Short answer
Client work shows us what businesses actually need before we commit to building a product. Product work forces a standard of reliability that client work alone would not demand. Each track subsidises a weakness in the other.
The two tracks
Products are tools we build, own and maintain. Kateb, an AI legal assistant for Algerian notaires, is the first and is live now.
Custom AI solutions are websites, chatbots, agents and integrations built for one business or individual at a time, priced per project rather than as a subscription.
What client work gives the product
Product ideas built from imagination are usually wrong. Client work puts you in rooms where people describe problems in their own words, and the gap between the problem you assumed and the one they have is where products come from.
It also teaches breadth. In a year of client work you touch more systems, more file formats and more failure modes than in a year on one product. Most of that is directly reusable: the same retrieval architecture, the same bilingual rendering, the same discipline about refusing to answer.
What the product gives the client work
A product you maintain sets a standard that project work does not naturally enforce. When you live with something for years, shortcuts surface. You learn what breaks at three in the morning and what costs you support time. That standard carries into client builds.
It is also proof. Anyone can describe what they would build. Pointing at something live, in use by professionals, is a different kind of claim, and it is checkable, which is the point.
The tension, honestly
The two tracks compete for the same week. Client work has deadlines and invoices; product work has neither, which means it is always the thing that can slip. Left alone, services quietly eat the product.
We manage that by protecting product time explicitly rather than hoping it survives, and by turning down client work that does not fit, which is easier to do when you are honest that some projects should not be built at all.
Why not pick one
A pure product company in a market this size bets everything on one guess being right. A pure services company builds nothing that compounds. Every year starts at zero. Running both means the client work funds the runway while the product accumulates value, and each keeps the other honest.
That is the shape of Soukely today: Algerian, two tracks, one product live, and building for Africa next.
Frequently asked questions
Does Soukely build products or do client work?
Both, deliberately. Products are tools we build, own and maintain. Kateb is the first and is live. Custom AI solutions are built for one business or individual at a time, priced per project.
Why not focus on just one?
A pure product company bets everything on one guess; a pure services company builds nothing that compounds. Running both means client work funds the runway while the product accumulates value, and each raises the standard of the other.
Is custom work priced as a subscription?
No. Custom builds are quoted per project. Products like Kateb are subscription based, because a product is maintained continuously while a custom build has a defined end.