We design, build and maintain platforms
Theos Group is a software company. We design platforms that do one thing really well, build them ourselves, and keep them running.
Fifteen years, and a deliberate transition
Theos Group emerged from more than fifteen years of software development. In the early years, that was custom work for others; for some time now we only design and operate our own platforms. That transition is a choice and not by chance.
Whoever builds on commission delivers and departs. Whoever is an owner bears the consequences of every choice: a careless decision today is still on your own account two years from now. That changes what you build and especially what you don't build.
What we select on
We only build what can be fully automated: structured input, fixed rules, a digital channel, and no decision-making person in between. A service that needs a signature or human judgment at one point, we do not scale.
That test came at a high price. We scrapped an entire subsidy application platform after research showed that in no European country can an application be submitted automatically — where it is automated, nobody needs us, and where we are needed, it is not. Better to scrap an idea than to make a promise that gets stuck halfway at a desk.
What we make
Currently 77 platforms, 75 of which are live, in 48 languages. PSILY and Codex are available worldwide; the EU platforms target thirteen focus countries and two are Dutch only. They range from worldwide services to Dutch specialisms, but they share the same structure: one clear target audience, information with a source, and a price that is known in advance.
What they also share is the technology. Each platform comes from the same foundation, so an improvement on one side ends up everywhere — and a bug too, which is why there is a test round for every release.
How we work
Each platform has an automatic administrator that does the daily work: daily reports, self-tests, security rounds, and answering questions that can be answered. What it cannot handle itself comes to us.
Above everything stands one central dashboard where the platforms come together. There we see in real time what is happening, and there we handle what needs to be handled. The distinction that makes that dashboard usable is small and hard: a zero is a zero, and a dash means we don't know. A graph that draws an outage as a zero shows a decline that is not there.
The network around it
We move in the circle of owners, shareholders and executives of the world's largest international portals — from REA Group and Zillow to Century 21. That produces no shortcuts and no partnerships; it produces the sharpest picture there is of what makes or breaks a platform at scale.
What you learn there is rarely about technology. It is about where the money is really made, why discoverability is the difference between a good product and a thriving business, and what promises a portal is better off not making.
Who is behind it
Theos Group is a trade name of Point2Create BV, based in Vlaardingen (Chamber of Commerce 63324547). Questions can be sent to office@theosgroup.net.