In January 2026, Launch Lab officially turned 11.
I probably should have written this post for our 10th birthday, but … we were too busy shipping.
Now that we’ve had a moment to breathe, I wanted to create a bit of a time capsule - a snapshot of where we are today so we can look back in another 11 years and see just how far the goalposts have moved.
Here is a look at what 11 years of building websites, web apps, mobile apps, chatbots, and AI solutions looks like.
49 Startups & MVPs
We’ve now shipped 49 startup projects. While the majority of these are web applications, our portfolio also includes mobile apps and, recently, an interactive AI voice agent.The tech landscape has shifted dramatically since 2015, but the core principles of a successful startup remain the same.
Our “Golden Rule” remains simple: Do your research before you build. Before we write a single line of code, founders should focus on:
- Problem Expertise: You need to understand the problem better than anyone else.
- User Validation: Talk to the people experiencing the pain point. Is it painful enough to warrant a new solution?
- Monetisation: Will these people actually open their wallets for your fix?
The startups we’ve built fall mainly into the following categories:
- HR & Recruitment
- Consumer / social apps
- 2-sided marketplaces (we’ve built quite a few of these)
- Education technology
- Fintech
- Proptech
- Healthtech
Hundreds of Websites
From scrappy startups to a billion-dollar scaleup, we’ve built digital homes for almost every type of organization imaginable - including government departments, non-profits, and universities.We’ve built Webflow websites, fast-loading static websites hosted in S3 buckets (over the years we used Jekyll, Gatsby and Astro), Django sites and even used website builder platforms when asked to. There were even a few Wordpress websites in the early days, but we’ve moved on from there.
In regards to CMS’ we’ve used:
- Webflow
- Contentful
- Strapi
- Storyblok
- Netlify
- Django
The type of businesses we’ve built websites for:
- Startups / Saas
- Consulting
- Finance companies
- Healthtech companies
- Media / Advertising
- Government
- Lawyers
- and more
Corporate Products
Beyond the startup world, we’ve been trusted by larger organisations to build bespoke solutions that solve specific operational challenges.Some highlights include:
- Higher Ed: A custom booking and analytics engine for an Australian university.
- Public Sector: A chatbot for a local government department.
- Science & Tech: A machine learning solution and software suite currently used in leading science labs globally.
- Finance: web apps for internal use to replace legacy systems; financial calculators
42 (Mostly) Startup Blog Posts
My cadence for writing has always been... "deliberate." In 11 years, we’ve published 42 posts. A good content marketer might tell you that’s not enough, but we’ve always leaned into quality over quantity.We usually commit a fair amount of time to writing posts and hope that startup founders find value and actionable insights in what we write.
The blog has been awarded as a ‘best business blog for small businesses’ so hopefully quality over quantity has proven to be the right path.
The Next 11 Years
Eleven years is an eternity in an AI-first world. A foundational AI model might release a new feature in the next 11 days that changes everything so any future predictions are flakey at best. Hold your breath!So, while our industry (and all other industries) waits in anticipation to see what the future holds, we’re currently continuing with business as usual … although “usual” looks different than it used to.
Most of the startup briefs we discuss are different now. We discuss AI Agents a lot and of course every startup idea has AI baked into it in some form or another.
We’re also getting inquiries from businesses (mostly small to medium size but also large multinationals) looking for AI solutions to automate workflows and improve efficiencies.
It’s been an incredible 11 years. Here’s to the next 11.
Looking to build a digital product?
Launch Lab is a web and application development company in Sydney and Canberra. We help founders and businesses move from concept to launch using modern development practices, AI-assisted development, and lean methodologies to maximize value and minimize risk.
If you’re planning a new website, an AI or application development project we’d love to chat. Contact us.