A tiny software shop in Ohio.

Who

I'm Chris. I think of software the way a furniture maker thinks of furniture: built for one person, for one use, by hand, to last decades. Most modern software is the opposite — built for a million people in general, for nobody in particular, to be replaced every eighteen months. Blobby Labs is the workshop where we build the old way, for small businesses who'd rather own their tools than rent them.

What I actually do

I build the tools a specific business actually needs. Not a platform. Not a product. A tool — tuned to the way one business already works, shaped around the quirks you've been apologizing for.

My first client is The Harding Centre, a 66-unit mixed-use building in Marion, Ohio. Their dashboard has 18 pages, handles inbound tenant SMS, tracks maintenance, fires off automated renewals and welcomes, logs compliance inspections, surfaces voicemails, runs backups, and — for fun — has a little virtual pet named Blobby whose moods reflect the building's actual health.

Everything they use is hosted on a Mac Mini sitting on a desk. It's backed up nightly. It's private. It's theirs.

Why "Blobby Labs"

The pet came before the brand. When I was building the Harding Centre dashboard, I realized the best way to make the team actually look at the numbers was to put a little creature next to the numbers whose mood reflected how the building was doing. When the building was thriving, the creature was happy. When a ticket sat for four days, it got anxious. When the month ended well, it evolved to a new stage.

We named him Blobby, after the blobfish — Psychrolutes marcidus, the Pacific deep-sea fish famous for looking sad and droopy when you pull him to the surface. At 2,000 feet down, he looks normal. On the surface, he looks weird.

Small businesses are the same way. Drag them into enterprise SaaS designed for someone else and suddenly everything looks wrong. Software should meet you where you actually live.

Every new client gets their own pet, built on the same engine. Same little creature, different species.

What I believe

• Software should be yours, not rented. When we're done, you own the code, the database, and the hardware. No lock-in. If Blobby Labs stopped existing tomorrow, your system would still run.
• Service is optional, software is always yours. I offer monthly Care Plans for clients who want me to handle the operational layer — Twilio bills, backups, updates, small tweaks. But canceling a plan never takes your software away. You paid for it once, it's yours forever.
• Private by default. Your business data belongs on your desk, not on a server in Virginia you don't control.
• Small is a feature. I take one project at a time, so every client gets the attention their project deserves.
• Craftsmanship over scale. I'd rather build five great systems for five small businesses than one mediocre platform for five thousand.
• Put a pet in it. Tools you check on every day are better than tools you ignore.

What I don't do

• Charge a subscription for the software itself. Builds are project-priced, one-time. Care Plans are optional service on top.
• Resell other people's SaaS.
• Build for enterprises. We're a small team. Go call Salesforce.
• Host your data on servers I don't control.

The workshop

Based in Marion, Ohio. Most work happens remote; on-site setup, hands-on training, and a printed user guide delivered with every build, for clients within a day's drive. Remote clients get the same setup guidance and user guide, delivered digitally and in print. I'm reachable at hello@blobbylabs.com.

If you're reading this because you're trying to decide whether your business needs software built for it — the easiest way to find out is a 15-minute conversation. I'll ask some questions. If there's a project here, we'll sketch it out. If there isn't, I'll tell you.

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Mr. Blobby (the fish) is a real species. The photo that inspired the mascot was taken in 2003 by researchers from the NORFANZ expedition off the coast of New Zealand. He was later voted "World's Ugliest Animal" by the Ugly Animal Preservation Society. We think he's beautiful.