From necessity to 20 years of building software that adapts to businesses, not the other way around. Angelo Zanetti co-founded Elemental during the dot-com crash and turned it into a Cape Town powerhouse that refuses to compromise on quality, security, or in-office culture.
Angelo Zanetti
Angelo Zanetti is the co-founder and co-CEO of Elemental, a web and software development agency based in Cape Town, South Africa. With over 20 years of hands-on experience, Angelo has built a lean team of 25 specialists who focus on creating bespoke software solutions that truly fit how businesses operate, rather than forcing businesses to adapt to off-the-shelf tools.
This podcast episode is relevant to you if you're building software products, running a development agency, scoping MVPs, or trying to understand why that vibe-coded prototype isn't production-ready. Find out why founders bloat their MVPs with non-core features, what happens when someone hands Angelo a Replit prototype with no brakes, and why Elemental's entire team works in-office five days a week in an increasingly remote world.
Angelo shares the realities of digital transformation, the security nightmares hiding in AI-generated code, and why great SEO has driven their lead generation for two decades. If you're serious about building software that scales or positioning your agency to stand out, this episode delivers practical, battle-tested advice.
Topics Covered:
1:07 - How Angelo got into the agency world out of necessity during the dot-com crash
2:25 - Meeting Richard in a Harry Potter-esque location overlooking King's Cross
4:18 - The current setup: 25 people, lean and mean in Cape Town
5:26 - Why COVID was actually good for Elemental's business
6:59 - The advantage of having strong technical backgrounds as co-founders
8:05 - How SEO has been their secret weapon for lead generation
9:51 - Doing exceptional work leads to referrals and repeat business
10:38 - The mistake of trying to be everything to everyone
11:16 - MVPs and the patterns Angelo sees when founders first approach them
12:33 - Why founders jam-pack MVPs with nice-to-have features
14:04 - The "build it and they will come" fallacy
15:55 - Walking through the Change Cars project: competing with Autotrader
18:55 - How the market tells you what features to build next
21:22 - Philosophy: software should adapt to the business, not the other way around
25:18 - Why off-the-shelf tools force businesses into broken workflows
28:21 - The commercial model: discovery, build, then ongoing support and maintenance
32:01 - Why Elemental keeps everyone in-office five days a week
36:06 - The advantages: culture, collaboration, mentoring, and quality control
38:53 - The major challenge: hiring in a world that wants remote work
42:18 - How Angelo stays connected to the technical side without writing code anymore
43:18 - The reality of vibe coding: it looks good but has no brakes
46:32 - Security nightmares in AI-generated prototypes
48:07 - Using AI tools like Copilot and Cursor responsibly
50:58 - Building SEO calculators with vibe coding versus proper development
52:18 - Advice for agencies looking to scale: stop being too generalist
55:23 - Positioning yourself as a specialist and marketing to that niche
57:24 - Book recommendation: $100,000,000 Offers by Alex Hormozi
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