Better

Better Software is a product engineering firm based in India, founded and led by Jai Jalan, a former Microsoft and Google engineer and IIT alumnus. The company operates with a deliberately constrained model—5–7 concurrent engagements at any time—and builds products for founders and operators who want working software on a realistic timeline. The core offer is velocity paired with code quality: ship an MVP in weeks rather than months, then iterate without accumulating technical debt. Better has taken 20+ products from idea to market, working across fintech (Valon, now a unicorn; Sunny Energy; Spynpay), healthcare (Kizuna, Apex Dental Partners), SaaS (7 Avenue Media), and other sectors. The team includes 40+ engineers and product builders. Clutch rates the company 5.0 (recent reviews); GoodFirms rates it 4.9.

Services and capabilities

Better's service model splits into two layers. Product Builders ship features alongside founders each cycle, using AI to accelerate work. Real usage drives the next iteration—not spec documents. Senior Engineers maintain the codebase between sprints, enforcing guardrails (code review, type safety, automated testing) without becoming a bottleneck. The company emphasizes eight engineering standards: SOLID principles, type safety, clean code, automated testing, pixel-perfect UX, a "broken window" policy on technical debt, developer tooling setup, and code-review discipline.

Engagements typically include team augmentation for scaling companies and full product delivery for early-stage founders. For regulated industries (fintech, healthcare), Better embeds compliance-first architecture—structured authorization, audit trails, encryption, automated testing suites—from day one. The company publishes open-source starter templates: a Flask-React web template and a React Native mobile template, both used internally to bootstrap projects.

Notable work

Kizuna (two-sided caregiving marketplace): Built a secure healthcare platform handling sensitive data. Result: 100× user growth infrastructure readiness, zero security incidents or downtime in 18 months, and $500K+ in avoided costs from prevented breaches and rebuilds.

High-Growth FinTech Company: Team augmentation for a platform handling high-volume transactions. Outcome: 99.9% uptime from day one with zero compliance violations, 50+ engineers onboarded without productivity drop, 300%+ faster feature development vs. typical MVP teams, and $100K+ saved in avoided penalties and rebuild costs. Better implemented 290+ modules and maintained 7,500+ automated tests.

Apex Dental Partners (healthcare SaaS): Structured authorization and HIPAA-ready architecture. Results: $300K+ avoided compliance retrofit costs, 5× team growth without productivity decline, 40% faster healthcare-feature delivery, and 10× user growth infrastructure readiness.

7 Avenue Media (personal finance, fintech): AI-powered spend automation with PCI and SOC2 compliance from launch. Achieved 40% faster transaction processing, 99.9% uptime during growth, and helped secure Techstars investment. The platform included smart spending controls and automated money categorization.

Other named products: Valon (mortgage, unicorn status), Sunny Energy (5x revenue growth), Spynpay (Techstars-backed debt management), Nettle (Sequoia-backed autonomous data processing), and 15+ others across fintech, healthcare, agritech, and SaaS.

How they work

Better engages through two main models: full product delivery (idea to market MVP, then sustained iteration) and team augmentation (embedding senior engineers and architects into existing teams). Founders or CTOs participate directly; there is no account manager layer. Jai Jalan conducts initial scoping calls (30 minutes) to assess product and team fit. Once engaged, Better ships a working version in weeks, not months. After launch, the company continues to support iteration so that each release builds on the last without technical debt compounding. Pricing is not disclosed in the source material. Better limits itself to 5–7 simultaneous engagements to maintain hands-on attention.

Team and credentials

Founder & CEO: Jai Jalan (former Microsoft and Google engineer, IIT alumnus, 9+ years shipping products from first commit to production scale). Team size: 40+ engineers and product builders. Ratings: 5.0 on Clutch, 4.9 on GoodFirms (recent reviews with named quotes from Valon CTO, Kizuna co-founder, Apex CIO, Nesh CEO). Certifications & compliance: Case studies explicitly mention PCI compliance, SOC2 compliance, and HIPAA-ready architecture delivered for clients. The company is part of Better, a larger organizational entity; Better Marketing is also listed as a sister service. Better Software is separately operated as a product engineering division.