Heritage Global Partnershgpauction.com
Every web property, rebuilt. Real-time uploads and auction creation from the sale floor on connected tablets, in 2010. Still running today.
Over $1 billion in assets sold through the platform since launch.
/ ZAC / TECHNOLOGY STUDIO
The systems we built in 2010 are still running.
Most custom software does not survive the people who built it. The team moves on, the documentation was never written, and in a few years someone is paying to rebuild it.
- You own the code outright.
- Your team runs it without us.
- It is still working years after handover.
Most software is disposable. Ours has not been.
15 years. Over 100 engagements. Live since 2010 and still in production.
01 / TRACK RECORD
We have built this before.
ZAC is the successor to Mahalo Media Group, the practice Andrew Johnston has run for over 15 years. It started while he was still at IBM and has outlasted that tenure. Same principal, same standards, new economics.
Every system below was handed to the people who own it. They run them without us.
Legacy Studios · Teddy Bear Portraits
End-to-end point of sale and same-day photo delivery across 41 states. Parents saw their photos in real time and bought on the spot. We moved them off proprietary software onto open source, then handed the system to their own team. Built 2016 to 2019. Still running.
Support calls dropped by over 90%, according to the client.
US Naval Academy · US Marines
Branded cadet booking and photo portals for both academies, built on the platform we had already shipped. Delivered through Legacy Studios. Live since 2017 and still running.
Legal Access Alameda
Web properties for a statewide group of attorneys providing disaster response and free legal assistance across California.
Andrew Johnston
Founder
Twenty years at IBM and fifteen running his own practice. ZAC is what happens when those stop being separate things.
Design Director
Associate creative director at Ogilvy. Before that, the IBM Design Lab.
Senior Engineer
Full stack. Built enterprise systems at IBM.
02 / WHY NOW
The cost of building changed. Your technology plan should too.
Experience did not get cheaper. Judgment about what is worth building is still the hard part, and it still decides whether a project works.
What changed is everything downstream of that decision. Experienced people now produce far more than they did two years ago, so the arithmetic that killed half your backlog no longer holds.
THENNOW
- Large delivery teamsLean senior team
- Long build cyclesRapid iteration
- Heavy coordinationDirect collaboration
- Ideas waiting on budgetIdeas tested early
- Big upfront commitmentsValue proven quickly
Less machinery around the work.
More capability applied to it.
This site is the example. Domain name to live site, including design, email, hosting, and certificates: about 14 hours.
03 / WHAT WE DO
ADVISE
Find out what is worth building.
- Technology strategy
- What to build and in what order
- Second opinions on decisions and vendors
- Workflow analysis
- Architecture and planning
BUILD
Turn the right ideas into working systems.
- Custom software
- Web applications
- Internal tools
- Workflow automation
- Integrations
- High-performance websites
- Prototypes
PARTNER
Keep senior capability on hand.
- Fractional technology leadership
- Continuous product development
- Standing senior review
- Specialist teams assembled to the work
- Fixing what someone else built
04 / HOW WE WORK
Your business
ZAC
Senior specialists
Working technology
One team. No layers.
Strategy and execution stay connected. Our core team covers development, design, and technology strategy, and we bring in trusted senior specialists when a project calls for more depth. The team expands around the problem, not around an agency org chart.
SENIOR-LED
The person in the meeting is the person doing the work. There is no account manager between you and the build.
RIGHT-SIZED
Specialists come in when the work needs them and leave when it does not. You are not funding a permanent bench.
BUILT TO KEEP
Every project is pressure tested for security, usability, and scale against two decades of enterprise experience. Nothing ships because a tool produced it and it looked right. You own the code outright, and our systems are still running years after we handed them over.
05 / START HERE
Two ways in. Both small.
Backlog Review
2 to 3 weeks, from $6,500
You know something should work better, but not what to do first. We go through everything that has been shelved or never funded and tell you which of them are now affordable, what each would take, and which one to do first. Including what is not worth doing.
Credited in full against a build started within 60 days.
Two-Week Proof
2 weeks, $5,000
You already know what you want. Pick the smallest real version of it. We build it in two weeks for a fixed price, and you finish with working software and a clear idea of what it is like to work with us.
Every quote comes with two numbers: what the work would have cost the old way, and what it costs now.
Not sure which? That is what the call is for.
HAVE SOMETHING WORTH BUILDING?
Bring us the problem.
Whether you know exactly what you need or only know something should work better, that is enough to start.