Back in the day, I wanted to study and work in the software industry because I believed this was the field where expertise could truly create value. I saw an opportunity to replicate what I built infinitely and build a business around something more than just the allocation of existing capital. A good idea can scale endlessly in software—at least in theory.

But the reality of the industry turned out to be quite different. My first job—sometime last millennium—was at an internet consultancy (then called Terra Nova Solutions), and after a few career moves, I ended up founding Systems Garden Oy. While our vision was to build a kick-ass CMS or application platform, we soon found ourselves solving clients’ information management problems. Yes, we used our own software stack, but we were mostly doing bespoke projects—essentially selling knowledge and work.

Before long, we also became a fairly traditional Microsoft consultancy. The actual products and platforms came from the mothership in the U.S., and our role was to build solutions around them. Any scaling was limited to operational models and more efficient project delivery.

Over the years—20 of them!—I’ve calculated that I’ve been involved, directly or indirectly, in over a thousand IT projects. I’ve delivered hundreds of intranets, document management systems, and used software and data to solve business problems for at least 300 different organizations.

Gradually, I realized I had become something of a generalist in knowledge work and the data industry. The way business problems are modeled into software is, in the end, pretty universal: database → APIs and integrations → user interfaces. The magic lies in how these basic building blocks are combined with the business logic—and, more importantly, in how we manage to keep things a) simple and b) user-centered. We became very good at that.

Still, that old product-thinking mindset never fully left me. Over the years, I kept creating reusable components, product ideas, and prototypes. Each time I wondered—could this be generalized even more? Then, about a year ago, it happened.

The 30th or so permit-to-work system we delivered showed us we had discovered a niche where we could genuinely be the best in the world. We realized our projects weren’t really about the code anymore—they were about the processes and practices. And soon, inquiries started coming in from abroad. Apparently, no one else was solving this problem quite like we were.

That’s how Gate Apps Oy was born. Finland’s (and soon the world’s) leading company for digital permit-to-work systems.