# BrightDot

> BrightDot works alongside founders, CTOs and product teams. It decides what's worth building, ships it on real suppliers, money and data, and keeps it running in production, with specialists in fintech and AI engineering. Luke Bulik runs it.

Updated 7 November 2026.

## What BrightDot does

- Decides what to build, and says no to what won't pay back.
- Makes the technical calls: architecture, vendors, build versus buy.
- Puts the team together: engineers and delivery roles from its own team.
- Ships it, and keeps it running: delivery, production and the day-to-day after launch.
- Recent work includes AI engineering: AI agents and machine-facing APIs.

## Who it's for

- Startups with a CTO: BrightDot works as part of their team, to their plan.
- Startups without a CTO yet: Luke leads the technology side with them, with at most five of these at a time.
- Companies with an asset but no product yet, such as supplier access or data.
- Product teams building something new inside bigger companies.

Is it a fit? It depends on what you need. If you need a team to lead or join your technology side, BrightDot is a good fit. If it's simple and nothing serious breaks when it fails, you may not need BrightDot. If you need a fixed list of features built at the lowest hourly rate, a freelancer or a low-cost agency is the better choice.

## How it starts

A call, then a Build Plan Sprint: two weeks, from $7,500, fixed price. It covers what to build and what to cut, the architecture, a check of suppliers and data, the team and timeline, and a fixed quote for the first stage. The fee is credited in full if the build starts within 30 days, and the plan is the client's either way.

## The team

- Deep fintech projects, AI engineering, and engineers embedded in client teams.

## Work

- [Bellhopping](https://www.brightdot.tech/work/bellhopping/): a premium travel platform built as partners, on the Sabre GDS, with hotel member benefits. Live since June 2026; a hotel search went from 30–60 seconds to 8.
- [DataSeer](https://www.brightdot.tech/work/dataseer/): a Canadian AI company. Another agency couldn't deliver one feature in five months; two BrightDot frontend developers embedded in DataSeer's team delivered it in a month. It unlocked new features and became an ongoing engagement that grew into a partnership.
- [ABF Pay](https://www.brightdot.tech/work/neobank/): a multi-currency account for personal and business customers, live for a long time. According to abfpay.com, it takes payments in 37+ currencies from 200+ countries. BrightDot's engineers built ABF Pay and still work on it.

## Guides

- [The Field Guide to Shipping Software](https://www.brightdot.tech/field-guide/): a free guide for founders and business leaders who commission or oversee software. Ten short chapters: deciding what to build, technical calls, the team, building with AI, unsticking a stuck project, products that move money, products used by AI agents, and running software in production. By Luke Bulik. Published 20 October 2026.
- [Build plan template](https://www.brightdot.tech/field-guide/build-plan.md): a one-page plan in Markdown to fill in before committing to a production build, written to be handed to an AI coding agent.

## Contact

- [Website](https://www.brightdot.tech/): home page
- [Email](mailto:luke@brightdot.tech): luke@brightdot.tech