About Legacy Live
The people who build it
We are a software studio in Bloemfontein, South Africa, and the makers of IBIS. The work is technical. The reason for it is people: communities that last, apprentices who become colleagues, and software that keeps human connection in the picture.
Who we are
Legacy Live is a software studio in Bloemfontein, South Africa. We design, build and look after web and mobile apps for South African founders and social-impact organisations. Community sits inside that work: most of what we ship is a way for people to find each other and stay connected.
The founders we most want beside us are ambitious, and many of them are still small. The work can be serious without asking anyone to look bigger than they are.
Ryan founded the studio. Fourteen years of running his own businesses, and two decades of community projects, taught him to care about the people behind the numbers. Projects that were later mismanaged are why he builds systems that can hold a purpose after a founder steps back.
We also make IBIS, the Integrated Business Intelligence System: one connected system for operations, finance, people and growth. Our own consultation bookings run on it.
The people
These are the people a client actually meets. Ra1nbowings does not use a photograph or a legal name in public. She is here by the name she chose, and the illustration is the portrait.
Ryan
The Connector
chief executive
He connects people, communities, and the work that can last. He plans as if the servers never fill up. The rest of us remind him that they do.
Superpowers
- He sees patterns and solutions that the tools miss.
- He builds culture and community, then connects both to the work.
Weaknesses
- He plans as if the servers never fill up. The team keeps that plan on the ground.
JJ
The Heartist
lead designer
He came to screens through fine art and music coaching. He reads what a person needs from a product before they have the words for it, and he moves quickly once the idea is clear.
JJ is our lead designer, rated in the Top 40 user-experience designers in South Africa by the Interaction Design Foundation.
Superpowers
- He grasps what a user or a client feels, often before they can say it. The design has to feel right, not only look right.
- When the idea is clear, he moves quickly, and the work still holds up.
Weaknesses
- A small detail, such as a misspelled word, can slip past while he is chasing the idea. The team does the fine-tuning.
Timmy
The Tech Prodigy
senior full-stack developer
Timmy is a senior full-stack developer with a mind that runs at warp speed. A tutorial at double speed, with the dull parts skipped, is enough: he applies it properly and does not forget it. He is often three steps ahead, and he has a heart of gold.
Superpowers
- Hyper-learning: a tutorial at double speed is no problem.
- He senses which new tool will matter, and how to use it, before the rest of us have started.
- A can-do attitude that spreads through the room.
Weaknesses
- He moves so fast through ideas that he sometimes needs a reminder to hold a steady pace.
- His talks on innovation hold the room and push the clock. The Connector brings them back to the plan.
Wico
The Engineer
designer and developer
He started here as an apprentice, with an engineering background and a habit of making separate things into one system. He learns a project fully before he builds it, which makes the start slow and the rest quick.
Superpowers
- Patient enough to outlast a hard task.
- He can join a physical device to the software around it, and he will lead that work.
Weaknesses
- He takes time to learn a project before he builds it, so nothing is assumed. The start is slow. Once he is in, he is quick, and we give him that time.
Arthurnacious
The unstoppable force
senior full-stack developer
Methodical, and unwilling to leave a problem half finished. His humour is what keeps a hard week kind.
Superpowers
- He outlasts a problem, and he will not leave it half finished.
- His humour keeps morale up when a deadline is close.
Weaknesses
- When the coffee runs out, so does the momentum. We keep a stash.
- He goes so deep into the work that someone has to nudge him away from the screen.
Ra1nbowings
The Orchestrator
designer, trainer, and onboarding
She makes design, training, and onboarding feel like one job. The procedures we follow come from her, and so does teaching that does not announce itself. She is not a developer. The seat stays open.
Superpowers
- She leads calmly, and a tangle becomes a procedure people can follow.
- Standard procedures come from her, precise and ready to use.
- Her lessons do not announce themselves. One minute it is a conversation, the next you can do the job.
Weaknesses
- She is not a developer. We have left the seat open, and the rest of the work still needs her.
The A Team
When the work is bigger than the people above, we bring in developers, designers, security specialists, and business people who already know how we work. The apprenticeship sometimes feeds this group. They step in for the projects that need more hands.
The apprenticeship
We teach, and some of the people we teach stay. Last December we ran a web design apprenticeship. Some people have continued in an apprenticeship of their own rather than a single cohort. This December is the second web design apprenticeship. In we open the first Business Level I apprenticeship.
Wico is on this page because that path is real. The aim is not a certificate. It is a person who can earn, whether they stay with us or leave to build something of their own. Our long plan treats that school as something we do not cut.
What we stand for
We pay the P.R.I.C.E. for purpose, reformation, integrity, community, and excellence. When they clash, purpose and integrity come first.
Purpose
The direction of the work, for us and for the person who hired us. A choice is sound if repeating it would still leave that purpose alive.
Reformation
We change a thing because we saw what was wrong with it. Healthcare is where we began. The same habit applies wherever the work goes.
Integrity
Our yes is our yes, and our no is our no. What we say and what we ship are the same thing.
Community
A person is never only throughput: not a client, not an apprentice, not someone using the app. If a product has no human connection in it, it is not one of ours.
Excellence
Not a performance, and not an attempt to be everything. The work should be worthy of the person who receives it. A feature is finished when it is written down and tested, not when it first works.
A studio and a product
Doing both is deliberate. Each one keeps the other in check.
IBIS keeps our client work disciplined
We live with IBIS long after each release. So we build client work the same way: as something someone will run, fix and change for years.
Client work keeps IBIS honest
Every client project is a close look at how a real organisation works. That keeps IBIS shaped by real work, not by our assumptions.
Community, in the room
The gatherings are part of the work. We host local founders, and we sit with the owners of the businesses we serve. The software comes out of those rooms.
Who we work with
Organisations whose work is about people, and founders starting something new.
Sectors
- NGOs
- Social Enterprises
- Healthcare
- Faith and community organisations
- New Founders (The Next Generation)
- Public sector and education
Some of our clients
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Where the work has reached
Hover a highlighted country. The marks are places the work has touched.
Where to next
See what we have built, get a ballpark for your own project, or talk it through with us.