in describing what you do, but behind the scenes, it’s not uncommon for functionality and usability to be a pain point.

Maybe you want to start using AI but don’t know where to start. Maybe your website doesn’t collect payments or donations very well. Maybe your back-end systems rely a lot more on, ahem, Excel than they should. These sorts of issues can cause your whole organisation to struggle doing the valuable work that you do.

Our small team, led by Charles de Bueger, have worked as IT professionals for over 20 years:

• We understand the time and budgetary constraints you are under. i.e. no fat agency fees
• We have broad skills that include long-term IT planning, wrangling databases and APIs, setting up useful AI solutions all the way down to fixing dead links.
• We use an iterative feedback-driven process to diagnose the issues and create a realistic plan to fix your problems and turn new ideas into something that really works.

If you know the jargon, our normal tech stacks include Rails, Python, PHP, JavaScript – and, of course, WordPress. But since communication is so important, our main tool is actually… English.

Making money from academic software

An academic non-profit were launching a new online service for those doing research on the Qur’an. They needed someone to help them turn an academic project into a commercial product.

• We integrated their service with Stripe so that customers could buy repeating monthly or annual subscriptions – with special seasonal pricing when required.
• To win the business of higher paying institutional customers, we implemented Single Sign On (SSO) solutions.
• When high hosting fees took their toll, we researched and then migrated the service to a new provider, saving almost 90% of hosting costs with no drop in performance or downtime.

Tech used: Bare metal PHP, LESS, Codeception automated tests, Docker, JavaScript with Stripe, Scout and Shibboleth, Open Athens (SSO) integrations.

Better performance with way more functionality for a niche broadcaster

Our client needed to rebuild their slow and poorly branded website. Working closely with a product manager and UI designer, we worked together to identify the technologies that would suit them best and totally rebuild their main website.

• We set-up automated imports of complex programme scheduling data into a custom WordPress data schema. WordPress likely wasn’t the best database choice – but made sense in the overall project for the client.
• A combination of clever JavaScript and optimised database calls in a custom WordPress plugin enabled us to put together an interactive scheduling page allowing view to search and browse for programmes.
• Users that sign up to watch on-demand video on another platform are automatically registered with this platform with the same Single Sign On login credentials

Tech used: WordPress, AlpineJS, XML Importer, Codeception automated tests, Tailwind, SpinUp, with Hubspot and Auth0 (SSO) integrations

It all starts with questions

• Questions that enable us to understand the problems you are facing today – and those that you might face in the future.
• Questions that reveal what your mission is really about, what success would look like, and what resources are available to fix them.
• And questions that will let us know whether we can actually help you – or whether you’d be better hiring someone else…

Starting with an initial discovery call, if you want to move forwards, we’ll then go deeper into your situation with a paid roadmapping project. Building from your answers in a detailed questionnaire and a meeting with your stakeholders, we’ll come up with a written diagnosis of the problem(s), cause(s), what success would look like, some possible steps and my recommended next steps.

If we think we can implement them, we will include a quote for time and costs which we can talk over, and make an agreement on how to move forwards

While we work together

As the project progresses, you’ll see regular updates and you’ll be required to give feedback on what you see. If the plan needs to change as we (almost always) discover new things about your needs, we can adjust the plan and budget accordingly.

If you already have other IT professionals in place, we’re very happy to work alongside them – but are, of course, able to operate independently.

In order to ensure code quality (which directly affects reliability and long-term maintainability), automated testing is part of almost all the development work we do. It tends to increase the up-front cost (since writing automated tests takes extra time), but in the long-run, you get software that does what it is supposed to. And we don’t get emergency calls at 3am!

Should the project need ongoing maintenance, that can usually be arranged.

Andy Bannister, Qur’an Tools Co-founder (UK/US)
“I had the privilege of working with Charles on developing Qur’an Gateway (QG – although now known as Qur’an Tools) for two years. During those years, Charles helped us improve the UX and UI of the website, streamline functionality across the site, and in particular deploy various technologies to allow both individual and university customers to subscribe and connect to the site. Charles was a delight to work with: professional, efficient, a clear communicator, deadline focussed, and able to work pressure. I would highly recommend him.”

Rob Carter, Independent Developer (Canada)
“I have worked with Charles on a number of projects over the past 10 years for a variety of clients, using a variety of technologies (Rails, Meteor, React, React Native, Git). Charles always delivers clean, well thought-out work and it is obvious that he has a desire to find the best route for the client’s needs and deliver it in a timely manner. I have recommended him many times and will continue to do so as he consistently quickly becomes an asset to any project.”

David Hartnett, Solas CPC (UK)
“Charles worked with Solas over several months to implement a design and functionality overhaul of our WordPress-based website. He was instrumental in solving multiple issues with our hosting provider, making the experience smooth and hassle-free on our end. He was responsive and articulate in communication, which made remote working easy. We continue to keep in touch with Charles for periodic updates and troubleshooting.”

Press contact us, and we’ll be back in touch to work out a time for a short call. If there seems like a match, then we’ll look to book in a longer roadmapping session where we can look at the issues you are facing in much greater detail and work out a plan for the way forward.