Setosys — British Columbia
We design, build and modernise the software your business runs on.
From an idea with nothing built yet, to finishing what somebody else started, to replacing a system the business has outgrown. You can have us build it and own the result outright, bring us in as the technical half of a venture, or run one of the ventures we have built ourselves.
- A build that stalled.
- A system nobody will touch.
- Numbers you can't trust.
- An idea with no technical half.
Which one are you
Three ways this starts.
They differ in what you bring and what you keep. The work is the same in all three.
standard
You already run a business
Something is broken, stalled, or old enough that nobody wants to touch it.
We become your technical side. That might mean taking over a build that has stopped, replacing a system your business has outgrown, or building the thing that never got built. You pay us, you own all of it, and the handover is real.
You bring
The business, and the problem you can already describe
You keep
Everything — source, infrastructure, credentials
What we get called in for
You'll recognise at least one of these.
Every one of them has arrived here in someone's first email. None of them is unusual, and none of them is really a coding problem.
The problem · 01/05
A contractor left, an agency went quiet, or the one developer who understood it moved on. There is code, some of it works, and nobody can tell you how much is finished.
What we do about it
We read what exists before quoting anything. Sometimes the answer is to continue it; sometimes it is to keep the database and rebuild the rest. We will tell you which, and why.
How it works
You don't hand it to a contractor and walk away.
Building software is a lot like building the home you plan to live in. You wouldn't give the plans to a builder and come back in six months. You'd visit the site, walk through the rooms, and move a wall while it is still cheap to move. We work the same way — you are part of the build from the start.
We work out how it actually runs
Before anything is designed, we spend time with the people who will use it — what they actually do, where it breaks, and what a good day would look like. You know your business. Our job is to listen until we do too.
Sometimes we get it wrong. More often, you see it working and realise you need something different. Either way, you find out early — not at launch.
Applied AI
AI where it earns its keep.
We don't add AI for its own sake. Inside the systems we build, it does specific jobs — the ones that used to take someone's afternoon. A person still approves anything that matters.
- Reads
Reads the paperwork
Receipts, invoices and forms become structured records — no re-typing.
receipt_0412.pdfread in 2sSupplierFraser Building SupplyAmount$412.80Date12 MarJob1144 · Office fit-out - Drafts
Drafts the reply
Answers to routine emails, written in your tone, waiting for a yes.
Re: Can you come Thursday?Hi Dana — Thursday works. Our crew can be at 1180 Marine Dr at 9:30, and we will bring the tile samples you asked about. Reply here if the time needs to move.
SendEdityou approve - Flags
Spots what's off
Costs, usage and timings that drift from normal get flagged early.
Fuel spend · per vehicle1 flaggedVan 07 is using 38% more fuel than its route explains.
- Watches
Watches the cameras
Detection where it earns its keep, on hardware you already own.
Person 94%CAM 01 · Yard - Answers
Answers questions about your business
Ask in plain words. It answers from your own records, with the numbers.
Which jobs went over budget last month?Two jobs: 1145 Deck rebuild came in 12% over, mostly materials. 1139 Fence line ran 4% over on labour. Everything else finished under quote. - Forecasts
Sees what's coming
Patterns in your history turn into a heads-up before the busy season.
Bookings · next 6 weeksactualforecastExpect a 24% rise in late May — book a second crew now.
Six jobs, not six products — each one is built into a system where it has something to do. The screens are drawn with placeholder data, and which of these is worth having depends entirely on what your business already records.
The arrangement
A fee, a share, or neither.
Most firms can only be paid. Most investors can't build. We can do either, and which one fits is usually obvious within a conversation.
We build it for you
A fixed scope against a signed specification. You own the result outright.
Existing businesses, funded founders, anyone who wants it to be theirs
We build it with you
We take equity instead of some or all of a fee, and carry some of the risk.
Founders with a market we believe in and no technical half
We already built it
A venture of ours that needs a commercial founder more than more engineering.
Operators who can take something to market
What you own
Everything, in accounts with your name on them.
Every engagement ends with a complete handover: source code, infrastructure, credentials, documentation. Not a copy, not a licence, not an export. The thing itself, on infrastructure with your name on the account.
It runs wherever you want it to run. On your own servers, on a cloud account in your name — DigitalOcean, AWS, whichever you already use — or hosted by us if you would rather not think about it. That choice is yours to make and yours to change, and moving it later does not need our permission.
We build on ordinary, widely used technology rather than anything of our own, so another firm can pick it up and carry on. A system only we can maintain is a system we have trapped you in, and we would rather be kept than needed.
Runs on
DigitalOcean, AWS, whichever you use
Account holder
you
Billed to your account, in your name. We get access, not ownership.
Handed over at the end · you do not have to ask
Tell us what you are dealing with.
You get an honest answer about whether we are the right people for it — including when we are not, which is more often than a website would suggest.
A real engineer reads it