A new way to build software

Custom software
built onshore.
Priced for the AI era.

Production-grade software, built onshore by senior engineers using modern AI tools. The economics of custom software just changed, and we price accordingly.

What we build
Internal tools SaaS Customer-facing products AI features Ops platforms Mobile apps

Start your project

Tell us about your idea and we'll get back to you within 24 hours.

No obligation. We'll respond within 24 hours.

"The speed and quality of delivery was genuinely impressive. I can't recommend Launch Assembly highly enough."

Max Gorvel · Founder, Wellplay

"Well done team, you've done a great job in a very tight timeframe."

Alaa Armanyous · Chemist Link

Our difference

Senior engineers ship in days what used to take months.

AI coding tools like Claude Code and Cursor changed what one experienced engineer can get done in a week. That's not a marginal speedup. It's a different cost structure for the same work. Most agencies still bill against the old one.

10×

Productivity gain for senior engineers paired with modern AI coding tools.

~1×

Change in what most agencies charge for the same work.

The alternatives

Four ways businesses build software today. Each with their own trade-offs.

Option 1

Onshore agencies

  • $100k+ to start
  • Hourly billing rewards delay
  • Projects fail due to unforeseen issues being too costly to fix
Option 2

Offshore dev shops

  • Quality is a coin flip
  • Communication and timezone friction
  • You inherit the maintenance debt
Option 3

Off-the-shelf SaaS

  • Never quite fits how you work
  • Can't be commercialised or resold
  • Workarounds become the workflow
Option 4

Vibe coding it yourself

  • Demos that fall over with real users
  • No architecture, no data model
  • Unmaintainable past week one

Each one solves part of the problem. None of them solves all of it. So we built the version that does.

The Launch Assembly approach

What custom software development should actually look like.

A short list of principles we run every project against. If we can't tick all of these, the project isn't worth taking on.

01

Properly engineered software

Real architectural decisions, real data modelling, real system design by people who've shipped production software for years. AI just writes the characters of code; the judgment is human.

02

Built onshore, in your timezone

Same hours, same language, same legal jurisdiction. No 14-hour async loops to clarify a button label. No mystery contractor on the other side of the world.

03

Prices that reflect the new reality

If software is an order of magnitude more efficient to build, the price should reflect that. We pass the savings on instead of pocketing them.

04

Fixed prices, not hourly

Priced against the outcome, not the hours. Hourly billing rewards taking longer, which means our incentives shouldn't point opposite to yours.

05

Scope that flexes within reason

Real projects shift. We absorb small changes inside scope without re-quoting every meeting, and we say so up front when something is genuinely a v2 conversation.

06

Maintenance that isn't a racket

Bug fixes after launch are included for a meaningful window. Optional retainers after that, priced reasonably.

Selected work

Real software, shipped.

All live right now. Click any to see for yourself.

Podseeker

Podseeker

Live · Exited

Podcast intelligence SaaS. Scaled to 1000+ users, then sold.
Hooroo.ai

Hooroo.ai

Live

AI answering service for home service businesses. Handles calls, books jobs.
ScoutUp.ai

ScoutUp.ai

Live

AI phone interviews for high-volume recruitment.
CrossChat AI

CrossChat AI

Live

Multi-model AI chat platform. Compare LLMs side by side.
Wellplay

Wellplay

Live

Marketplace for venues to book and manage live performers.
Who we build for

If you've got a real problem custom software can solve, we should talk.

→Operators stuck on SaaS that almost fits

You're paying for tools that don't quite match how your team works. The workarounds have become the workflow. We build the version that fits.

→Founders shipping a product to customers

You've got a niche, a market, an idea. You need something real in production. Real architecture, real auth, real billing. Not a demo.

→Teams drowning in manual workflows

Spreadsheets, copy-paste between systems, the same form filled in three times. We replace the manual layer with software that runs itself.

→Companies replacing legacy software

Old internal tools held together by one person who left. We rebuild it properly, migrate the data, and hand it back maintainable.

The process

How we run a project from kickoff to launch.

  1. 01

    Discovery

    A real conversation about what you're trying to do, who it's for, and what success looks like. No pressure to commit. We'll tell you if we're not the right fit.

  2. 02

    Proposal

    A detailed scope with a fixed price. You see exactly what you're getting before you sign anything. Deposit kicks the project off.

  3. 03

    Build & deploy

    We build in the open, on a live URL. Push regularly. You can poke at it as it takes shape, not just review a wireframe and wait.

  4. 04

    Feedback & revision

    Real software in front of real users surfaces things wireframes never could. We iterate against actual usage, not hypothetical specs.

  5. 05

    Launch & handover

    Final deploy, documentation, credentials, walkthrough with your team. Bug fixes covered for a meaningful window. Optional retainer if you want ongoing work.

After launch

What happens once it's live.

Most agencies disappear at handover, or charge a fortune to come back. We don't run it that way.

Bug fixes included

If something we built breaks, we fix it. Built into every project, not a separate line item.

Optional retainers

Ongoing improvements, small features, monitoring. Priced honestly, cancellable any time.

Extensions and v2s

Most clients come back to add more. Same team, same codebase, no onboarding tax to start the next phase.

From the blog

Latest thinking.

View all posts →

Your Infrastructure Bill Could Be Drastically Lower

Your app probably needs one server and one database. If your cloud bill has 15 line items, your developer's complexity addiction may be costing you.

Hourly Billing Rewards Inefficiency

Hourly billing rewards agencies for taking longer. AI-driven development has made that model indefensible. Here's why fixed pricing protects you.

The Spirit of the Scope

Software scope documents can't predict everything. The spirit of the scope is how we handle the obvious additions without extra invoices, or broken trust.

Hand-Coding in 2026 Is Professional Negligence

AI coding tools are 10 to 20x faster than hand-coding at equal or better quality. Agencies that haven't adopted them are costing you real money.

Why Software Projects Fail

Software projects fail because course corrections are too expensive to survive. AI-driven development makes those same mistakes fixable in hours, not months.
Simon Thompson
A note from the founder

Hey, I'm Simon.

I've spent years building, launching, and scaling software. My own products, plus other people's. Coaching founders at accelerators, shipping tools used by thousands.

The best software is built around how you actually work, not the other way around. Too many businesses pay for SaaS that almost fits, or lose hours every week to manual processes that should be automated.

Launch Assembly exists because the tools changed and most of the industry hasn't caught up yet. We build software that fits your business properly. Onshore, fixed scope, real engineering.

Common questions.

Internal tools, ops platforms, SaaS replacements, customer-facing products, AI features, mobile apps via Hotwire Native. Most projects fall somewhere in the range a small team could realistically use or ship to customers. If it needs hundreds of engineers and three years, that's not us.
Most agencies haven't restructured around modern AI tooling, so they price like it's still 2022. We're built around it. That changes what's possible inside a fixed scope and a fixed price.
Same timezone, same language, same legal jurisdiction. Senior engineers on the actual build, not coordinating contractors who are coordinating other contractors. The work doesn't get translated through three layers before it lands.
Ruby on Rails, Hotwire, Tailwind, PostgreSQL, deployed on Fly.io. Mobile via Hotwire Native (one codebase, real native apps for iOS and Android). AI features via the Anthropic API. Battle-tested stack we know inside out, which is part of how we move fast.
Yes. CRM, accounting, email, payments, internal APIs, whatever you're already using. We confirm integration scope in the proposal so there are no surprises.
Small changes inside scope are absorbed without re-quoting every meeting. Significant new work is flagged as a v2 conversation up front so you can decide what's worth doing now versus later. Either way, no hourly drift.
Yes, via Hotwire Native. One Rails codebase wrapped in thin native iOS and Android shells. Real native behaviour (push, camera, GPS, native transitions) without the cost or duplication of two separate native codebases.
Bug fixes for what we built are included. Optional retainers for ongoing improvements, monitoring, and small features. You can also just walk away with everything we built and run it yourself.
We iterate until you are. If we genuinely can't deliver what was scoped, we make it right. The structure of the project is set up so we both have skin in the outcome, not the hours.
Start a project

Tell us what you'd buildif you could.

A short message is enough. We'll reply within a working day to set up a call.

Start your project

Tell us about your idea and we'll get back to you within 24 hours.

No obligation. We'll respond within 24 hours.