The Great Folks is a boutique product studio in British Columbia, Canada. We build and run software of our own, and we take a short list of clients from idea to market with a full product team for about what one good hire costs. One team, all the way through.
We came out of operating roles, not consulting ones. That shapes everything below.
Most studios will hand you a strategy deck and wish you well. We ship the thing, run the thing, and keep it standing. Our own products pay rent, which is the only honest proof that the advice was any good.
Product, design, engineering and go-to-market, working as one. You'd spend the same on a single senior hire and still be missing three skill sets. Scale us up for a push, scale us back when you don't need us.
The code, the accounts, the domains, the documentation. It's yours from day one and it stays yours the day we're done. No proprietary platform, no hostage situation, no buried notice clause.
Less a manifesto, more the operating notes we hold ourselves to.
The Great Renter, headlight, CANspec and Prodify are ours. They're how we stay sharp, how we learn what actually works, and why our advice costs us something when it's wrong. A studio that doesn't ship for itself forgets what shipping feels like.
We take a small number of engagements at a time so a partner is in the room on every one of them. We'd rather turn work down than let a project meet an account manager. If we're not the right fit, we'll tell you who is.
No long lock-in, no minimums designed to trap you. Stay because the work is good, leave when it isn't. The model only works if we're worth keeping, which is the point.
Everything we build is documented and transferable from the first week. If you bring the work in-house, you walk away with it, not a bill for an exit. We'd rather you stay because you want to.
No account managers, no layer between you and the people doing the work. A partner is involved in every engagement and you'll know exactly who is on your project before it starts.
Taylor spent years on the operating side of a fast-growing background screening company, most recently leading customer and operations teams, before starting The Great Folks. He's the one who asks whether anybody will actually pay for this.
He also runs the studio's own products and does buy-side M&A advisory, which is a useful habit: it means he reads a product the way a buyer does. Ask him about housebuilding if you want him to talk your ear off.
LinkedIn ↗
Charley leads how things get built. He's the technical lead on the studio's products and on client work, from architecture and infrastructure through to the analytics that tell you whether any of it worked.
He's the reason our builds ship on time and the reason they're still standing up a year later.
LinkedIn ↗
Wyatt looks after the studio's search, marketing collateral and the occasional piece of tech nobody else wanted to touch. He taught himself most of it, which is exactly how he likes to learn: by fixing things that were annoying him until they weren't.
He's based in Victoria, BC, and is the first to admit he'd rather be the least experienced person in the room. Ask him about SEO if you want a longer answer than you bargained for.
LinkedIn ↗Thirty minutes, no deck, no pitch. We'll tell you what we'd do, roughly what it takes, and whether we're the right people for it. Sometimes the answer is no and that's a useful call too.
