We design it,and we build it.
Ultrabasic Labs is a design and engineering studio in Bengaluru. We build for clients, and we run three products of our own, which is the fastest way to stay honest about what shipping costs.
Our mission
Most software is worse than it needed to be because the people who designed it never had to build it. We put both jobs in the same hands.
- Design and engineering, one team
- The same people from sketch to launch
What we hold to
Four things we
argue about internally
A value is only worth writing down if it costs something when you keep it. These four have all cost us work.
Make it before
you say it
A claim we cannot open on a device is a claim we do not make. That rule covers this page as much as a proposal.
Small on
purpose
Growth that costs us the room where design and engineering argue with each other is growth we turn down.
The bill should
be boring
Nobody should have to feel clever to read a contract. Surprises belong in the product, never in the invoice.
Leave more than
was asked for
Patterns, documentation and the reasons behind them. The measure is whether a team can carry on without us.
How we work
Five things we
do differently
Each one is written against the version of it we refused. The refusals are the part worth reading.
Billed by the hour
Quoted as a phase
An hourly rate pays us for being slow. A phase is a fixed number against a written scope, and if the scope moves the new number arrives before the work does.
A discovery phase that ends in a deck
Two to four weeks that end in software
You should be able to open the first phase on a device and decide from that. A slide about what we learned is not a thing anybody can use.
Passed to a delivery team
Built by the people you met
The team on the first call draws the screens and writes the code. There is nobody behind them, which is also why we cannot take every brief.
Every brief that arrives
The ones we can staff properly
More briefs leave than we keep. They go to a firm on the partner roster, with the introduction made by us, and hearing that on the first call is faster for everybody.
A good news email on Friday
A demo every Friday
Working software at the same hour every week, from the first one. A week with nothing to show is still shown, and the reason for it is the week’s finding.
GoodWork by Ultrabasic
Some of the year
is not for sale
GoodWork is how the studio gives its time to organisations doing something worth doing. Same team, same weekly demos, same standard of finish. Nobody at the other end can tell which it was.
- Freein full
- Four whole builds a year, given
- 50%off, standing
- For everyone else who qualifies
About the studio
Questions people
ask us first
Small, and deliberately so. Everything reaches the same team, which is why an answer takes a working day. We add people for a discipline the work needs, not for a headcount target.
Bengaluru, and remote worldwide. Visits are by appointment. Most projects run across time zones with four hours of overlap.
No. Daypost, Vaaho.ai and Dusk are ours. We designed them, built them, and operate them today, including the support that comes with real users. The products page has the detail.
It goes to a firm on the partner roster, with the introduction made by us. Saying so on the first call is faster for everybody than a quote nobody intends to honour.
When there is a discipline the work needs. Open roles, the range and the benefits are on the careers page, and every application gets an answer either way.
Have something
worth building?
Start with a paragraph about the problem. A person reads it, and you hear back inside a working day either way.