Independent software · Vancouver, WA

Independent software studio

Good software,
grown in-house.

We make a few small apps and keep improving them. Every release is a little better than the last.

Explore our products
Pl. 001Aegagropila linnaei

grows ~5 mm
a year

Fig. 1 Marimo, the slow-growing moss ball this studio is named after.

§ 01 Products

What we're growing.

No. 01庭Waitlist open

Niwa

A little Japanese, every day.

Build a Japanese learning habit with real sentences and spaced repetition. One short session a day, at your own pace, and a garden that grows as you learn.

Daily practice
One short session fits into a normal day. Showing up matters more than doing a lot.
Spaced repetition
Reviews come back on a schedule, so what you've learned stays learned.
Offline-first
Practice keeps working without a connection.
Nothing to catch up on
Miss a day and your garden simply waits. No guilt, no hearts to lose.
Join the waitlist at niwaapp.com
The Niwa home screen. A greeting reads こんばんは, Good evening, above a garden scene with an autumn maple, a stone lantern and the marimo mascot.
Fig. 2 Niwa's home screen. The garden grows as you practise.

No. 02

Something new

The next one is in the works. We'll share it when it's ready.

In the works

§ 02 How we work

Made here, start to finish.

We ship small, watch how it's used, and adjust. The same people who launch a product stay to look after it.

  1. 01

    Start small

    Ship the smallest useful version, then learn from real use.

  2. 02

    Iterate

    Frequent small changes, each one checked before it goes out.

  3. 03

    Stay

    We keep running what we ship, for years, not one launch.

§ 03 About

Named after the marimo, a moss ball that keeps growing for decades, one layer at a time.

Mossball Labs LLC is an independent software company in Vancouver, Washington, founded by Chandler Severson.

We're just getting started. Niwa is our first product, and the plan is to keep improving it for years.

§ 04 Contact

Say hello.

Questions, ideas, partnerships, or a bug you found. We read every message.