I’m Abrie Els, and I write the code myself
This is not an agency with a stock photo of a meeting room. It is one developer in Alberton who builds software for South African businesses, and who you will be dealing with directly from the first email to the last deployment.
Most of the software a small business depends on is either far more than it needs, far less than it needs, or a spreadsheet that one person understands. I build the thing in the middle: software shaped around how the business actually works, small enough to afford and solid enough to run on.
I work alone by choice. It means I take on fewer projects, but it also means there is no layer between you and the person writing the code — no brief being relayed, no estimate from someone who will not be doing the work. When you describe a problem, you are describing it to the person who will solve it.
I co-founded BudStack
BudStack is a multi-tenant SaaS platform for cannabis retail in South Africa, and I am one of its co-founders and its full-stack developer. Real stores run their tills, their stock and their customer messaging on it.
That matters here for one reason: a retail platform is not a demo. It has to reconcile at the end of a shift, keep one store’s data away from another’s, survive a bad network connection mid-sale, and still be correct the next morning. Software that handles money and stock in front of a queue of customers is the most unforgiving kind to build, and it is the experience I bring to everything else.
Point of sale
The till. Scanning, weight-based and unit pricing, promotions, cash-up and reconciliation at the end of a shift.
Inventory
Stock on hand across products and variants, stock takes, and the audit trail that explains why a number moved.
Multi-store
One admin console across multiple locations, with staff and permissions scoped per store.
Multi-tenant
Separate stores running on the same platform without seeing each other's data - the hard part of any SaaS build.
WhatsApp integration
Messaging wired into the platform through the WhatsApp Business Platform, because in South Africa that is where customers already are.
BudStack is a separate business with its own team and its own clients. Soft Development Solutions is my own practice, and work I do for you under it is entirely separate from it.
Four things I hold to
Boring technology, on purpose
I pick tools with long support horizons and large communities over whatever is fashionable this quarter. Software you pay for should still build and deploy in three years.
Scope honestly
If something will take longer than you hoped, I would rather say so at the quote than discover it at the deadline. A quote that is quietly optimistic is just a late project with extra steps.
Write it down
Scope, price and timeline in writing before work starts. It protects you more than it protects me.
Build what gets used
A feature nobody opens cost money to build and costs money to maintain. I will push back on scope that does not earn its keep.
TODOcontent Abrie needs to supply
Sections deliberately left empty
Nothing below was invented. Each of these makes the page materially more persuasive, and each needs a fact only you have. Delete this whole block once they’re filled in or decided against.
- A photo of you. public/abrie.jpg, then an <Image> in the hero. A real face does more for a one-person business than any paragraph here.
- Years of experience, or the year you started. One sentence, but it has to be true.
- Other projects or clients worth naming - with their permission. Even two named projects beyond BudStack change how this page reads.
- A testimonial or two, quoted and attributed. Nothing on this site currently claims social proof, because none has been given.
- Your tech stack in your own words, if you want it stated publicly. The homepage marquee lists technologies - confirm that list is accurate.
- Any formal qualification or certification, if you want it mentioned.
Worth a conversation?
If you have something that needs building, tell me about it. If it’s not a good fit I will say so rather than quote on it.
Get in touch