Get the Founder, Not the B-Team
Yes, getting the founder to build your system is a fair perk of investing early. It guarantees your project is built by the most experienced engineer, not a junior developer.
Investing early in a consultancy like Syntora means you work directly with the principal. There is no sales team, no project manager, and no B-team. The person who understands your business problem during the discovery call is the same person who architects the solution and writes every line of production code.
We built a custom AI document processor for a 12-person recruiting firm that was manually parsing 400 applicant resumes per month. The founder built and deployed the system in three weeks. The firm now processes every application in under 10 seconds, automatically, with structured data sent directly to their applicant tracking system.
What Problem Does This Solve?
The primary risk with a typical consulting agency is the bait-and-switch. You have a great discovery call with a senior partner who understands your business, but once the contract is signed, your project is handed to a junior developer. Communication breaks down, context is lost, and the final build misses the mark because the person with the business knowledge is not the one writing the code.
Trying to avoid this by hiring a freelancer presents a different problem. You might get a script that works for the happy path, but it is not a production system. It lacks structured logging, error handling, and monitoring. We saw a 20-person e-commerce company hire a freelancer to connect Shopify to their warehouse's old SOAP API. The script dropped 10% of orders silently for two weeks because it could not handle an unexpected XML format, costing them thousands in lost revenue and customer trust.
These approaches fail because they separate business expertise from technical execution. When the builder does not deeply understand the 'why' behind the system, they cannot make the right architectural decisions. The result is a brittle system that breaks under real-world conditions.
How Does It Work?
Our process is designed to eliminate handoffs. The founder is your sole point of contact from the initial discovery call to post-launch support. We start by mapping your business process into a technical specification, often creating a sequence diagram and defining Python data models with Pydantic right on the first call.
With the architecture defined, the founder builds the core application using Python and FastAPI. For a recent regional insurance agency with 6 adjusters, we built a claims document processor using the Claude API for data extraction. We used httpx for asynchronous API calls to process multiple pages in parallel. The system now processes a 20-page claim form in 8 seconds, a task that took an adjuster 6 minutes manually.
The entire system is deployed on AWS Lambda using the Serverless Framework, which keeps infrastructure costs for processing over 2,500 claims per month under $30. We implement structured logging with structlog, sending logs to AWS CloudWatch. We configure alerts that trigger on high error rates or system downtime, ensuring we know about a problem before you do.
Upon completion, you receive the complete source code in your own GitHub repository. You also get a runbook detailing how to deploy, monitor, and troubleshoot the system. For the insurance agency, this custom build reduced their manual data entry error rate from over 12% to less than 1%, directly improving data quality in their core system.
What Are the Key Benefits?
Production-Ready in 3 Weeks
With no internal handoffs or management layers, we move from discovery call to live deployment in 15 business days.
Pay for Code, Not for Overhead
Our fixed-price builds have no sales commissions or project manager salaries baked in. You invest in engineering work, period.
You Get the Keys and the Blueprints
We deliver the full source code to your GitHub repo, plus documentation and a runbook. You are never locked into a service contract.
Alerts Go to the System's Architect
Post-launch monitoring alerts go directly to the engineer who built the system, not a Tier 1 support desk. Issues are fixed in hours, not days.
Custom Code for Custom Stacks
We write direct integrations for your exact tools, whether it is a modern CRM like HubSpot or a legacy ERP with a SOAP API.
What Does the Process Look Like?
Week 1: Scoping and Architecture
You provide API keys and workflow details. You receive a technical specification document and a fixed-price proposal.
Weeks 2-3: Core Development
We build the system in a private GitHub repository you can access. You receive weekly video updates showing progress.
Week 4: Deployment and Testing
We deploy the system to your cloud infrastructure. You receive a full deployment runbook and access to monitoring dashboards.
Post-Launch: Monitoring and Handoff
We provide 30 days of active monitoring and bug fixes. You receive final documentation and a system walkthrough video from the founder.
Frequently Asked Questions
- How is a project's cost and timeline determined?
- Scope is the main driver. A single document processing pipeline connecting two APIs is a 2-week build. A multi-step agent that interacts with a CRM and an internal database might take 4 weeks. Data cleanliness and API quality are also factors we assess during the discovery call before providing a fixed price.
- What happens if you get sick or are unavailable?
- Since you get full source code and deployment manifests in your own GitHub and AWS accounts, any competent Python developer can take over. The system is documented for this exact scenario. For critical systems, we establish a shared PagerDuty rotation with a developer on your team or a trusted third party.
- How is this different than hiring a developer on Upwork?
- Upwork is for defined scripts, but Syntora builds and maintains production systems. We handle deployment, monitoring, alerting, and documentation for business-critical workflows where silent failures are not an option. We are a consultancy providing architectural guidance and long-term support, not just a freelance coder.
- What if we need to add a new feature in six months?
- We handle this with a new, smaller fixed-price scope. Since we built the original system, adding a feature is fast and efficient. For example, adding a new document type to an existing processing pipeline is typically a 3-day project. We document the architecture so your future team can also make changes.
- What kind of business is the best fit for Syntora?
- Our ideal client is a 5-50 person business with no in-house engineering team. You have a critical, repetitive manual process that is costing you time and creating errors. You know an off-the-shelf tool cannot solve it because you have tried. You need a production-grade system built by an experienced engineer.
- What does communication look like during a project?
- We use a shared Slack channel for daily communication. You will see commits pushed to your GitHub repo every day. We provide a short video update every Friday summarizing progress and outlining the plan for the next week. You have the founder's direct contact information, so there are no communication layers to go through.
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