Ford Academy
fordacademy.co.za
A management platform built for Ford's South African dealer network — performance tracking, member management, and training in one place.
Visit Ford Academy ↗$ whoami
platform_studio
est: 2010
loc: johannesburg
team: small
Custom platforms.
Managed for you.
A South African platform studio. We design, ship, and operate purpose-built software — one accountable team, zero handovers. The thing we sell isn't a project. It's a platform that keeps running.
// 01
./platforms
A few of the platforms we've built.
Every engagement is different — we tailor what we build to the problem at hand. Here are three of ours.
CS Environmental
csenvironmental.co.za
A compliance portal for environmental management and ISO 14001 certification — document registers, audit prep, and corrective actions in one calm place.
Visit CS Environmental ↗Pulse Studio
pulsestudio.co.za
The everyday operating system for fitness and wellness studios — schedules, bookings, members, and payments without the spreadsheet sprawl.
Visit Pulse Studio ↗Zen Leave
zenleave.co.za
Calm, compliant employee leave for modern South African teams — built around the BCEA so HR doesn't have to remember every clause.
Launching soon
MORE
Let's talk →
And a few more in the works.
If your industry needs a purpose-built platform, we'd like to hear about it.
// 02
./services
Build, host, run, evolve.
More than code. We're not just developers who hand over a zip file and disappear — we build platforms and then operate them, so you get a living product, not a one-off project.
01 ·/platform.build
Platform design & build
UX, frontend, backend, integrations. Designed and engineered for the specific shape of your industry.
- Discovery & workflow mapping
- Clickable prototypes
- Production-grade engineering
02 ·/infra.host
Hosting & infra
Servers, database, SSL, backups, monitoring. One bill, one team, one phone number.
- SA-region hosting
- Daily encrypted backups
- On-call incident response
03 ·/platform.run
Continuous evolution
Platforms grow. We ship small, considered changes informed by real usage.
- Sprint-based delivery
- Telemetry-led decisions
- Quarterly roadmap reviews
04 ·/support.partner
Support & partnership
A real human who knows your platform, your team, and your priorities.
- Named account lead
- SLAs that actually mean it
- Plain-English status updates
// 03
./process
Idea → live platform.
Four honest stages. No big reveals, no surprise invoices, no zip-file goodbyes.
step.01
./discover
duration: ~2–3 weeks
Sit with you, your team, your customers. Map the workflows, the edge cases, the half-broken spreadsheet that's actually running things.
step.02
./design
duration: ~3–5 weeks
Clickable prototypes before code. You see, click, and feel the platform — bad ideas die while they're still cheap.
step.03
./build
duration: ~8–14 weeks
Iterative sprints, regular demos. Ship to staging weekly, to production when it's genuinely ready.
step.04
./run
duration: ongoing
The day after launch we're still here. Monitoring, supporting, shipping the next thing your team needs.
// 04
./principles
What makes us different.
◐
Full-stack ownership
One team from database to DNS — no vendor finger-pointing.
⌬
POPIA & BCEA aware
Compliance and data protection built in, not bolted on at the end.
◇
Long relationships
Our clients stay with us for years, not months. We do this work to do it well.
◊
Industry-specific
We don't build generic SaaS. Each platform reflects its sector's reality.
◈
Local & accountable
A South African team that moves fast and communicates plainly.
◉
Always shipping
Small, considered improvements every fortnight — for every platform we run.
$ ./start-project --new