Skip to content

Most companies run on something nobody designed.

A shared drive, four spreadsheets and a group chat, held together by whoever remembers how it works. We replace it with one system built for how your business actually operates, and branded like everything else you own.

Move across it, or scroll, and the pieces fall into place.

4.9

From 89 reviews on Trustpilot, reviewed publicly since 2019. Fifteen years of design work sit behind this, not a new software venture.

This isn't a dashboard.

A dashboard shows you charts about data you already keep somewhere else. Useful, occasionally. Not the problem.

What we build is the place the data comes from: the thing your team opens at nine in the morning and works inside all day, where the jobs, the clients and the work actually live.

What you have now
Tools that don't know about each other, and one person who knows where everything is.
What breaks first
Onboarding. A new hire can't be handed a system that only exists in someone's head.
What we build instead
One system with your logic, your brand and your permissions, that a new starter can learn in an afternoon.

Six things almost every system ends up needing

The nouns change from business to business. These six parts don't.

Accounts, roles and permissions

Sign-in per person, not a shared password. An admin decides who sees what, and the boundaries match how your business is actually organised.

Replaces one login the whole team uses, and a sheet nobody is allowed to touch

The operational core

Clients, jobs, stock, bookings, cases, pipeline: whatever your business runs on, modelled properly once so every part of the system agrees.

Replaces four spreadsheets that disagree with each other

Generated output

Proposals, listings, posts and reports, filled from data already in the system, with your brand rules applied and a manual override on every item.

Replaces a template copied, renamed and edited by hand each time

Client-facing pages

Proposals and portals at a real address on your domain, which tell you when someone new has opened them.

Replaces a PDF attached to an email you never hear about again

A brand pack the software reads

Colours, type, logo and tone stored as settings the system applies everywhere. It's the part a dev shop doesn't build, and why this never looks like a generic admin panel.

Replaces asking a designer to fix each export afterwards

The part after launch

Hosting, database, backups, security patches, and the changes you'll want once the business moves on. Software doesn't finish; it gets maintained or it rots.

Replaces a freelancer who stopped answering

Systems in use

Real systems, in daily use, shown with demo data. Client names, figures and files never leave the client's system.

The Mars Touch

Los Angeles. A brand and content operation.

A Los Angeles brand running its whole operation across a patchwork of tools. We replaced them with a system of its own: team sign-in, admin-assigned roles, and every piece of content editable in place by the people who own it.

The security brief was strict: private repository, locked-down database access and invite-only accounts, with no public registration route at all. The design brief was luxury and Apple-quiet, the half a development shop would have handed back as a bare admin panel.

Presented to the team and adopted. It is what they open in the morning.

Client
The Mars Touch
Services
Operations software
The Mars Touch home screen, shown with demo data
HomeWhat the team sees first, shaped by the role they signed in with.
The Mars Touch content pipeline screen, shown with demo data
Content pipelineEvery shoot, its edit stage, its platform and who is holding it.
The Mars Touch calendar screen, shown with demo data
CalendarEverything the team has coming up, with reminders that reach their phones.
The Mars Touch product and packaging screen, shown with demo data
Product and packagingEach product from sample review through to launch.
The Mars Touch content plan screen, shown with demo data
Content planThe plan behind each channel, edited in place by the people who own it.
The Mars Touch sign in screen, shown with demo data
Sign inInvite-only. No public registration route exists.

Hughes Vision

California. A two-partner business run on projects.

The brief was a single place for every project: where each one stands, who owes what by when, and what was said in each meeting.

The first screen either partner sees is every open task across every project, with anything overdue flagged on its own. Each project page is the hub for its notes, documents and contacts. We designed the brand it wears as well.

Accounts are created by a partner and nothing is emailed out, so there is no sign-up page to find.

Client
Hughes Vision
Services
Branding and operations software
Hughes Vision tasks screen, shown with demo data
TasksEvery task across every project, grouped by owner, with late ones flagged automatically.
Hughes Vision project hub screen, shown with demo data
Project hubEach project moving from discovery to negotiating, executed and ongoing, with its tasks and notes beneath.
Hughes Vision meeting notes screen, shown with demo data
Meeting notesTimestamped notes from every meeting, filed against the project.
Hughes Vision note to task screen, shown with demo data
Note to taskAny line of a meeting note becomes a task without retyping it.
Hughes Vision documents screen, shown with demo data
DocumentsEvery file, by project, opened through private links that expire within a minute.
Hughes Vision contacts screen, shown with demo data
ContactsEveryone across the deals, each linked to the projects they touch.
Hughes Vision sign in screen, shown with demo data
Sign inAccounts are created by a partner. No public sign-up.

Where the confidence comes from

15Years designing
4.9Trustpilot rating across 89 reviews
12Systems and tools designed, built and running
1Person you deal with, from the first call to every change after launch

Four stages, in this order, every time

Most of the value of a finished system is decided in the first one.

  1. Map

    A week inside how you work now. Every spreadsheet, every workaround, everything someone does by hand on a Friday.

  2. Design

    Screens drawn and branded before a line of code exists, signed off while changing them is still cheap.

  3. Build

    Deployed early and often. You have a login and use the system well before it's finished, which is how wrong assumptions get caught.

  4. Carry

    Hosting, database, backups, security and a set amount of change work every month. This part doesn't end, so it's priced as if it doesn't.

Your data, answered before you ask

If a system holds how your company runs, the questions about custody aren't paperwork. Here are the answers in writing, before the first call.

  • A data processing agreement, signed firstBefore anything of yours moves anywhere, in plain terms, naming what we hold and why.
  • You're told where it livesNamed provider, named region, in the contract. Not "the cloud".
  • Private repositories, invite-only accountsNo public sign-up exists on anything we build unless you ask for one.
  • You own the codeOn final payment the repository transfers to you. Leaving never costs you the system.
  • A written exit planYour data exported in a format you can actually use, whenever you ask, with no conversation needed first.

Two numbers, both on the first call

No figure is published here, because the honest answer depends on that first conversation.

A one-off build fee

Scoped to how much of your operation the system has to hold. A booking tool for one location and a system running four departments are not the same job, and a headline price would only quote one of them wrong.

A monthly, which isn't optional

Hosting, the database, backups, security updates and a set amount of change work. Software nobody is paid to maintain quietly becomes a liability about eighteen months in.

Have the conversation and you'll leave it with a real number, not a range designed to get you onto another call.

The questions that come up first

We already pay for a CRM and project tools. Why replace them?
Often you shouldn't. If two tools do the job and your team is happy, keep them. The case for building starts when the joins between tools are the work: when someone re-types the same client into three places, when reporting only exists because a person assembles it every Monday, or when nobody can be onboarded without shadowing you for a fortnight. That's what we replace, not software you like.
Who owns the code?
You do, on final payment. The repository transfers to you, with no licence conditions and no clause that makes leaving expensive. If you later want your own developer to take it over, that's a handover, not a negotiation.
You're one person. What happens if you disappear?
A fair question, and the reason for several of the choices above. You hold the repository. The stack is deliberately ordinary, a mainstream framework on mainstream hosting with a mainstream database, so any competent developer can pick it up. Nothing is built on a private tool that only we understand.
How long does it take?
Mapping is about a week. Design is two to three. Build depends on scope, but you have a working login early rather than at the end. A realistic total for a first system is measured in months, not weeks, and anyone promising otherwise is describing a template.
What exactly is the monthly paying for?
Hosting and database costs, backups, dependency and security updates, monitoring, and a set block of change work to keep the system matching a business that keeps moving. It's written down as a number of hours, not implied goodwill.
Can you work with our existing brand?
That's the half most software teams skip. Bring guidelines and we'll build to them; bring a logo and some instincts and we'll do the branding too, which is what Capricos did for fifteen years before it built software. Either way the brand is stored in the system as settings, so what it generates is on-brand by construction.

Build your spec

Five short steps. At the end you'll see the spec you've just written, and we get a copy.

Nothing here is binding. It exists so the first call starts at "here's what it would cost" rather than twenty minutes of background. If it isn't a fit, we'll say so in the reply.

Step 1 of 5
What are you running on today?

Your current tools

Pick everything that applies.

Where does it hurt?

The two or three that cost you the most time.

Who's it for?
What does the business do?
Timing and budget

Budget in mind (optional)

Where do we send it?

We'll reply to this address.

Spec received.

Here's what you sent. We'll read it properly before replying, usually the same day.

Need the brand, the website or the marketing too?

Capricos does those as well: identity, websites and online stores, campaigns, product and packaging. It's where this software gets its looks.

See the rest of Capricos