UK software engineering studio
One place that holds the job, the paperwork and the numbers, so nobody types the same thing twice and the admin stops eating your evenings.
Studio record
Shipped work
We have no client case studies to show yet, so here is the next best evidence: products we designed, built and operate ourselves. One is live and you can go and use it today.
Premium Next.js templates and UI kits, built to ship.
A marketplace of production-ready UI kits and full-stack Next.js starters. Eight Empire UI kits at launch, each held to a high quality bar before release. Built for developers who want a serious head start, not a template they have to gut and rebuild.
Next.js 16, Tailwind v4, TypeScript strict
Products designed and built in-house, shown as they stand. Client work comes first, so these move when there is room for them to.
Website monitoring and maintenance for UK small businesses. Uptime, updates, and fixes handled in the background, so owners never have to think about their site.
The FICO score for startups. An AI engine evaluates an idea across 30 dimensions and 5 pillars (Market Fit, Brand Strength, Technical Feasibility, Business Model, and Team Dynamics) to produce a standardized success-probability score, so founders build what people actually want.
Bonsport gives clubs, parks and independent venues accurate availability, secure payments and dependable access instructions. Venue management and player bookings from web or the mobile app.
The all-in-one platform for community safety, communication, and management. Built for managed offices, coworking spaces, and business communities.
How we think
We work out how the job really moves through the business, including what goes wrong, before designing a single screen. The software inherits the operating model, not the other way around.
Illustrative operating model
Work comes in by phone, email, the website and WhatsApp, and someone has to remember to pick it up.
One list. Every enquiry on it, nothing counted twice, and a name against each one.
Someone goes out, takes photos and writes it down, often on paper and usually away from a desk.
Filled in on a phone, on site, with no signal. It is on the job before you are back in the van.
Pricing sits in a spreadsheet and in people's heads, and the quote gets done in the evening.
The pricing written down once and applied the same way every time, with a record of who agreed what.
The job gets done, then the same details get typed again into the invoice and the accounts.
Typed once. Everyone who needs it can see it, it goes to Xero, and the month end builds itself.
Engagement model
Most systems for small businesses come with far more in them than you actually run. We build the part you need, around the way your business already does it.
What we build
The shape changes with the problem. The standard does not: understand how the business actually runs before deciding what to build.
Jobs, customers, bookings and the paperwork that goes with them, in one place your staff will actually use because it only contains the things you do.
For the people who are out on jobs. Fill it in on site, with no signal if needed, and it is on the record before they get back.
If the same details get typed into two systems, that is a job for software. We connect what you already run, Xero included, so it only gets entered once.
The one everybody depends on and nobody wants to touch. We turn it into something that cannot silently break when one person changes a formula.
How we work
Founded by Dan Tinsley after more than a decade building enterprise software: the systems behind quoting, inspections and reporting across a UK firm. Every job runs the same way: work out how the business really operates, then build the simplest thing that does it properly.
Work out how the job actually moves through your business now, who touches it, and what already has to keep working.
Write down exactly what gets built and what does not, so there is no argument later about what was included.
Build it in pieces you can see and try, so you are never waiting months to find out whether it is right.
Get it live, show your team how it works, write down what matters, and agree who looks after it from there.
The same checks run on every build before it goes anywhere near your business. Not a final once-over, but part of the work itself.
Engagement and pricing
Most people make you get on a call before they will tell you. Here is the price, what a build usually comes to, and what you own at the end of it.
Start here
£1,500Fixed price, paid up front
Go ahead within 30 days and the fee comes off the price of the build.
Before anyone builds anything, we work out exactly what you need and write it down: what it does, what it costs, and how long it takes.
What you get
The plan is yours to keep whatever you decide next. Take it to another developer, or build it in-house, and it still works.
Rough ranges, not quotes. The plan is what turns a range into one number.
From £150 a monthOptional, and you can stop any time
Once it is live, somebody has to keep it that way. If you would rather that was not you, we can look after it.
Not interested? That is a real option. Everything is handed over documented and in your own accounts, so your team or another developer can pick it up.
Before you enquire
The things worth having straight before you commit to anyone, answered here rather than three emails in.
That is the usual reason this kind of software gets bought and then abandoned: it arrives with far more in it than the business actually runs, so nobody uses it. We build only the part you need. If the honest answer is that a spreadsheet is already fine for what you do, we will tell you that instead of selling you something.
Yes, and to most of the other things you already run. If the same details are currently being typed into two places, connecting them properly is usually the first thing worth doing, and it is often where most of the time saving comes from.
The software we write for you becomes yours as each stage is paid for, and it is built in your own accounts, your own hosting and your own repository. Like all software it also uses open-source and third-party components, which keep their own licences, and we list those at hand-over. Nothing is tied back to us and nothing stops another developer picking it up.
The plan is a fixed £1,500, and if you go ahead within 30 days it comes off the price of the build. Most builds land between £5k and £25k depending on how much there is, and anything bigger than that is delivered in priced stages rather than as one lump. The plan is what turns a range into real numbers, and it is done before you commit to any of it.
Whoever you want. We offer a support plan from £150 a month that covers hosting, updates, monitoring and small changes, and you can stop it any time. If you would rather your own team ran it, that works too, because everything is handed over documented and in your accounts. It is not a condition of the build either way.
No. The build is split into stages, and each stage has its own price agreed before it starts. You see the expected total from the plan onwards, but you are only ever committed to the stage you are in, and you can stop between stages. That way nobody is guessing at a single number months ahead of the work.
Because a free quote is a guess, and when the guess is wrong it comes back to you later as extra cost. The plan is deliberately small and self-contained, and it is yours to keep. Some people call this a discovery phase. You can take it to another developer or build it in-house and it still works.
Everything is built in your accounts, with standard tools, and documented when we hand over. That is deliberate. It means if we are not available, any competent developer can pick the work up without having to rescue it first. You are never left holding software only one person understands.
Not yet, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. Halbon Labs Ltd is a new studio for client work. What sits behind it is 12 years of enterprise software experience and our own products in the market, including Template Empire, which is live and you can go and look at it today.
Usually yes. Extending or replacing something that already exists is as much in scope as starting fresh, and reviewing what you have is part of the plan. Sometimes the right answer turns out to be fixing what you have rather than replacing it, and we will say so.
Yes, as part of the toolkit, the same as most current software development. It speeds up the routine work, which is part of why a fixed price is possible at this size. What it does not change: everything is reviewed, and everything goes through the same checks before release regardless of how it was written. On your data, we agree what we can and cannot access before a project starts, and anything sensitive is written into the data processing agreement rather than assumed.
Dan Tinsley, who runs the studio. Specialists come in where a project genuinely needs them, and you are told who they are before they start.
Halbon Labs Ltd is registered in England and Wales and is the data controller for anything you send through this site. What you send is used to reply to you, and if the work goes ahead, to scope and deliver it. It is not used for marketing, not added to a mailing list, and never sold. The privacy notice sets out what is collected, where it goes and your rights under UK GDPR.
Start a conversation
What is taking too long, what keeps getting missed, and who it lands on. That is enough for us to tell you honestly whether we can help and what it would take.
What happens next