The Final Code

Larry and the Final Code do great work. They are particularly skilled at distilling complex issues into accessible messages. They were professional, courteous and met our very aggressive schedule. The always struck the right balance between providing helpful creative suggestions and preserving our original vision and intent. Additionally the Final Code team went above and beyond often providing services to complement our project. In short I would highly recommend the Final Code.

I STRONGLY URGE CAUTION IN DOING BUSINESS WITH THE FINAL CODE.
Larry, Carlo, and company are eager to get your business and work hard at getting to the contract stage. What they offer is website development on a proprietary platform (their own «secret» code, which can be added to, tweaked, or changed only by them) they call Total Control.
If you have a simple website that they create from the ground up, you’re likely to be okay. If you have a complex, multi-​page site with e-​commerce and lots of bells and whistles, be very careful. If you’re considering asking them to take an existing, multi-​dimensional, e-​commerce site and replicate it on their platform, please re-​consider.
They will sell you on Total Control as having no bugs, no problems, no shortcomings because it is theirs alone, unlike open-​source web platforms like Joomla, Wordpress, Drupal, etc, which have been created by thousands of developers. They’ll tell you those thousands of developers have created very messy, problem-​filled code and that theirs is very clean.
What they won’t tell you is that Total Control is coded by ONE guy named Ken who lives in THAILAND, yes, THAILAND. You’ll never meet or talk to Ken. And if Ken hasn’t created a function you need yet, get in line, because Ken will have to create it on his own timetable before it will be available to you, if ever. And even if Ken does eventually build the module you need, it make not work properly. You won’t be able to go to another web developer for help because Total Control is proprietary and only Ken can alter it. You’re stuck.
If you complain about the fact that your project is not completed, about the poor performance of a module, about anything for which The Final Code is responsible, Larry will go ballistic and blame you for changing your mind, for adding to the scope of work, for getting in the way, for being difficult to work with, etc, but what he and Ken will never do is take responsibility for a platform that is proprietary, yes, but which is also of limited functionality at best.
I have over a year of personal experience with The Final Code and I’m grateful that my association with the company is over at last. It was a very unpleasant year because the company simply wasn’t up the job it contracted to do. It’s platform isn’t a big-​boy platform yet and appears unlikely ever to be one.
I’m aware that the company has been taken to court at least twice since the first of the year (just two and a half months) and perhaps numerous other clients have had similar issues over the years. That just doesn’t happen to web developers who can create what they promise to create and get the job done.
And how did this all turn out for us? We finally gave up on The Final Code, went to another web developer with precisely the same request to replicate a big, complex, e-​commerce site. Working virtually alone, this Bay Area developer accomplished in 10 weeks what The Final Code team couldn’t in 9 months. We had no mis-​communication, no confrontations, no excuses, no delays. Everything went beautifully.
Larry ultimately accused the Bay Area developer of «stealing» Final Code’s work, which was ridiculous on its face, because, remember, Final Code’s «Total Control» platform is proprietary and no one outside the company can access the code’s innards. It was a fitting final moment for us with The Final Code: the very feature Larry touted so proudly in the beginning was one he claimed didn’t exist when he made his theft claim to the court.
Why risk a similar experience? Just don’t go there, friends.

You do NOT want to do business with this company for MANY reasons. We too were promised many things with our web site plan that clearly became figments of our imagination. This company is quite clever in that they will verbally present what they can do but conveniently their contract doesn’t support their verbal representations. We stopped the work early on when it became clear they were all talk and no action. Unfortunately we learned a hard lesson when we did, in fact, sue them and lost our deposit because of their «fabricated» time sheet. The judge had no clue about the intricacies of web site design and was easily misled about what they did and did not do. Good news is we STOPPED work before we had paid their full fee. During the lawsuit we even learned they were not a legitimate business in Ventura and did not even have a valid business license. There are lots of reputable local web design companies. This is not one if them and any money you give them is like throwing it down the toilet. Your web site can only be used with them… a bad deal anyway you look at it.

DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH THE FINAL CODE. They never even came close to finishing the rebuild of our old website for our spiritual organization. We don’t like saying bad things, but this was the worst business experience any of us ever had, and we want to save others from this.
Final Code’s contract stated they’d finish our site in 30 days, for $ 13,500.00.
Six months later it was far from finished, and they were complaining they had underbid. Being the fair, honest people we are, and hoping to get it done, we paid them $ 6000 more than the contract, for a total of $ 21,000. As soon as they cashed that check they never did any further work on the missing parts, and they stalled for another three months.
They actually sent us an email saying sorry, but we’re «too busy with bigger clients and we have to make a living.»
Turns out Final Code took our money knowing they did not even have the ability to do the scope of work we gave them. Larry wrote a vague contract, and when I had asked why my 20 pages of detailed, thorough, and clear scope of work wasn’t in it, he said, «Oh, this is just the standard contract we use, don’t worry, I have your list right here.» Soon as the ink was dry, they started complaining that we were asking for things that were «not in the contract.»
By Larry’s reply and other reviews here, you can see we’re not the first they did that to.
They once accidentally sent us an email thread where Larry the owner tells the whole staff to stall us and only do little tiny things for us to make it look like something’s happening. If we confronted them Larry made excuses and finally resorted to screaming abuses.
NINE MONTHS into this «30 day contract» and still no finish, we bit the bullet and started all over, and paid a new webmaster a total of $ 17, 960.00. He completed that exact scope of work in 2 ½ months, with only one intern helping him. He completed all our items to the last detail, plus extras he threw in at no charge because he thought we needed it – no problems, no complaints, great communication. We’ve been completely happy for the past year with our new, complete site.
THE FINAL CODE had a staff of 7 or more people and still couldn’t (or wouldn’t) finish that exact scope of work in 9 months.
We asked for some settlement from Final Code – Larry refused to make any. The credit card company carefully reviewed our documentation and cheerfully refunded us $ 6757.00 that was charged on a card, but because the rest had been paid by check, we sadly had to take Final Code to court.
Larry made at least fifteen false or misleading statements to the judge. For example, he told the judge Final Code created my website so we were stealing it from them – of course, a total falsehood – FC was supposed to simply copy my seven year old mature site over to their new platform (and didn’t even complete that or do it with any accuracy.) I created every word, picture, and pixel inch of the site myself over the past seven years. He screamed in court about how we abused them and added to the scope of work. We had never experienced anything like it. It should have been on a reality TV show.
DON’T PURCHASE A WEBSITE ON ANY PROPRIETARY PLATFORM. They’re all smiles during the sale, and there are advantages to it, but once they have your money, you’re at their mercy, so you’d better know their integrity.
With any proprietary system like THE FINAL CODE’s, if they over-​promise, are incompetent, shady, inefficient, or if they get «too busy for you,» they have your money and your website, and no other webmaster can get into that closed system to finish it, fix it, or work on it at all. You have to start over again, and as above, they might have the nerve to claim you stole your own website from them.
With any open-​source platform, you can just fire a dishonest or incompetent web company and get a new one to take over or finish it. Final Code calls their platform Total Control. THEY take total control of your website – you lose control of it.
Larry will sound very convincing in denying all of this. We heard a mind-​boggling array of justifications, excuses, and untruths in those 9 months. But once we caught onto their deal, we documented every detail.
We are real customers, not their friends posting reviews. You may call us at 805−500−5492 and we’re happy to let you review the thick file of documentation. We’d like to spare everyone the year of grief we went through with The Final Code.

I love supporting local businesses. So it saddens me to write this review.
I reached out to The Final Code for help with SEO and content/​blog posts. I’ve left several messages but no one called me until I spoke with Larry and was told that someone was going to call me back.
I heard back from James and my husband and I were invited in their office to talk about their services. James wasn’t able to give us even an estimate cost for their service even after specifically telling him exactly what we need, down to the number of blog posts we need content for. Instead he offered to give us a sample of his writing.
After which, I e-​mailed him all the information he needed. Two weeks later and several phone calls and email in between, all I kept hearing from him is that he is «swamped with work» and hasn’t gotten around to what he told us he would do. He told me last Friday to call him on Monday to remind him (who does this?), which I did. I just got off the phone with him and he told me that his boss just gave him a ton of work and he doesn’t know when he will have the time for us.
I definitely do NOT recommend this company.

This company saved my sanity! I was looking for a company that allowed me to have the freedom to do what I needed/​wanted to do with my website and also offer excellent customer service. I struck gold! The Final Code team is super supportive. They never leave me hanging if I have questions or need assistance. Their software allows me complete control of our site. It has made having a website fun again! I would highly recommend them!

I started my business about 6 months ago and couldn’t get my key words anywhere in search engines after burning through a few hundred dollars trying google adwords with no results I went to the Final Code. Now I am on page one or two of every category I am attempting and moving up all of they time. Larry and his crew teach you what you need to maintain a competitive web site that brings results. They are fun to work with. You could spend thousands on an outside company to optimize your website of a fraction of that with Final Code and learn how to do it yourself. Highly recommend them