Partnership
When the project is bigger than one engineer
Code Hippies is one senior engineer, and for a defined build that is the right shape — fewer handoffs, one person accountable. Some work is genuinely bigger than that: parallel workstreams, ongoing multi-product delivery, a team that survives someone taking leave, or a technical partner with real stake in the outcome. That is what Dharmarthlabs is for.
The relationship, stated plainly: Deepak Joshi founded Dharmarthlabs and works across both. Code Hippies is the individual engineering practice; Dharmarthlabs is the team and product company behind it. You are not being handed to a stranger with a commission — it is the same person, with a company and a team behind him when that is what the work needs.
dharmarthlabs.comYou want a standard product, configured — not a bespoke build
Buy it productised
Most businesses asking for custom software need something that has been built four hundred times before: a booking flow, a news portal, a lead-capture site, a storefront, an internal dashboard. Dharmarthlabs builds those once, properly, and configures them per client. You pick the options, it ships in days rather than months, and you pay a fraction of a bespoke build because you are not funding someone's first attempt.
- Ships in days, not months — the product already exists
- Priced as a product, not as an open-ended engagement
- Options selected up front, so the scope conversation is a form rather than a workshop
- Same engineering standards as a custom build, because it is the same people
You are technical and the standard options genuinely do not fit
Specify it exactly
If you can describe the data model, the constraints and the integration surface, you should not be forced through a menu. Dharmarthlabs keeps a route for people who know what they want: bring the specification, get a scoped technical response rather than a sales call. This is also where a productised base gets extended into something specific to your business.
- Technical specification in, scoped technical response out
- Productised foundation extended rather than rebuilt from zero
- Direct access to the engineers, not an account manager relaying questions
- Architecture decisions documented and defensible
You are a startup that needs engineering leadership, not a vendor
Take on a technical partner
Startups without a technical founder usually get one of two bad outcomes: an agency that bills for a product it has no stake in, or a junior hire carrying architectural decisions they have never made before. The partnership route puts a technical team alongside the business with real skin in the game — including equity-inclusive structures where the fit and the stage justify it.
- Technical direction and architecture ownership, not just delivery
- Cash, equity, or blended structures depending on stage and fit
- A team that scales with you rather than a contract you renegotiate
- Diligence-ready documentation from the start, because investors will ask
You are an established company with procurement and a delivery date
Engage as a vendor with a team behind it
Where continuity, parallel workstreams and a named backup team are contractual requirements rather than nice-to-haves, the engagement runs through Dharmarthlabs. Same engineering standards and the same person accountable for the technical outcome — with the company structure, capacity and paperwork an enterprise procurement process actually needs.
- Company contracting, invoicing and compliance paperwork
- Named backup team, so one person's leave is not a project risk
- Parallel workstreams across multiple products
- Defined SLAs and escalation paths
When the honest answer is “stay here”
A referral that is wrong for you costs more trust than it earns, so here is when routing you to Dharmarthlabs would be the wrong move and you should just work with me directly:
- A single site, app or feature with a defined scope — that is exactly what Code Hippies is for, and routing it through a company adds cost without adding value.
- An audit, a rescue, or a second opinion on work someone else did.
- Anything where you specifically want one accountable engineer rather than a team.
Not sure which side of the line you are on?
Send the brief and you'll get a straight answer on whether this is a Code Hippies engagement or a Dharmarthlabs one — including when the answer costs me the larger job.