Articles

Technology choices matter, individually and collectively. Since 2025, HappyPorch has been migrating key internal tools to open source, self-hosted, and EU based options. Project management, CRM, scheduling, hosting and more. Here's the thinking behind those decisions, and a look at the stack we're building.

Kolekt's founder spent a fortnight riding with informal waste collectors before writing a line of code. The technology that followed, an app, then an offline payment platform, was shaped entirely by what he learned on those rides. A story about why context has to come before the tech, and what happens when it does.

Amelia Woodley and Vin Sharma join HappyPorch Radio to explore why circular transitions so often stall. From Amelia's logic versus magic framework to Vin's three-stage model of organisational change, the episode makes a compelling case that bringing people with you isn't the soft part of the work; it's the hardest.

This May, the HappyPorch team gathered in Kraków for our latest in-person meetup, running from the 18th to the 22nd. After months of remote collaboration, there's something irreplaceable about sharing the same space, and Kraków delivered on all fronts, from its warm hospitality to its rich culture and great scenery.

From Dutch hospitals to buyers in Syria, Green Pulse is building something rare: a circular business where commercial and sustainable genuinely reinforce each other. This conversation covers trust, purposeful AI, aligned incentives, and an uncomfortable truth about medical equipment donation.

The circular economy has the ideas, the commercial logic, and growing policy support. What it still lacks is connective tissue. We spoke with David Watson, whose platform Circular Connect is working to close that gap, about the possibilities for people coming from adjacent industries, where the real tech opportunities are right now, and why more OEMs are finally doing the maths on circularity.

Nancy Rhodes built Alternew after nearly two decades designing products destined for landfill. Her AI platform embeds tailoring and repair into the fashion shopping experience, turning the moment a button pops off into a loyalty opportunity. The technology connects brands, customers and local skilled trades. The magic, as ever, is human.

Cathy Benwell's platform A Good Thing connects businesses' surplus stock to local charities. And it works beautifully. But the software was only part of the story. In this episode of HappyPorch Radio, Cathy talks honestly about the human effort, the chicken-and-egg early days, and the harder questions she still sits with.

HappyPorch didn't set out to serve only circular economy companies. It happened gradually, as we noticed how well our mix of technical skill and values-driven thinking fit the specific challenges circularity presents. This piece walks through how we see the space: why circularity makes sense environmentally, socially and commercially, and where technology fits into that picture.