Thrive Creative

BACKGROUND

I am the VP of Growth & Strategic Partnerships of FLOWforms - Smart Safety Software

We provide smart safety software to make it easy to submit and track safety-related documentation digitally. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

• Add engineering capacity to support our in-house dev team and speed up our product roadmap
• Ship customer-facing features like PDF downloads, QR join codes, self-serve signup and offline hazard assessments
• Scale development up or down as needed without a long-term contract, minimum hours or added overhead

SOLUTION

Referral

• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me
• Company values aligned
• Flexible Terms of Engagement

2-5 Employees

Thrive Creative works as an embedded engineering team for FLOWforms, a safety software company. They support our in-house developers on our product roadmap. They work in our tools and on our priorities, at an hourly rate with no long-term contract, minimum hours or fixed scope, and we own everything they build.

Key deliverables so far:

• PDF downloads, so customers can export completed safety forms
• QR join codes, so workers can join their company's account quickly
• Self-serve signup, so new customers can get started on their own
• Offline hazard assessments, the next feature in progress, so crews can complete forms without a connection

They delivered the first three well ahead of schedule!

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

• Shipped 3 customer-facing features in less than a month: PDF downloads, QR join codes and self-serve signup
• A 4th feature, offline hazard assessments, is already in progress
• Added the capacity of a full dev team with no long-term contract, minimum hours, onboarding fees or markups
• Full ownership of all code from the moment it was written

Thrive works like an extension of our own team rather than an outside vendor. They plug into our tools and priorities alongside our in-house developers, so there's no handoff gap. They moved fast: three features were in our customers' hands well ahead of schedule, with the next one already underway. Because there's no fixed scope or minimum hours, we can shift priorities or scale capacity up and down as our needs change, and they adjust without friction or penalties.

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

Their model is what sets them apart. Thrive works as an embedded engineering department, not a project vendor. There's no long-term contract, no minimum hours and no fixed scope, so we can scale up when we need to move fast and scale back when we don't, with no penalties. We don't pay for their onboarding or ramp-up time, there are no markups or platform fees on top of hours worked, and we own everything they build from the moment it's created. For a growing software company, that means the capacity of a full dev team without the overhead or the risk.

Honestly, nothing significant so far. We're still early in the engagement, and it has gone smoothly. The one thing I'd suggest to any new client is to put time into defining priorities up front. Thrive moves fast, and you'll get the most out of their model when your roadmap is clear enough to keep them fully pointed at what matters most.