Startup as a Service · by All Shapes
Customers don't meet your company. They meet your product.
So the product is the relationship — and we build it to be loved.
All Shapes is the senior team behind Five Minute Journal and The Doctor's Kitchen, switched on for your startup.
Hosted by Thomas Horak — 15 years building startups,
and a podcast full of the founders doing it now →
// the_relational_bet
AI made building software cheap.
It made the judgement behind it rare.
Demos are great for testing an idea fast — they show what a founder cares about. The next step is making it secure, usable, and ready to scale. That's a team game. A senior crew makes the difference between a working demo and a product people pay for, stay with, and tell their friends about.
We see your product the way you'd see your best barista: it's the part of your business the customer actually touches. So we don't just ship something bug-free — we make it generous, thoughtful, and genuinely useful. That's what makes people convert, stay, and tell other people about it.
// experienced
Senior all the way down.
10+ years building products that earn App of the Day, App Store editorial, and the kind of retention that keeps founders in business — with engineers carrying 20+ years on the team.
// fast
Four months, not twelve.
AI gives us the throughput. Senior taste keeps it from going off the rails. Zero to one, fast, built to last.
// relational
Built to be loved.
Subscription apps, daily-use tools, habit-forming products — that's our wheelhouse. We treat your user generously, and that's what makes them convert, stay subscribed, and tell other people about it.
Most products built in 2026 will be forgotten inside a year. The ones that last had someone behind them who cared about the right things.
// no_fuss
The in-house team that isn't in-house.
Four steps. No surprises. Here's what we do and when.
Onboarded on Day 1. No discovery quarter. We've done this for dozens of startups, so getting started feels less like hiring an agency and more like switching on a team you've worked with for years. We look at your mess, carve out the first two weeks, and get going.
Start with a Sprint.
Two weeks. €6,250. One real outcome.
- → Book in a few clicks — terms and NDA handled in the same flow
- → Map your goals, your users, and the biggest risk in the plan
- → Prototype the strongest approach, test it with five real users
- → Leave with working software or a tested prototype plus a buildable plan
Full credit toward month 1 if you continue within 14 days.
Onboard in a week.
No ramp-up theatre.
- → Senior team fully across codebase and Sprint findings
- → First subscription sprint scoped before day five
- → Second feature in design before week one closes
- → Existing codebase audited, debt flagged, priorities set
The Sprint was the discovery. We build from there.
Ship every two weeks.
Working software, in your Slack.
- → End-to-end features on a two-week cadence
- → Shared Slack channel with the senior team building the work
- → Full release cycle: beta, App Store, production
- → Time-boxed access — not a calendar full of status meetings
Most teams spend 90 days on a discovery doc. We ship in that time.
Learn and plan what's next.
Every cycle is smarter than the last.
- → Beta users in the product inside 30 days
- → Next sprint planned against what they actually do
- → Same people on your product — no rotation, no handover
- → Quiet phases handled — security patches, App Store, small fixes
We don't disappear after launch. That's when the work starts.
No status meetings.
We're in your Slack, building alongside you.
// who_we_build_for
Which one are you?
Three founders we know well. If you're one of them, we can probably start within a week.
01
Creators with an audience
You've proven demand. Now you need the product.
Newsletter, podcast, community, course — you know what your audience wants. We build the software without you learning to code or managing engineers.
Not a venture studio. No equity taken.
02
Founders without a CTO
Past demo. Pre-hire. Need someone who ships.
Pre-seed or seed. You have a Lovable or Cursor prototype and a real customer problem. We plug in as your product and engineering arm from week one.
No six-month recruitment. No discovery quarter.
03
Founders with a CTO and a backlog
You have a team. You're still behind.
An engineering org already in place, but a backlog that keeps growing and a quarter's worth of work nobody can get to. We plug in alongside your team and cane through a defined chunk — one initiative, shipped — then hand back clean.
We play well with other teams. No takeover, no politics.
None of these fit exactly? Write to us anyway →
// first_engagement
One low-risk way in.
Start with a Sprint — a fixed, two-week piece of real work. We decide together what comes after.
// the_sprint
A scoped, fixed-price engagement. You leave with working software or a tested prototype plus a buildable plan. No commitment beyond it.
- → Day 0 meet-and-greet — Day 1 starts as real work
- → Week 1: map, prototype, test with five real users
- → Week 2: build one feature live, or prove the plan
- → Senior team, in your Slack — no juniors, no handoffs
// Full credit toward month 1 if you continue within 14 days.
// after_the_sprint
Tailored to your product, scoped with you.
If it's working, we move into an ongoing arrangement — sized to your product and your pace. We'll price it with you directly, once we both know what we're building.
No lock-in theatre. We earn the next sprint by being worth it — not by trapping you in a contract.
Same team, for years.
Continuity is the product.
// starting
Starting takes moments,
not meetings.
Click Book a Sprint, pick what you need, and you're booked — terms and NDA handled in the same flow. You'll get a welcome pack with a short worksheet, and we'll drop you into a Slack channel with the team. By the time we meet, we've done our homework. Day 1 is real work, not introductions.
- 01
Pick what you need
Workshop or Sprint. If Sprint, build a feature or prove a plan.
- 02
Sign in the flow
Terms and a standard NDA — accepted with a click, no email tennis.
- 03
Pick a date
Day 0 — a short call to meet and align. Booked from a calendar.
- 04
Welcome pack
Worksheet, contract, and a Slack channel with the senior team in it.
// Scheduling ping-pong shouldn't be the thing in your way. Reach out for a chat if you'd rather — workshop@allshapes.io.
// selected_work
Apps people actually open.
see_all_work →
App of the Day
Five Minute Journal
The daily gratitude app. 60k MAU, 4.8★.
Apple editorial
The Doctor's Kitchen
Dr Rupy's evidence-based recipe platform.
Multi-platform
RNT Fitness
Premium coaching SaaS. Multi-tenant from day one.
10× revenue
Allen's Camera
10× online revenue. Philadelphia's most trusted camera store.
GDPR-grade
Welbeck Health
Private-hospital network. Five micro-sites unified into one role-aware platform.
250% ROI
Sales Made Simple
AI-powered CPQ for HVAC, plumbing and electrical distributors.
// from_founders
What they said.
Akash Vaghela
Founder, RNT Fitness
"An advisor was helping me decide which agency to work with. I sent him information and proposals from a bunch of competitors. With all the companies he reviewed, there were always pros and cons for all of them. Except All Shapes."
Brandon Leichter
Owner, Allen's Camera
"Your company rules. I often feel dazed from days filled with chasing vendors to hold up their end of our partnership. All Shapes has been a breath of fresh air since day one."
Chandni Vaghela
Co-founder, RNT Fitness
"When we started talking, you could feel the attention to detail and that the team really understands the industry and what we as a company are about. So you could sense it would be a really good collaboration."
// about_us
The people behind the product.
Founded by Thomas and Callum — a decade of building together. Jakub leads engineering. Every client. Every line of code. That's us.
Thomas Horak
CEO & Co-Founder
15 years running product and engineering across consumer apps, SaaS, and ecommerce. Built All Shapes into the team behind some of the App Store's most recognised consumer products — Five Minute Journal, The Doctor's Kitchen, RNT Fitness. Thomas leads strategy, client relationships, and every meaningful product decision. He also hosts the Changing Shapes podcast — interviewing the founders building today.
focus
Product strategy · Client relationships · Pricing and scope
Callum McLennan
Operations & Co-Founder
Callum has run the operational side of All Shapes for a decade — how projects are scoped, staffed, and delivered, and how clients experience working with us. If a Sprint runs smoothly, that's Callum.
focus
Operations · Delivery · Client experience
Jakub Heglas
Lead Engineer
Jakub leads engineering across All Shapes products — iOS, Android, web, and backend, from App-of-the-Day consumer apps to multi-tenant SaaS platforms serving thousands of users. Every architectural decision goes through Jakub. If there's a technical risk in your product, he'll find it.
focus
Architecture · Multi-platform engineering · Technical review
// UK and Europe-based. We do not offshore. Every decision — that's us.
// what_we_believe
What we do.
What we don't.
Hire us if these match. Don't if they don't.
We do
We don't
Judgement over speed.
AI made code cheap. Senior taste got rare. We sell both.
Discovery theatre.
Quarter-long decks pretending to be planning.
Right-sizing.
Build the cheapest thing that scales. Tell you what not to build.
Up-selling complexity.
AI features when a database does the job.
The change in their life is the product.
Real-life impact → customer success → retention → LTV. That order matters.
Optimising for DAU.
Vanity metrics that don't track the user's life getting better.
Daily-use is a craft.
Subscription apps, habit-forming products, daily tools. Ten years of getting people to come back tomorrow.
Optimising for launch.
A great launch day. An empty app by Q2.
Same team, for years.
Continuity is the product. Seniors who learn your business stay on it.
Rotating juniors.
Senior pitches; juniors execute; you find out in month four.
No equity. No lock-in theatre.
Fixed fee. Founder keeps the cap table. We earn the next sprint by being worth it.
Equity for execution.
Venture studios that take 30% for the team.
// faq
You're probably wondering...
How much does it cost?
You start with a Sprint — €6,250 for two weeks, with full credit toward month 1 if you continue within 14 days. Ongoing arrangements after the Sprint are tailored to your product and scoped with you directly.
How many sprints until I have a product?
Honestly — it depends on what you're building. A focused tool might take one or two. A multi-user platform, more. What's true every time: the first Sprint produces something tangible you can put in front of users or investors, and you'll finish it knowing exactly what the path looks like. No open-ended retainers, no surprises.
Who actually does the work?
Tom reviews every meaningful product decision. Jakob leads engineering and reviews every meaningful piece of code. Senior engineers do the build; AI agents handle boilerplate, tests, and infrastructure underneath. We don't grow by rotating juniors onto your project.
Can we pause?
Yes. If you need to pause, you can — banked time converts to maintenance work like security patches, App Store submissions and small fixes while you decide what's next. We don't use it as a sales hook, but it's there as a reassurance.
Do you take equity?
No. Fixed fee. You keep all of the upside.
What about IP ownership?
Everything we build is yours. Code, designs, assets, App Store accounts — all transferred at handover. No lock-in.
Can you work with our existing codebase?
Yes. We regularly pick up projects mid-stream, audit existing code, fix security debt, and improve what's already there. We play well with other teams too — no takeover, no politics.
What if we hate the work?
If a build is going the wrong way we'll re-plan mid-cycle rather than power through. The Sprint exists exactly so neither side commits before there's evidence — if it's not working after the Sprint, we shake hands and part ways.
// ready_to_start
Let's build something that works.
Start with a Sprint. Two weeks, €6,250, one real outcome. No pitch deck required.
// No commitment beyond a Sprint. We'll tell you straight if we're not the right team.