Case study · FiftyPlus
The business that runs on software we built.
Stoic Software builds software around how your business actually works, then runs it for you — starting with a £1,000 audit where you see your system working before you commit. This page is the proof it isn’t theory.
The business problem
FiftyPlus is a real UK business with the same shape of problem every SMB has: enquiries to chase, members to look after, partners to coordinate, payments to reconcile, and admin that multiplies faster than headcount.
To be plain about the relationship: FiftyPlus is our founder’s own business. That makes it client zero, not a paying customer — and it’s why every number on this page can be counted straight from the repository instead of taken on trust.
The standard answer is the one you already know: buy generic software built for everyone, then pay people to work around the parts that fit nobody.
What was built instead
FiftyPlus runs on one platform we designed and built around how the business actually works. Six applications run the business day to day, sharing one foundation:
- The public website and its enquiry funnels — every lead captured, tracked and followed up without retyping.
- The member and partner portals — the day-to-day self-service that would otherwise be phone calls and email chains.
- The admin systems behind them — one place where the team sees what’s happening and what needs doing.
- The housekeeping jobs that run on schedule so nobody has to remember them, and the API that lets the pieces talk to each other.
Four earlier applications — a coaching app, a document vault, a first members app and a mobile API — remain in the same codebase, part of how the platform grew. No off-the-shelf product was bent out of shape anywhere along the way. The software fits the business, because the business is what it was built from.
How it runs day to day
Built is the easy half; run is the half that matters. The same discipline Stoic sells is the discipline FiftyPlus runs on:
- Every change now starts as a plain-English ticket and ends with a person clicking through the result before it goes live.
- The working rule is “no green suite, no ship” — a release doesn’t go out with a failing test.
- Changes ship as numbered releases — eighteen of them between January and August 2026 — so a release always answers “what changed and when”.
- Errors are caught, triaged and fixed — and a test is added so the same error cannot come back. Personal data stays out of the error logs.
The numbers
Counted straight from the platform’s repository on 28 August 2026. Third-party libraries excluded. Nothing rounded up, nothing projected.
| Measure | Count | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Applications | 10 | Ten in the solution: the six that run the business day to day, and four earlier apps the platform grew out of. |
| Source code | ~297,000 lines | Across roughly 2,000 files — the full working systems of a real business, not a prototype. |
| Automated tests | 627 | Test methods over the platform’s service layer — what “no green suite, no ship” points at. |
| Releases | 18 | Numbered versions from v1.0 (29 January 2026) to v3.3 (6 August 2026) — dated, numbered, traceable. |
| Commits | 1,225 | Every recorded change to the code, dated and traceable — 1,222 of the 1,225 made by one person, alongside running the business itself. |
One set of numbers is deliberately missing: what this work would have cost to buy in. Nothing appears on this page unless it can be shown — and that is the same standard your audit gets.
What this means for a business like yours
FiftyPlus is not a demo. It is a working business whose admin is done by the system it runs on, looked after by the same person who would run yours. One person, with the method Stoic sells, built and runs what would conventionally take a team — and the discipline that makes that safe is written down, not improvised.
The audit exists so you can see the same thing for your own business — as working software you can click through, before you commit to anything.
If any of this sounds like your business, the conversation costs nothing. Book an audit conversation, or read how we work first.