Build it properly or not at all
We would rather ship one module that genuinely works than five that technically exist. Something is finished when a person can rely on it, not when it appears on a list.
Company
Building the world,
block by block.
Block is a small software company with a deliberately narrow idea of what it is for: find the systems people are stuck inside all day, and build the version they should have had a decade ago — well enough to last the next one.
Why these two, of all things?
Because in both cases the software is the thing every other decision depends on, and in both cases the people using it every day deserve better tools than they have been given.
A client should be able to book and pay a deposit without a phone call. A register should take seconds. Whoever runs the organisation should be able to get their own data out themselves. None of that is technically hard — it mainly asks that somebody treat the category as a serious engineering problem and give it the attention it deserves.
BookMeIn came first and is live, taking real bookings for real businesses. MyPortal is the larger of the two and still being built. They share an architecture, a security model and a set of opinions, which is the entire reason one small team can credibly do both.
What we hold to
Four things we will not trade away.
Be straight with people
Honest timescales, honest limitations, honest pricing. If what we have built is not right for you yet, we would rather tell you than sell you.
Respect the working day
Every extra click is multiplied by everyone who has to make it, every day they come in. We design against that number.
Earn the trust each time
Our customers hand us data about other people — their pupils, their clients. That is not a one-off decision to win; it is something we have to keep deserving.
Team
The whole company.
Nothing gets lost between departments here, because there are not any. That will change as we grow; the part where you can reach whoever built the thing will not.
Rowan Richards
Founder + CEO
Sets product direction and writes a great deal of the code. Started Block on the conviction that software people depend on every working day should be built with that dependence in mind.
How we work
What being our size actually buys you.
There is no script to get through
No tier-one support desk stands between you and an engineer. The person who answers your question can usually fix the thing you are asking about.
We build with customers, not at them
Requirements come from watching a real front desk at half past eight in the morning, and from the people who will have to live with whatever we ship.
We keep the exit open
Full export, documented schema, no charge. If we want to keep your business, we should have to keep earning it.
Tell us where we have got it wrong
We learn more from an hour with somebody who thinks we have made the wrong call than from a month of planning. Book a call, and do not spare us.