About Closson Labs
A product studio,
grounded in the work
We bring people who know an industry together with the engineers building for it. The relationship is the starting point: understand the job, shape the product, and keep learning from the people who use it.
- Based in
- Salt Lake CityWorking remotely across the US
- Our approach
- Build with industry expertsThrough direct design partnerships
- Our first industry
- ConstructionBuilding toward an end-to-end system
01Why we exist
The workflow comes first
The person doing the job knows the part the software keeps missing.
That knowledge often lives in a workaround: a spreadsheet someone maintains, a manual handoff, or an exception that only an experienced operator knows how to handle. Understanding it is the beginning of a better product.
We built our approach around bringing that experience into development. A design partner can explain why a detail matters, use working software early, and help the engineers decide what deserves attention next.
We expect better development tools and reusable foundations to make conventional software more affordable. Our job is to turn that opportunity into products that fit the work, with intelligence where it can make a useful contribution.
What guides the decisions
- Industry knowledge belongs in the build
- People doing the work know the exceptions, the workarounds, and the details that make a product useful. Their experience should help shape the decisions.
- Carry the shared engineering forward
- A common platform and design system give us foundations to build on. Each product still needs its own careful understanding of the industry it serves.
- Intelligence should earn its keep
- Give it a clear job, the right context, and a result someone can check. Its value comes from the useful work it helps a person finish.
Understand an actual workflow
Start with the task as it happens, including the spreadsheet, the handoff, and the exception. Agree on what a useful first version needs to let someone do.
Work directly with the engineers
Industry knowledge reaches the people building the product. Design partners help shape priorities and discuss tradeoffs with the engineers assigned to the work.
Make each stage useful
Review working software, try it against real tasks, and use what we learn to guide the next version. Early access gives partners room to influence the result.
Be clear about the engagement
For industry products, we fund development and bring the product to market; partners contribute knowledge and time. Custom software, technical leadership, and engineering capacity are separate ways to work with us.
03The longer argument
The ideas behind the work
Our manifesto explains the thesis: make the software foundation more affordable, give intelligence a useful job, and put industry knowledge at the center of what gets built.