The flock
The flock behind the work.
Musket Goose is a software company in Cape Town. We design, build and operate production systems for other companies, and we stay on them long after launch.
The name
Start with the goose.
A flock in formation travels further than any bird in it flies alone. Each one rides the lift of the one ahead, the front does the expensive part, and the lead changes before anyone burns out. Nothing about the arrangement is decorative.
We arranged the company the same way. Every build draws lift from systems already proven in production, and the person out front on your work is a builder, not an account layer.
The musket is a separate matter.
The musket
Now the musket.
Musket is a dog in Cape Town. She had the name first and the company took it from her, so half the sign on the door belongs to someone who has never written a line of code.
She holds no equity, has no login and has never closed a ticket. She has been asleep about a metre away for most of the code in this repository.
The sunglasses are hers. The headphones are not.
How we run
Rules we fly by.
01
Nothing fake, anywhere
In the systems we build, a number nobody recorded renders as a dash. This site obeys the same rule. An empty section says it is empty instead of dressing up.
02
The builder is the operator
The person who scopes your system writes it, ships it and carries it in production. Nobody is briefed in halfway, and nobody hands over at launch.
03
We are our own first client
We run on our own software before any client has to, and this website is part of it. Every rough edge is one we found ourselves.
The people
Four names. No layers.
The people listed here are the people on the work. Write to any of them and you have reached all of us.
- Jack SpenceDevelopmentStart here if you are not sure who to write to. Also our POPIA information officer.jack.spence@musketgoose.com
- Lourens KokDevelopmentIn the codebase most days. Ask him the hard technical questions.lourens.kok@musketgoose.com
- Finn McLaughlinDevelopmentScoping and delivery. Whoever is free answers first.finn.mclaughlin@musketgoose.com
Questions
The things people ask first.
Short answers, in plain words. Everything here is stated somewhere else on this site as well.
- What does Musket Goose do?
- We design, build and operate production software for other companies. We stay on the systems we build long after launch, which is the part most teams do not do.
- Where is Musket Goose based?
- Cape Town, South Africa. The company is registered as Musket Goose (Pty) Ltd, and the people on the work are named on this page.
- What kind of software do you build?
- Custom business systems. Accounts and permissions, audit trails, quoting and invoicing in ZAR with the numbering SARS expects, bank reconciliation, boards and queues teams work from, scheduling and time tracking. Every one of those runs in our own platform before it runs in anybody else's.
- Do you hand the system over when it launches?
- No. The team that builds it is the team that runs it. There is no handoff at launch and no second agency inheriting the code.
- Who owns the software you build?
- You do, outright. We keep it running, and that is a separate arrangement to who owns the thing.
- How does an engagement start?
- A call about your business and how it runs today, then a written scope you approve before anyone opens an editor. You can start that document yourself at the Start a build page.
- What does it cost?
- There is no price list on this site and nothing on it works out a number for you. Scope is fixed and agreed upfront, in writing, and the brief you send us is where that conversation starts.
- Can I see something you have built?
- Yes. The client work we are able to name is listed on the Work page. Every entry there is live in production and still operated by us.
- Do you build for nonprofits?
- We want to. If you run a nonprofit and you know what needs building, tell us, and we will scope it properly and build it to the same standard as everything else we ship.
Start here
Tell us what you need built.
What it has to do, and when. Five questions turn it into a written brief, answered by the person who would build it.
Start a build