Custom software,
built for how you actually work.
HQOO is a Charlotte software firm. We build the things you can't buy off the shelf: operator apps, integrations, field-ready mobile. Sometimes that means replacing a spreadsheet. Sometimes it's an app no one's built yet.
A few of the teams we've built software for
The work has outgrown
the tools running it.
Three patterns. Same disease. Whether the business is held together by tribal knowledge in Excel, by seven systems that don't talk, or by an app that simply doesn't exist yet. We ship the software underneath.
One spreadsheet runs the business.
28 sheets. 1,402 vlookups. Last edited at 23:41 on a Monday by a person you can’t afford to lose. It breaks quietly every Tuesday. Nobody else knows why.
Seven systems that don’t talk.
The ERP doesn’t know what the WMS knows. The CRM has a third version of the customer. Someone is reconciling it all in Excel. That someone is your COO.
No software fits the work.
You’ve searched. You’ve demoed three SaaS tools. None of them do the specific thing your business does. So you’re running it on paper, or a clipboard, or a group chat. We build the missing app.
We don’t write SOWs. We write software.
Three phases. Each one has a clear deliverable and a named team on it. The output is working software. Not a deck, not a roadmap, not a slide that says “transformation.”
Diagnose
Two weeks. Onsite. We map the data flows you actually have, not the slide-deck version, and rank the spreadsheets that hurt most.
Wire
We connect the systems and build the smallest piece of software that replaces the worst spreadsheet. We ship every Friday.
Run with you
We stay as long as you need us. Most clients keep us on as an embedded team — your stand-ups, your tools, your Slack. Predictable monthly, no SOW theatre, no kickoff before each ship.
Small by design
A senior team that ships like a big one. The work used to need a pyramid. It doesn’t anymore.
Charlotte-based
No off-shore handoff. You can drive to the office, and you meet the people writing the code.
Embedded, not engaged
We sit inside your team, not across the table from it. Long enough that the next ship doesn’t need a kickoff.
Boring stack
Postgres, TypeScript, Python. Proven things. No résumé-driven development.
What we actually build.
A short menu. We say no to most of what gets asked. Everything below has been shipped to production in the last twelve months: for distributors, manufacturers, service businesses, non-profits, and a car show.
Make the systems talk.
ERP ↔ WMS ↔ CRM ↔ accounting ↔ payroll. A single canonical model of the customer, the order, the SKU. Wired into a sync layer that runs in your cloud.
The app no one else sells.
Operator apps for the way you actually work: pricing, dispatch, scoring, scheduling, intake, returns. Web or mobile. Offline-ready when the work happens on a field, a floor, or a tablet far from Wi-Fi.
Embedded intelligence. Not theatre.
Forecasting, summarization, and triage built into specific business processes. Quote drafting, contract review, demand forecasting, support deflection. Always with a human in the loop and audit trails by default.
Yesterday’s numbers, every morning.
A warehouse, the dashboards your CFO actually looks at, and the alerts that wake the right person when something breaks. Dashboards we build into your operator app — not another tool to log into.
A senior team, on monthly retainer.
For companies that need ongoing capacity without hiring a CTO and four engineers. Predictable price, named team, two-week sprints.
For PE teams pre and post-close.
Pre-LOI: tech diligence written by people who have actually shipped. Post-close: a 100-day plan to fix the operating model. Not just the tech stack.
Case studies + writing, coming soon.
We're putting the real ones together. Anonymized numbers, named systems, the work as it actually shipped. Until then, the fastest way to get a sense of the work is a thirty-minute call.
Tell us what you’re building.
Thirty-minute call. No deck, no sales engineer. Walk us through the workbook that’s eating your week, or sketch the app no one has built yet. We’ll tell you honestly whether we can help. And if not, who can.