It started with Max teaching himself to code. His first build — a projections engine — took months. Then the tools changed. A quarter's work became a fortnight's, and the gap between "someone should build that" and "that's built" collapsed.
Max took it into FMCG. Maximiser — a data and projections platform replacing enterprise tools that never quite fit. Then Wallard, software for mechanics built for how a workshop actually runs.
Finn took it into financial services. Mantle — a CRM and workflow platform running Australian risk-insurance practices end-to-end: clients, policies, statements of advice, compliance, emails. Then Trackpay, reconciling commissions that used to be checked by hand.
Both industries were full of people doing work that software should be doing.
Two different industries, same realisation. Both had been having the AI conversation for two years without anything getting built. And both had constraints — privacy, compliance, audit — that meant you couldn't just plug a chatbot in and hope.
Formwork is the two of us doing that for everyone else. Australian businesses running on spreadsheets, inboxes and memory, who need software built to their shape and can't buy it anywhere.
