You've got the idea. Let's make it real.

I turn ideas and prototypes into real, market-ready products.

I help founders and teams work out what to build, get the right product into users' hands quickly, and learn from the market before committing serious time and money.

I can stay involved from the first conversation through prototype, launch and growth — as a hands-on technical product partner or Fractional CTO.

Talk to Mike See how I work →

Sketchbook, prototype and live product artifacts from a Barrax project — idea through to launch

25+ years

Across games, apps and digital products

Idea to real product

Hands-on from prototype through to launch

Long-term partner

I stay involved where it matters most

The Journey

From possibility to product.

Start small. Learn quickly. Invest further when the evidence says you should.

Validate

Understand the opportunity.

Typical outcomes

Market & competitor insight
Audience definition
Key assumptions identified
Early risk assessment
Validation plan

Define

Decide what the first product should be.

Typical outcomes

Product proposition
User journey
MVP feature set
Technical approach
Roadmap & success measures

Build

Get something real into people's hands.

Typical outcomes

Interactive prototype
Working MVP
Product architecture
Backend & services where needed
Regular demonstrations

Launch

Put it in the market.

Typical outcomes

Production release
App Store / marketplace deployment
Analytics in place
Early user feedback
Real-world product data

Grow

Scale what works.

Typical outcomes

Data-led iteration
Product roadmap
Recruitment & team building
Partner / publisher support
Ongoing Fractional CTO involvement

Selected Journeys

From ideas to live products.

A few examples of where I've come in, what needed solving and what happened next.

Mobile Launch

Product Madness

Situation: A profitable Facebook social-casino company preparing to enter mobile, with no mobile product yet.
What I did: Joined early, prototyped the mobile offering and recruited the initial Unity dev/art team.
Outcome: Bingo Madness turned profitable within months. Product Madness was later acquired by Aristocrat.

Concept to Team

Project M — Dig That Gold

Situation: Founders had an ambitious concept but no product, architecture or development team.
What I did: Turned the concept into a product, built the initial Unity framework and recruited/led a ~15-person team.
Outcome: A live commercial mobile game, with publishing, analytics and real-world fulfilment behind it.

Product Ownership

Karma Games — Puzzle Time

Situation: An ITV This Morning-linked puzzle product needed continuity as the original dev team departed.
What I did: Took technical ownership, rebuilt the puzzle-serving platform and built out CMS/content systems.
Outcome: A stable, maintainable platform now being explored as a reusable white-label product.

Independent projects

120,000

Daily unique players, at peak, on a single domain

Camperstrike

My first independently created game. Covered by .net magazine and Sky TV.

Ultrakillz

An early real-time multiplayer FPS built in Flash as a self-initiated project, which drew interest from major games companies.

Tinnitus Masker

A self-initiated consumer hearing product, taken independently from a user need through design, build and mobile release.

Brands I've worked with

Who It's For

Who I work with.

Founders with an idea

You know the problem you want to solve but need someone experienced to help turn it into a viable product.

Founders with a prototype

You've already built something — yourself, with a freelancer or with AI tools — and now need experienced hands to make it real.

Established businesses

You have an internal product opportunity but don't want to build a permanent team before proving it's real.

Investors & connectors

You know someone with a promising idea and want to introduce them to a safe pair of hands.

Why Barrax

Build the important things first.

I work from the user experience backwards — asking whether a product solves a worthwhile problem before the interesting technical one, and whether the market wants the small version before building the large one. It's shaped by the 80/20 principle: get the small number of decisions and features that create most of the value right, first.

AI makes building faster. Experience helps you build the right thing.

I use modern AI tools to prototype, research, code and iterate faster — and I'm just as comfortable picking up a prototype you've already built with them. AI is a force multiplier, not the proposition.

No technical theatre.

I'll tell you what I think in plain English. If something isn't worth building, I'll say so. If there's a simpler way of doing it, we'll take it.

A technical partner, not another agency.

Barrax is intentionally small — you work directly with me. Where a project needs extra expertise, I bring in or help recruit the right people, rather than carrying agency overhead.

How engagements start.

Most engagements are paid projects. For the right opportunity, I'm open to discussing a mix of fees and longer-term upside.

About Me

Designer. Developer. CTO. Product builder.

I've spent more than 25 years creating interactive digital products — starting in design and creative technology before moving through game development, mobile and technical leadership and CTO roles.

That unusual route means I'm as comfortable with commercial objectives and customer experience as I am with architecture and code — hands-on throughout, and used to taking products from a whiteboard conversation through to live operation.

It's to make good ideas real, without wasting years getting there.

Talk to Mike.

Have an idea, prototype or product you want to get into the real world? Tell me where you've got to and we'll work out whether I can help.

Talk to Mike