# Dura Labs

> Custom software for businesses that need a costly process fixed or something built that does not exist yet. Problem first, small first, and fitted alongside the tools a business already runs.

A small, senior software studio in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, founded in August 2022 by Mike Carpenter. Engagements are led directly, with no agency layer and no junior delegation.

The work starts by asking what a problem is costing and whether software is the right fix, rather than by taking an order for an application. It lands small: one expensive process solved properly, working alongside the systems a business already depends on, earning the right to the next piece. The longest engagements here began as a single manual workflow that needed digitising.

Who it is for: owner-operated businesses of roughly ten to fifty people carrying the drag of manual process; franchise and multi-location operators, where one broken process is the same problem multiplied across every site; and founders building something new who need production software rather than a disposable prototype.

## Pages

- [Home](https://duralabs.io/): what the studio does and the problems it is usually brought in to fix
- [The Quick Look](https://duralabs.io/quick-look): a short set of pointed questions about how a business runs, returning an immediate and specific read on where it is most likely leaking time and money. Free, about three minutes, no email required to see the result
- [How we work](https://duralabs.io/how-we-work): the process, from first conversation to delivery
- [Ways to work with us](https://duralabs.io/ways-to-work): the arrangements available, including those that do not require a large payment upfront
- [Articles](https://duralabs.io/articles): the writing below
- [Contact](https://duralabs.io/contact)

## Articles

Each line gives the piece and the situation it was written for. Full text of every article is at https://duralabs.io/llms-full.txt

### Buying guide

- [Build It Yourself Until It Starts to Matter](https://duralabs.io/articles/build-it-yourself): A founder or an owner deciding whether to build the first version themselves or pay somebody to do it, or one who has already built a working prototype with an AI coding tool and is weighing up whether it can go live. Also fits an established business adding an offering it has never sold before, and anyone whose team now depends on something nobody there fully understands.
- [When Is Custom Software Actually Worth It?](https://duralabs.io/articles/when-custom-software-is-worth-it): An owner weighing whether to have something built or just buy a tool, especially one who suspects they are being sold more than the problem needs. Also fits anyone who thinks solving this properly means a platform.
- [How to Vet a Software Developer Before You Hire One](https://duralabs.io/articles/vetting-a-developer): An owner about to hire a developer or an agency, or one who has hired badly before, with no reliable way to tell a serious builder from someone running an AI subscription behind a landing page.

### AI, honestly

- [What “AI Agents” Actually Are (and What Nobody Selling Them Tells You)](https://duralabs.io/articles/what-ai-agents-actually-are): An owner who has been pitched AI agents, or wonders whether one would help, and wants to know what they actually require to work before spending anything.
- [The Cheapest Way to Find Out If Your New System Actually Works](https://duralabs.io/articles/shadow-mode): A business about to switch on an automated or AI system, or one that switched it on recently and is now quietly nervous about it. Also fits an owner who has been shown a demo and wants a way to prove the thing works against their own operation before it is given any authority.
- [The Data Quality Dashboard Isn’t Stopping Anything](https://duralabs.io/articles/data-quality-gate): A business being told its data is not ready for an AI or automation project, with no way to verify that or argue with it. Also fits an owner already running dashboards and alerts nobody acts on, or one who has been burned by a report that turned out to be wrong and wants to know when an automated decision can be trusted.
- [Your AI Pilot Worked. Your Rollout Didn’t.](https://duralabs.io/articles/pilot-that-tested-well): A business running or about to run a pilot, trial or proof of concept before committing, especially one being shown a strong number by a vendor or an internal team. Also fits an owner whose last software or AI project tested well and then quietly underdelivered once it was live.

### Teardown

- [What Happens to Your Business When One Person Doesn’t Show Up?](https://duralabs.io/articles/single-point-of-failure): A business where one person holds knowledge nobody else has, where their absence would stop work rather than slow it, or where the owner is the only one who can do a critical job.
- [Your Team Is Typing the Same Thing Into Three Different Systems](https://duralabs.io/articles/manual-re-entry): A team re-keying the same order, job or customer detail into more than one system by hand, or running on spreadsheets alongside their tools, where fixing it is assumed to mean replacing what they already have.
- [The Follow-Up Sequence That Knows When to Shut Up](https://duralabs.io/articles/follow-up-sequences): A business chasing leads or customers with automated follow-ups, where the sequence keeps sending after someone has already replied, booked or bought.

### Practice

- [Your Customers Can Tell When You Were Deliberate](https://duralabs.io/articles/deliberateness): An owner deciding how much care a piece of work deserves, or building something new and weighing speed against getting it right.

### Obligations

- [When Your Bookkeeper Can’t Log In Anymore](https://duralabs.io/articles/delegated-access): A business where an outside bookkeeper, accountant or contractor needs access to its systems, and where that access currently runs through somebody’s personal login.
- [What It Actually Takes to Text Your Customers Legally](https://duralabs.io/articles/texting-consent): A business that texts its customers or is about to, particularly one treating consent as a checkbox on a record rather than a dated event.

## Contact

hello@duralabs.io | 214-702-1439 | Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas