About us
A lab, not a factory.
GO Build Labs exists because small businesses deserve the same quality of custom software as the big guys, without the enterprise invoice, the account-manager buffer, or the six-month wait to see anything work.
Why we started this
We met at Mitsubishi Electric Automation, where between us we ran the technology for a North American division of a global manufacturer: the ERP, the CRM, the eCommerce platform, the security program, the infrastructure underneath all of it. John then spent 14 years at GO Technology Group running mission-critical IT and security for Chicagoland businesses.
Which means we have watched the same thing happen from both sides for a long time. A company depends on some aging on-prem application nobody will patch. They ask what it costs to replace it. They get a six-figure quote and a nine-month timeline, and they decide to live with the old thing for another year instead.
That is a terrible choice to be stuck with, and it is not really a technology problem. It is a pricing problem. So we borrowed the model the software industry already runs on: one monthly fee that covers building the platform, hosting it, securing it, and improving it, with no giant check up front and no change orders when reality turns out to differ from the spec.
AI is what makes the math work. It does enough of the heavy lifting that a small senior team can deliver what used to take a floor full of people, which is why you are not funding a bloated agency to get a platform built properly.
The other thing we bring is that we have been the client. We have signed the six-figure quotes, inherited the systems nobody documented, and been the ones on call at 2am when something we chose went down. That tends to make you conservative in useful ways.
We stay deliberately small: a team you can name, working on a handful of clients at a time. That's not a limitation; it's the product.
The people building it
Two of us, with 45 years in IT between us. The people on your first call are the people writing your code and answering the phone when something breaks.
John Marta
Principal & Senior IT Architect
Infrastructure & security
John has spent 25 years in IT infrastructure, the last 13 of them at GO Technology Group, where he is Principal & Senior IT Architect and has been running mission-critical IT and security for Chicagoland businesses since 2013. Before that he managed technology and architecture at Mitsubishi Electric Automation and ran information systems at USABlueBook. His range covers everything from end-user deployment to data center operations, which is why hosting it, securing it, and keeping it running is something we do rather than something we subcontract.
Michael James
Principal & Platform Lead
Platforms & delivery
Mike spent 24 years in IT and 15 in leadership, most recently as Director of Information Technology at Mitsubishi Electric Automation, where he owned IT strategy across North America. He led a multi-division SAP S/4HANA implementation, oversaw Salesforce CRM, and built and launched the company's B2B eCommerce platform as both lead developer and project manager. That platform now handles more than 90% of orders and returned 125% on its investment. He has taken infrastructure from server rooms through virtualization to cloud and SaaS, and led GenAI adoption with the governance to go with it.
How we work
Six principles that decide everything from our pricing to our tech stack.
Ship every week
Software you can click beats slideware you can nod at. From week one, every Friday, you see your app running. Momentum is a feature.
Charge like a utility, not a casino
Hourly billing rewards slowness. Fixed bids reward padding. A flat monthly rate rewards exactly one thing: shipping you value fast enough that you renew.
Your code is yours
Repository, documentation, infrastructure: all in your name from day one. The easier it is for you to leave, the harder we work to make you stay.
Boring technology, exciting results
We build with mainstream, battle-tested tools that any future developer can maintain. Innovation belongs in your business results, not in our tech choices.
Say no early
If a project isn't a fit (wrong size, wrong shape, or software you shouldn't build at all), we say so on the first call. A fast honest no beats a slow expensive maybe.
Small team, senior only
No account managers, no hand-offs to juniors you never met. The people on your kickoff call are the people writing your code.
Sound like your kind of team? Let's talk about your project →
Tell us what's slowing your business down.
In a free 30-minute call we map what the platform needs to do, tell you which tier it lands in, and give you a monthly number. No proposal theater, no pressure.
One monthly fee · Built, hosted & improving · You own the code