For startups
Build-operate-transfer
We build your product, run it for up to five years, then it's yours. Take it over, or keep us running it.
Tenspace Software · Lafayette, Colorado
You have the idea and the customers waiting. You don't have the engineering team yet.
We build your product, run it, and hand it to you when you're ready to own it. Or we work beside the team you already have. Twenty-six years of building business systems, with every term written down before we start.
Three ways to work with us
For leaders and teams
Consulting
Architecture, cloud cost and security reviews, system selection and technical leadership, from someone who has built systems like yours for twenty-six years.
For software you own
Custom development
Software built around how your business runs, specified with you, approved by you, and yours when it's paid for.
For startups
Everything a startup needs from an engineering team, before you can hire one
Your money should go into customers, not into building a team before you know what to build. We give you a product, the operations behind it, and the technical judgment investors look for, then hand it all to you when you're ready.
A real product, not a prototype
Built to run your business from the first customer: secure, backed up and able to grow, so you don't rebuild it after your first round.
Operations from day one
Hosting, monitoring, backups, security fixes and support from people who know your system. No servers for you to run, and no on-call schedule to staff.
A technology lead you can't hire yet
Architecture decisions, vendor choices and a technical voice in the room with customers and investors, without a full-time executive salary. See fractional CTO.
Ready for investors and buyers
Clear documentation, answers to security questionnaires, and help through technical due diligence. A path to owning your technology is already written into the agreement.
A low, predictable burn
Built on serverless cloud, so you pay for what your customers use rather than idle servers, and your costs grow with your business, not ahead of it.
Your first engineering hires
When you're ready to bring it in-house, we help you hire and onboard your own engineers and hand the system to them with documentation and training.
How we work, whatever we build
The lessons of twenty-six years, written as promises.
- Terms before you ask. Plain-language proposals and agreements, so nothing you sign is new to you.
- You decide what; we decide how. You tell us what your business needs. We choose the design that is secure, reliable and affordable.
- You see it before it's live. Every change goes to a demo copy first, and goes live when you approve it.
- A person, never a bot. You talk to the people who build your system. We use AI as a tool we direct, never as the one talking to you.
- Honest timelines. We give good-faith estimates, never promises we can't keep.
- No lock-in. Your data is always yours to take, and what you pay to own, you own.
Looking for a business system instead?
Meet Porto, from our sister company
If you'd rather not own software at all, Porto runs your sales, inventory, purchasing and accounting in one system for one flat monthly fee, with every change that passes intake included. Porto is made by Point of Truth Systems LLC, a separate company.
Designed by a person, built to last
Paul Perez has spent twenty-six years building business systems, most of them inside other people's companies. Tenspace is where he builds and advises directly, with the same care for the systems your business depends on.
About TenspaceQuestions people ask first
How is this different from hiring an agency?
An agency builds and leaves. We can build, run and improve your system for years, then hand it to you on terms written down before we start. One senior architect designs it, and the same team keeps it running.
Who owns the code?
You own what you pay to own. Custom development is yours when it is paid for. Under build-operate-transfer, your application becomes yours at transfer, and the platform pieces it runs on come with a permanent, royalty-free license.
Do you only work with startups?
No. Startups are a natural fit for build-operate-transfer, but we consult for and build for established businesses too. If you want a business system run for a flat monthly fee, our sister company makes Porto.
Where are you based?
Lafayette, Colorado, in the Denver area. Everyone who works on your system works for us directly, in the USA.
What does the first conversation cost?
Nothing. We talk about what you need, tell you honestly whether we are the right fit, and if we are, put a written proposal in front of you.
A new system is a big decision. Start with a conversation.
It costs nothing, and you'll leave knowing whether we're the right fit, even if we aren't.
Start a conversation