Studio
A small studio with a scientist's habits.
PXL is a founder-led micro-venture studio. Client work pays the bills and surfaces real problems; PXL Labs turns those problems into products; the products become the proof that wins the next client.
PXL is run by Luka Barbosa, who studies Physics and Computer Science at UCT and is on the Dean's Merit List. Physics trains you to model a messy system, measure it, and distrust your first answer.
PXL builds software the same way: model the workflow, ship the smallest thing that works, measure what changed. It started in 2023 building websites, moved into automation, and now builds web platforms, AI systems and its own products.
“We” on this site means the studio. When a specialist contractor joins a build, the client knows their name first.
Method
How PXL builds.
01
Model
Map the workflow as it actually runs, not as the org chart says it does. Find the step that costs the most.
02
Ship small
Build the smallest thing that changes that step, and put it in front of real use within weeks.
03
Measure
Agree the number before building. Measure it before and after. Report it honestly either way.
04
Review
Every change is read by a person before it ships, including the ones an AI agent drafted.
The studio runs an agent-driven workflow, pxl-stack: parallel AI agents in separate worktrees, with a human review on every merge. It's why a Pilot Sprint lands in weeks, and why speed doesn't cost quality.
Stack
Named, not hinted at.
The same tools for client builds and Labs products.
- Web
- Next.jsReactTypeScriptTailwind CSSVercel
- Data
- SupabasePostgresAirtableREST and webhook APIs
- AI
- Claude APIDocument extractionAgent workflowsEvaluation sets
- Connects to
- Google WorkspaceSlackSalesforcePaystackApolloYour own APIs
Capacity
Fewer projects, done properly.
PXL takes on a small number of client builds each quarter, scheduled around a full academic load. Fewer projects, done properly.
Exam months are blocked out in advance, and response times are agreed in every proposal.
Direction
More of the studio's time in Labs.
Over the next few years, a growing share of PXL's time goes to its own products, with client work as the engine that funds and informs them. Machine learning is the thread through both.
The mark
Why an X?
It's a probability density. Put a quantum particle in a two-dimensional bowl, a harmonic oscillator, and excite it to the (1,1) energy state. The places it's likely to be found form four lobes on the diagonals.
Add a trace of the ground state and the lobes trade brightness as the state evolves. Average over time and you get the mark. The background of this site is the same equation, solved live on your GPU and drawn in text.
nx = 1, ny = 1 · E = 3ħω · the mark
What shipped, newest first.
Read the Studio LogHave a workflow that should run itself?
Tell us what's eating your team's week. We'll tell you, honestly, whether software can fix it.