Operator-led, not agency-led

We build like it’s our own business

ShiftedLabs is a product and development studio led by husband-and-wife founders Babac and Gemma Vafaey. We’ve built and sold businesses ourselves, and we continue to build and operate software products alongside our client work.

That experience shapes how we work: understand the business first, prove ideas early, keep operating costs sensible, measure what happens after launch and keep improving what works.

It also means we know what the unglamorous parts cost. We’ve paid our own hosting bills, watched our own analytics, answered our own customers and fixed our own bugs on a Sunday. That is a different kind of knowledge from having built something and handed it over.

We build products people use. And tools businesses need.

What we believe

  • Prove it first.

    A working version on your real data beats a proposal. Most of our projects start with one.

  • Build around the business, not around software conventions.

    The system should match how you actually work, not how a vendor assumed you would.

  • Fewer tools can be better than more tools.

    The best system often replaces three you already pay for.

  • Own your code and data.

    Your code, your data, your accounts. We can host and maintain it, but it is yours.

  • Measure what happens after launch.

    We report what changed and what did not, and we do not claim results we cannot show.

  • Keep improving.

    Software is not finished at launch. The useful work often starts there.

  • Don’t use AI where a simpler solution is better.

    A rule, a search box or a well-written page is often cheaper, faster and more predictable.

How a project runs

  1. 01

    Discover

    Tell us the problem. We’ll tell you plainly whether we can help and roughly what it takes.

  2. 02

    Prove

    A small working version on your real data, usually within two weeks, so you see it before committing.

  3. 03

    Build

    Short cycles, a live link from week one, and you review real screens rather than mock-ups.

  4. 04

    Improve

    We host it, monitor it and keep improving it. You own the code and the data.

Tell us what you want to build

Start a project →