Everyone already knows what they're going to sell you.
We don't. So we start with what your business actually does — then build for that, and leave you owning something nobody else has.
Most shops sell you what they're good at.
Ask five of them the same question and you'll get five answers, every one decided before anybody asked what your business does.
The brief“We need software to run our business.”
- A web design shopYou need Squarespace.
- A Shopify shopYou need Shopify.
- A WordPress shopYou need WooCommerce.
- A no-code shopAirtable and Zapier.
- A Salesforce partnerYou need Salesforce.
Every one of those answers is honest. That's the problem.
Nobody is lying. A shop makes its money from the tools it already knows, so every recommendation it gives is bent that way — and the honest ones are bent just as hard as the rest.
What that's worth in practice.
Anyone can call themselves neutral. This is the only kind of proof that costs something.
We owned a restaurant platform. We didn't use it for a restaurant client.
Nori is a catering business. A table reservation and a catering booking aren't the same thing wearing different labels — one is a name, a time and a party size; the other is a date, a headcount, a quote, a deposit and a chef blocked out for four hours.
Reusing what we had would have been faster for us and wrong for them. So they got their own. Eleven days later it was live, and it booked over $40,000 in its first month.
It also pays for itself.
Custom sounds expensive. It usually costs less than what you're already paying every month — and unlike those bills, you end up owning something.
You own it outright
The code, the data, the customer list. On your balance sheet, and it goes with the business.
It appreciates
A subscription charges you more the bigger you get. An asset is simply worth more.
It sells with you
A buyer pays for a platform and the customers on it. Nobody pays extra for your subscriptions.
Nobody buys your Squarespace subscription.
And it doesn't stop at launch. Every version after it makes the thing you own worth more than it was.
Who's behind it.
Twenty-five years building software, and a decade running the kinds of businesses we now build for.
I'm Tony Le. I've been building since the yellow pages mattered more than the internet. Out of college I started Circular Orb building ecommerce platforms, then spent a decade in interactive agencies running projects for AT&T, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America — and the decade after that starting my own companies. Restaurants, a nail salon that grew to five locations, three online businesses.
One of them did a million dollars in its first month. Two of them I lost. The ones that didn't work taught me more than the ones that did — and all of it ran on software I built myself, while running the business it was for.
TonyFounder · LFG VenturesLet's talk about what you're building.
Thirty minutes. Tell us how your business actually runs.
“I've been building since the yellow pages mattered more than the internet.”Tony · Founder, LFG Ventures