How we can help you

If you’re a startup company, we can be your full plug-and-play development team, for as long as you need. If and when you decide to move your software development in-house, we’ll spin up your new hires and engineer a smooth handoff.

If you’re a SME undergoing digital transformation, we can plan, design, and deliver right-fit applications that revolutionize how you serve customers, employees, and key business partners.

If you’re a non-profit organization, we can build a world-class web or mobile app to deliver on your program’s mission, either in fulfillment of a grant, or as part of your cyclical budget.

If you’re a solo SaaS founder, we can take your legacy PHP app, or your bubble-gum-and-duct-tape, no/low-code, integrations-smashed-into-Wordpress app and rebuild it in modern, pristine Laravel and Vue, while you focus on growing the business.

If you’re not the one in charge, but you feel like Tighten is the right fit for your company, we can help you pitch our service to your boss.

Our approach

Work deeply

Programmers require long blocks of uninterrupted time to do their best work, and context-switching is the arch-enemy of productivity. Our programmers maintain a maker’s schedule, with a minimum of meetings, other than our weekly client check-in. Our Project Manager is available all day on Slack to handle whatever comes up, allowing our programmers to keep their heads down and stay focused.

Easy on the abstraction

We adhere to a principle called YAGNI, in which we resist the temptation to write overly-abstract code in hopes of solving for future requirements. We focus on solving for the present, creating clean, expressive code that can be easily changed later. We don’t get bogged down trying to predict the future, which enables us to deliver more immediate value in the alloted time.

More agility, less ceremony

While we don’t adhere strictly to Scrum or any other Agile variant, we believe in many of the values of the Agile Manifesto, especially:

And most of all:

Build projects around motivated individuals, and trust them to get the job done.

In a nutshell, we employ a no-nonsense approach that maximizes the time we spend building software and minimizes the time we spend just talking about it.

Engaging with us

Our engagements are structured simply, and our paperwork is lightweight. We’re ready to start working with you as soon as schedules permit.

Our basic unit of work is the 8-week cycle, during which the assigned team(s) will be fully-dedicated to your project four days per week. Multiple 8-week cycles are often stacked on a single Statement of Work.

Each application development team consists of a Lead Programmer and a Staff Programmer under the guidance of a Project Manager. For larger projects, multiple teams can be assigned concurrently under a single PM.