Clear decisions
We explain options, trade-offs, time, cost and risk in plain language.
A software company built around product ownership.
Alcra is a Harare-based product engineering company. We build software for companies and founders while developing products of our own.
Company
How Alcra got here
Alcra started in Harare in 2019, and has always done two things at once: build software for other companies, and build software of its own.
Client work and products of our own developed alongside each other, and each kept the other honest — building a product we had to operate ourselves changed how we approached the products we built for other people.
The company now focuses on software products, business systems and continued development partnerships.
The team works from Harare, with clients across the region and further afield.
Operating model
How the work is run
- One engagement, one point of responsibility — not an account manager between you and the people writing the code.
- Product and technical decisions are made together, because separating them is how software ends up technically fine and commercially wrong.
- Specialists join a project when it needs a skill the team does not hold, and leave when it does not.
- We work in stages, and each stage ends with something you can use and judge.
- Sales and support sit inside the company, so the person you talk to before the work is the person you talk to after it.
Team
The people shaping the work stay involved in delivery.
Alcra's leadership remains directly involved in product and technical decisions. Delivery is supported by a growing engineering team working under direct technical leadership, with sales and support handled in-house.
Clients work with people who understand the product rather than a chain of account managers passing information between teams.
- Melvin MupondoriCTOProduct and technical direction
- Tanaka ChikumbuCEOClient engagement and business strategy
- Tinotenda MutanaCMOMarketing and brand
- Oliver MagwetaCOOOperations, sales and support
How we work
Three things we hold to
Shared responsibility
We treat product and technical decisions as part of the same work.
Practical engineering
We choose approaches that fit the product, team and operating conditions rather than following technology trends.
Where we work
Based in Harare, Zimbabwe, and working with clients across Africa and internationally.
Tell us what needs to change.
You do not need a specification, a budget or a brief. A paragraph about the problem is a fine place to start.