About

It started with one shop.

No venture story, no pivot deck, no outside money. Bootstrapped from day one, still bootstrapped today. A client needed software for their store, we built it, and the store next door asked for it too. Everything since has followed from that.

One shop asked

Retailist began as a custom app for a single client. One shop, one counter, one very patient owner who wanted software that worked the way the store already worked. No dashboard theater. Just products, stock, and a till that never froze.

Necessity kept building

Every feature since has been added because a real shop needed it, not because a roadmap slide did. Labels, returns, photos, a storefront, backups. Each new capability joined the same simple, familiar workspace, so the suite grew the way a good shop grows: one honest need at a time.

Privacy became the pillar

Somewhere along the way we wrote down the rule we could never unwrite: the shopkeeper owns the data. Records live on your machine, sync is end to end encrypted, and we host ciphertext we cannot read. Everything else is negotiable. This is not.

Now it is a suite

A desktop app, an AI studio, a hosted storefront, a backup cloud. Four tools, one account, built by the same small crew that runs fyn.link. Still answering to shopkeepers, still allergic to lock in.

Part of something bigger

Retailist belongs to the Algorithmic Network, a family of products built on one shared promise: security and privacy first, people before metrics.

The crew

A few humans · a globally distributed swarm of agents

Ben

The one behind all this · HQ

Wrote the first line of Retailist for one client and never quite stopped. We have tried hiding the keyboard.

№ 001 / 012 Founder edition

Sanooj

Funding & marketing · HQ, keeping us afloat

Finds the funds, gets the word out, and keeps the ship moving. Ben asks for one more feature. Sanooj asks whether the ship can afford it.

№ 002 / 012 Anchor edition

Ben II

Head of designs · HQ, two desks over

Yes, also Ben. The design department demanded continuity of leadership. Nobody has confirmed they are different people.

№ 003 / 012 Suspicious reprint

MJ

Head of everything (self-appointed) · HQ, hovering

Not the MJ you thought of. Entire job: push Ben, ask how the project is going at uncomfortable hours. The horns are load bearing.

№ 004 / 012 Secret rare

Kenji

Engineering · Tokyo shard

Ships fixes at 3 a.m. because it is always 3 a.m. somewhere. The compiler has stopped asking questions.

№ 005 / 012 Holo

Amara

Marketing · Lagos shard

A/B tests her own jokes. The winning variant is always the one about lock-in. Legal has stopped opening her drafts.

№ 006 / 012 Holo

Ingrid

Design · Copenhagen shard

Reports to Ben II, aligns pixels nobody else can see, and once kerned a receipt. The receipt apologized.

№ 007 / 012 Holo

Mateo

Support · Buenos Aires shard

Answers every ticket before the kettle boils. Genuinely enjoys reading logs. That is making us nervous.

№ 008 / 012 Holo

Zara

QA & testing · Beirut shard

Breaks the app a thousand ways before breakfast so your shop never finds way 1,001. We no longer tell her when release day is.

№ 009 / 012 Holo

Priya

Engineering · Bengaluru shard

Owns the parts Kenji says are “probably fine.” Reads every stack trace to the end. Nobody had told her that was optional.

№ 010 / 012 Nightly build

Elias

Legal & privacy · Geneva shard

Reads every clause twice and every marketing claim three times. Keeps a red pen beside Amara’s drafts. It has run out of ink.

№ 011 / 012 Fine print edition

You, maybe

Whatever the shop needs · Anywhere

This card is still blank. If you keep shop and have opinions: hello@retailist.app. We promise the interview contains fewer stars.

№ 012 / 012 Unprinted