Hero Projects is a platform that brings project management, time tracking, and invoicing together for agencies and service businesses. Shape built it because we lived the problem ourselves: projects in one tool, hours in another, invoices somewhere else, and too much time spent reconciling it all.
The opportunity was clear: create one focused product that connects the work delivered with the time spent and the amount billed, without the bloat of enterprise suites.
Where We Were Before Hero
As a software development agency managing our own client work, we felt the friction first-hand. Before Hero, our day-to-day looked like this:
- Projects, time, and billing lived in separate tools, so information had to be copied and checked repeatedly
- Billable hours were easy to miss when recorded hours did not match the right project or client
- Invoice prep meant reconciling data by hand, slowing cash collection and hiding true project performance
- Existing tools were either too basic or too bloated for a small service business that just needs the essentials done well
We saw a chance to solve this properly - for Shape first, and then for other UK service businesses facing the same admin load.
What Shape Delivered
We treated Hero like a client product: discovery, focused scope, user-centred design, and full-stack delivery under one roof. The same approach sits behind our Product Accelerator. Here is what we shipped.
Product strategy and scope definition
We started from a real operational problem, not a feature wishlist. Discovery focused on the buyer who feels the pain most: the operations or office manager chasing timesheets and piecing together incomplete data before invoicing. We scoped an MVP around the essentials - track time, turn that time into invoices, collect payment, and see project profitability - and deliberately left out anything that would recreate the bloat we were trying to escape.
UX design built for daily adoption
Business platforms often get overcrowded as features pile up. We designed Hero around clear navigation, familiar layouts, and fast paths for the actions people do every day: log time, add an expense, create a project. The goal was a product employees would actually use, so managers get complete data without Friday fire drills.
Cross-platform development
We built Hero as a cross-platform product so teams can track time, manage projects, and send invoices across web, desktop, and mobile from one focused codebase. That keeps delivery fast and the experience consistent wherever the team works.
Connected project management, time tracking, and invoicing
Hero gives teams a single place to organise clients, projects, tasks, and deadlines. Employees record time against the right project as they work. That time feeds invoicing directly, so teams do not re-enter the same details across multiple platforms. Rate cards support billable rates and internal costs, giving managers a clearer view of margin before it becomes a problem.
Payments with Stripe
We connected invoicing to Stripe so clients can pay via secure payment links, payments reconcile against invoices automatically, and cash collection does not depend on chasing bank transfers.
Launch foundation: live product, website, and waitlist
Hero is fully built and already used internally by Shape to manage projects, record time, and support invoicing. We also launched the public Hero Projects website so agencies and service businesses can learn about the platform and join the waitlist ahead of wider release.
