About Us
Hilo Labs isn’t just another digital product studio. We're a group of former startup founders, market disruptors, and innovators that are passionate about building products and turning them into profitable businesses.
While working on our last startup, we noticed a few issues in the software consulting space:
- Long turnarounds: Many software consulting firms have bloated teams, causing unnecessary bureaucracy that extends product development time. This often delays the go-live date for many startups.
- Misunderstanding the market: Too often, technical specifications take precedence over understanding the end user. This results in products that don’t adequately solve users’ problems or meet market needs.
- Inflexibility: Traditional firms stick to rigid plans and specifications, with little room for adjustment. As startups progress towards product-market fit, they need to be able to rapidly iterate their products based on market feedback.
- Bloated project scopes: Traditional consulting firms often seek to maximize project scope, which inflates the team size and, consequently, the billable hours, adding unnecessary costs.
- Cost over quality: In an attempt to cut costs, some clients resort to offshoring development or hiring junior talent. This often leads to missed deadlines and subpar products that hinder future growth.
In response we founded Hilo Labs.
We’ve built our values and operational approach around addressing these issues effectively:
- Speed: Our team works with a startup mentality, discarding unnecessary bureaucracy to minimize overhead and maximize efficiency. We understand the importance of time-to-market for startups and our timelines reflect that.
- Market-Centric: We don’t just code to spec. We immerse ourselves in your vision, your target audience, and the problem you’re solving. We approach your product as founders and build products that are not just technically sound, but market-ready.
- Flexibility: We know startups evolve, and so should our solutions. We embrace change and pivot when required, ensuring you never miss your mark on product-market fit.
- Value-Driven Approach: We don’t artificially inflate project scope or team size. Our goal is to deliver the best product possible, rather than just billing hours.
- Top Canadian Talent: Our team is made up of product-focused professionals committed to building products that work well, last, and are easy to build upon.
Our mission is more than just delivering software solutions. It’s about giving startups the power to launch, sustain, and grow through the creation of market-defining digital products. We carry that mission into everything we do – we’re here to do whatever it takes to help make your business successful.
Our Team
Our team is an all-Canadian group of senior talent with a passion for startups. Every one of us knows tech, but we also get the business side of things. Members of our team have founded multiple startups, raised millions in funding, and helped build businesses from 10 to hundreds of employees.
To give you more context on our team, meet Matt – the founder of Hilo Labs.
Matt Tigwell – Founder
Matt has built companies from $0 to 7 figures in less than 12 months, worked with the CEOs of the biggest financial and insurance companies in the world, and led the development of digital products that transact billions of dollars each year.
Before Hilo Labs, Matt founded a healthcare startup, did AI research at Queen’s University and held engineering roles at Tesla and IBM.
How We Work
We work with businesses that range from idea-stage startups to established enterprises. Our small, fast moving team allows us to create flexible engagements catered to the needs of each client. In the past we’ve had success with the following models:
- Zero to One: We work with you to turn your idea into functional requirements. After that, we’re off to the races to design, build, and ship. Our partnership doesn’t stop when you launch – we’re always here to help you iterate and offer technical support.
- Hourly Engagement: We meet you wherever you’re at in your development life cycle – whether that’s accelerating development on an existing product, fleshing out requirements for a new product, or helping ideate on how to use tech to improve your business.
With Hilo Labs, you’re not just getting a software consulting company; you’re gaining a partner committed to making your business a success.