Puerto Jiménez, Costa Rica
info@gexpsoftware.com
© 2026 Marcelo Retana
I started GEXP Software because I saw local entrepreneurs getting ignored by agencies and ripped off by template factories. Here's the story, and what I learned about what small businesses actually need online.
I've been building software for over 10 years. I've worked with startups, corporations, and everything in between. But the moment that made me start GEXP Software wasn't a big corporate project — it was a conversation with a tour guide in Puerto Jiménez.
He ran wildlife tours in the Osa Peninsula. Best reviews on TripAdvisor. Fully booked through word of mouth during high season. But during low season? Crickets. No new customers. No online visibility.
He'd paid an agency $3,000 for a website two years earlier. What he got was a WordPress site with a bought theme, stock photos of some other jungle, and text that read like it was written by someone who'd never been to Costa Rica. It ranked for nothing. It converted nobody.
"I just need people to find me when they search," he told me. "That's it."
That conversation stuck with me. Because he wasn't asking for anything complicated. He was asking for the bare minimum that any business should have in 2026 — and the industry had failed him.
Here's the uncomfortable truth about the web development industry:
Agencies optimize for their margins, not your results.
A typical agency charges $5,000-$15,000 for a small business website. They use WordPress because their team knows it, not because it's best for you. They install 30 plugins because it's faster than writing code. They hand you a site that scores 45/100 on Google PageSpeed and call it done.
Then they charge you $200/month for "maintenance" — which means updating those 30 plugins so your site doesn't get hacked.
The template factories aren't better. Squarespace, Wix, and the rest give you a drag-and-drop tool and pretend that design is the hard part. It's not. The hard part is getting found. The hard part is converting visitors. The hard part is performing well on mobile in areas with spotty internet.
Neither agencies nor template factories solve the actual problem: getting customers.
Living in Costa Rica gave me a perspective that Silicon Valley developers don't have:
In many parts of Latin America, mobile connections are 3G or slow 4G. A website that loads in 2 seconds in San Francisco loads in 8 seconds in Golfito. Those 6 extra seconds mean your customer left and called your competitor instead.
Performance isn't a nice-to-have. It's a survival feature.
In Costa Rica and most of Latin America, nobody fills out contact forms. They WhatsApp you. If your website doesn't have a WhatsApp button, you're losing leads from the most common communication channel in the region.
When a tourist searches "coffee tour Monteverde" or a local searches "dentista San José," they need to find you. Not your competitor who happens to have a faster website. You.
This means local SEO, Google Business Profile optimization, and structured data that tells Google exactly where you are and what you do. Most agencies don't touch this because it requires actual technical knowledge.
In many Latin American markets, a professional website isn't just marketing — it's proof that your business is legitimate. I've talked to business owners who lost contracts because the client Googled them and found nothing. No website, no deal.
I designed GEXP Software's entire approach around what I saw local entrepreneurs actually need:
Fast websites — Not "fast for a WordPress site." Actually fast. Sub-second load times on 4G connections. Built with Next.js and deployed on edge networks so your site loads quickly whether the visitor is in San José, Miami, or Berlin.
SEO that works from day one — Not a plugin. Actual technical SEO built into the code: semantic HTML, structured data, meta tags, sitemaps, canonical URLs, Core Web Vitals optimization. The stuff that makes Google trust your site.
Lead capture that fits the market — WhatsApp integration, contact forms, booking links. Multiple paths to "yes" because different customers prefer different channels.
You own everything — Your domain, your code, your content. If you ever want to leave, you take everything with you. No vendor lock-in. No hostage situations.
Honest pricing — I charge for the work, not for the brand. A GEXP website costs a fraction of what agencies charge because I don't have 15 employees, a downtown office, and a foosball table to fund.
My favorite clients aren't the ones with big budgets. They're the ones doing real work:
These are people who solve real problems for real customers. They just need the internet to work for them instead of against them.
After building dozens of websites for local entrepreneurs, here's what I know:
A beautiful website that nobody finds is worthless. Design matters, but SEO and performance matter more.
Simple beats complex every time. Four well-built pages outperform a 20-page site with thin content.
Speed is a competitive advantage in emerging markets. When your competitor's site takes 8 seconds to load and yours takes 1.5, you win by default.
Local businesses need local solutions. WhatsApp integration, Google Maps, location-specific SEO — these aren't nice-to-haves in Latin America. They're requirements.
The best marketing investment is one that compounds. Social media ads stop working when you stop paying. A well-optimized website gets better over time.
GEXP Software exists to give local entrepreneurs the same quality of web presence that funded startups and big corporations have. Not dumbed down. Not template-ized. The real thing — fast, optimized, designed to generate customers — at a price that makes sense for a business that's still growing.
If that sounds like what you need, let's have a conversation. I'll tell you honestly whether I can help.
I'm Marcelo. I build from Costa Rica. And I believe every entrepreneur doing real work deserves to be found online.
I build websites, apps, and MVPs. Let's talk about your project.