We build
Web apps, mobile apps, internal tools, AI and automation, integrations.
Software solutions & general problem-solving, several floors underground
Mystery Labs builds software and solves problems. Mostly software problems. The rest we look at anyway, because nobody has told us to stop.
We fix
Slow, broken, abandoned, inherited and otherwise unexplained software.
We also look at
Everything else. Describe it. The worst outcome is a calm, well-structured answer.
B1Depth 4 mPhone signal: three barsPlease keep your problem with you at all times
Tell us what’s wrong.
Form 1 of 1. We only have the one form. Our analyst reads it instantly, and it is only slightly a script.
- Complaint
- “My Excel sheet has 47 tabs and one of them is called DO NOT OPEN.”
- Classification
- Load-bearing spreadsheet
- Findings
- One file is quietly running the company. It has tabs nobody may rename and formulas nobody can explain.
- Treatment
- A small internal tool that does what the sheet does, with an export button so finance still feels at home.
- Severity
- ██████░░░░
- Outlook
- Solvable.
We’ve seen worse
Send this to the lab
This reading is a joke with a real inbox behind it. A human replies to the email.
B2Depth 9 mPhone signal: two barsPins are sharp. The string is load-bearing.
Everything on this wall connects to your problem.
Drag things around. Detectives find it relaxing.
Software, built to order
Web apps, dashboards, portals, and the internal tool your team keeps describing with their hands. Tested, documented, handed over with the keys.
Mobile apps
- iOSYES
- AndroidYES
- Both, one codebaseYES
- Crashes on launchNO
- Asks for your contactsNO
Thank you for your thumbs
AI & automation
If someone does it on repeat at 11 pm, a machine can probably do it. We will also tell you when you don’t need AI. That conversation is free.
Zero to launch
Bring the napkin. We handle scope, design, the first version and launch day.
Speed, cloud & bills
Slow site, surprise outage, or a cloud bill with a comma you weren’t expecting. We stare at the graphs until they confess.
Legacy rescue
The old system nobody dares touch. We dare. We take backups first.
Integrations
Your CRM, your payments, your WhatsApp and your accountant’s Excel will speak to each other. We don’t need them to like it.
Second opinions
Got a quote, an audit or an architecture diagram you don’t trust? Send it. We read all of it, which already puts us ahead.
Anything else
Not a software problem? Describe it anyway. Some of our best work started with “this is probably a stupid question.”
B3Depth 14 mPhone signal: one barInstruments calibrated against a cup of chai
How bad is it?
Turn the dial. Be honest. The dial picks how we work with you, and you can argue with it.
Problem-o-Meter · Type ML–3
Severity
Chai reserves
Blame assigned
Do not touch
-
One bug, one slow page, one thing that has bothered you since March. We find it and fix it.
-
A focused burst of work on one part of your product, with a clear finish line and a demo at the end.
-
We design and ship the whole thing, from first sketch to production, and you see it working early.
-
We stabilise first, explain second, and rebuild only what deserves it. Nobody gets blamed. The meter below stays at zero.
-
Ongoing engineering on retainer. Someone who knows your system, picks up the phone and doesn’t need the backstory again.
B4Depth 19 mPhone signal: optimisticDeclassified by whoever was holding the marker
The procedure.
Four steps. Legal blacked out the funny parts. Run your cursor over the bars, or tap them, and they come off.
Nothing important is hidden.
We wouldn’t do that to you.
Just the jokes.
Internal memorandum
- To
- Whoever is reading this
- From
- The Director
- Re
- What happens after you get in touch
- Grade
-
We listen.
You describe the problem in whatever words you have. We ask questions until we could explain it back to you,
-
We find the real problem.
It is rarely the one in the email. You get a plain-language answer and a clear price before anything is built.
-
We fix it.
In small pieces, shown to you early and often, so
-
We hand over everything.
Code, docs, passwords, diagrams. It’s yours. You can leave whenever you like,
Approvedby the only person available
B5Depth 24 mPhone signal: noneFiled under whatever made sense at the time
The usual suspects.
Problems we keep meeting. Pull a drawer.
These cases are illustrative. Any resemblance to your company is a you problem.
Yours isn’t in here?Unfiled problems are our favourite kind. Open a new file.
Symptoms. 47 tabs. One is called DO NOT OPEN. Invoicing depends on it, and the only person who understood it now lives in Canada.
Treatment. Move the logic into a small internal tool. Keep an export button so finance can still feel at home.
Symptoms. The app works and nobody knows why. The last commit message reads “final fix 2”. The author has stopped answering.
Treatment. Read the code, write down what it does, put tests around it, carry on as if this had been the plan.
Symptoms. It was going to take two days. That was in March.
Treatment. Find out what it is tangled up with, cut it into pieces that can actually ship, ship them.
Symptoms. A vendor proposed an enterprise AI platform. What the team needed was a search box.
Treatment. Build the search box. Keep the ₹38 lakh.
Symptoms. Staff copy data between seven tools by hand, then check the result in an eighth.
Treatment. Connect the tools, delete the copying, retire the eighth. Give everyone their Fridays back.
B6Depth 29 mPhone signal: noneStaff only. Staff is one person.
Meet the department heads.
You will speak to the person doing the work. There is nobody else to hand you to.
The DirectorFounder. Writes the code.kushalst.com
Head of EngineeringSee above
Head of DesignSee above
Head of SalesSee above, reluctantly
Chief Chai OfficerSee above, enthusiastically
InternSee above. Unpaid.
Meetings are short. Decisions are unanimous.
Visitors’ register Things we have worked on were invited to comment
| Visitor | Remarks |
|---|---|
| A cron job | Finally got a night off. |
| The documentation | They read me. Nobody reads me. |
| FINAL_v7_new(2).xlsx | Haven’t been opened in months. Bliss. |
| A button | Asked me what I was for. Nobody had asked. |
| A 2011 PHP server | Was told I’d be replaced. Got a nice retirement. |
| utils.js | Still not sure what I do but there are tests now. |
B7Depth 34 mPhone signal: a rumourEnd of the line
This is the bottom.
You have now seen the whole lab. Your problem has not gone away on its own. They rarely do.
Write to the lab
Glass replaced at the client’s expense. (It isn’t.)