Who’s behind raising water?
We spent twenty-five years in IT support for the creative industries, sitting on the client’s side of the desk. The same clients stayed with us through every change of system and supplier, and that sort of time teaches you where the weight really sits. By year three, people tell you things they would never have mentioned in year one.
The new tools of the last few years have changed what one person can deliver, and it turns out a career spent alongside clients is good preparation for using them. Every build starts with how you actually work, and we shape the tool around that. Each one does its job well and belongs to you outright. Most cost less than a year of the subscription they replace.
We’re based in Cheltenham, and always glad to meet for a coffee anywhere around Gloucestershire.
How we work
We'll tell you when not to hire us
If your current software is genuinely the better deal, or a £30/month tool already solves your problem, you'll hear that on the first call. A custom build is often the right answer, but not always.
Fixed price or no deal
You approve one number before any work starts, and it lands at a fraction of a traditional developer's fee. If we scoped it wrong, that's our cost.
You own what we build
The code, the data, the accounts: all yours. There's no lock-in and there are no hostage fees. The optional care plan is there because most clients want a human on call. Drop it any time and the tool keeps working.
Small by design
raising water takes on a handful of clients at a time. You deal directly with the person who builds your tool. There's no account manager relaying messages to a dev team.
Secure by default
Every tool is hardened during the build, while it's cheap to do properly. And if you'd like a second pair of eyes on code you already run, we'll review it and tell you honestly what we'd tighten. There's usually something.
The honest test
You shouldn’t take a website’s word for any of this, ours included. So we built a set of free tools that let you see for yourself what a small piece of custom software can do. Try one with a real task from your week. If it’s useful, imagine the version built around your exact workflow.