Decode

How founders use Decode

• Software Product Architecture and Design Consulting

  Work out why, what and how to build before any code is written, without under or over engineering, delivering maximum value and minimising risk. Founders use this when they have a suite of software as a service (SaaS) tools to run their business but there is a gap for which they would like to build a bespoke software product and integrate it with their product suite, or when they want to offer a new product or service enabled by a bespoke software product or software integration.

• Software Product Engineering

  We help founders and small businesses by wearing their applied AI and software product hat, giving them back time and space to focus on strategy, growth and operations. ounders use this to reduce cost by replacing legacy or software as service (SaaS) with bespoke fit for purpose software products, to reduce cost by replacing staff with applied AI and/or automation, and to reduce risk by replacing error prone human in the loop processes with automation and systems.

• Software Development Life Cycle Optimisation Consulting

  We help CTOs and CPOs accelerate their time to value by helping scale their software engineering teams and accelerate their SDLC. We use the best and latest in AI powered software engineering and design tools together with open source web technologies to build solutions that don’t just work today but are built to last and optimised for total cost of ownership.

Best for

• Non-technical founders who need an engineering team to build and scale with the business
• Founder-led businesses with limited in-house tech capability
• Businesses looking to replace SaaS with fit-for-purpose bespoke software
• Early-stage and growth companies with 10-50 people

Why Founder Stack recommends Decode

We help founders and small businesses by wearing their applied AI and software product hat, giving them back time and space to focus on strategy, growth and operations. We help them to decide why, what and how to build without under or over engineering, delivering maximum value and minimising risk. We help CTOs and CPOs accelerate their time to value by helping scale their software engineering teams and accelerate their SDLC. We have over 50 years of combined experience building and evolving everything from: integrated AI agents in the UK with our AWS partners Formation Cloud Solutions; to offline field worker health care mobile apps in South Africa; to animated business coach mobile applications for kids in the US with our experience design partners Sea Monster: to national scale health (FHIR) data exchange systems for international NPOs; to historical storybook progressive web applications with impact game studio partners, Sea Monster. We use the best and latest in AI powered software engineering and design tools together with open source web technologies to build solutions that don't just work today but are built to last and optimised for total cost of ownership. Anthropic, Claude, Typescript, Astro, React, TailwindCSS, React-Native, Node.js, PostgreSQL, RabbitMQ, Docker, Metabase, Supabase, Antigravity, Ubuntu, Arch Linux, AWS, Cloudflare and Digital Ocean.

Related partners

• 3 Capital Ventures - Venture Capital Investor

  3 Capital Ventures is South Africa's first institutional investor for early-stage, post-revenue B2B startups. They lead seed rounds and reserve capital to follow on as you scale — backing founders solving urgent productivity problems in fast-growing niches: selling more, getting paid faster, cutting costs, or doing the same work with fewer people. Founding team alumni from Discovery, Uber, McKinsey and Allan Gray.

• Cell C Business - Telecommunications

  Cell C Business is built on a simple belief: nothing should stop your business. As South Africa's original challenger brand, Cell C has a long history of changing the industry through innovation, from mobile number portability and per-second billing to becoming the country's leading MVNO enabler. Today, that same challenger mindset powers Cell C Business.