about the studio
A small studio, on purpose.
Little Theta is an independent software company based in the United States. We make a handful of apps, look after them carefully, and try to be the kind of company we'd want to buy from.
One stubborn builder, forty years in.
Little Theta is run by Nick Hirras, who started writing programs at seven, got his first paying programming job at sixteen, and has never really stopped. He builds software for work and for fun — usually both at the same time — and the apps here are the ones that escaped the workshop because they turned out to be useful.
When not at a keyboard: playing and seeing live music, tinkering with old trucks, walking the dog, making coffee more complicated than it needs to be, and staying home with friends for a movie rather than going out. Quiet until the conversation gets interesting.
We're not a big team, and we don't pretend to be. That's the point. Every app here is built, supported, and cared for by the same people — so if you write in about a bug, the person who fixes it is the person who reads your email.
Why “Little Theta”?
Short version: “little” because we're a small studio making software for small screens. “Theta” because of a nerdy inside joke — and the logo is the Greek letter θ if you squint.
Longer version, for the curious: programmers use a family of symbols — Big O, little o, Big Theta, and friends — to describe how efficient a piece of software is. Big Theta is the most precise of the bunch: it means “exactly this much, no more, no less.”
There's a little version of nearly every symbol in that family — except Theta. Little theta doesn't exist. We liked the idea of being the one that isn't supposed to be there, doing the precise, no-more-no-less thing anyway. It's not a pitch. It's just what we named the company while drinking coffee, and it stuck.
If you know, you know. If you don't, it's a friendly-sounding name and the logo looks nice on a phone. Both are fine by us.
| O | “no worse than this” |
| o | “strictly better than this” |
| Ω | “no better than this” |
| ω | “strictly worse than this” |
| Θ | “exactly this” — the precise one |
| θ | doesn't exist. That's us. |
Things we geek out about.
Fair warning: bring any of these up and the conversation will run long.
Computers, obviously
Hacker culture, old machines, new languages, and the occasional weekend lost to a side project that will never ship.
Music
Playing it, performing it, tuning it to a tenth of a cent. Reson8 exists because we wanted a better tuner for ourselves.
Math & science
The company is named after a math in-joke. We find that sort of thing funnier than we probably should.
Theater & film
Good stories, well told. We'd rather host a movie night than go out — and we have opinions about the projector.
Old trucks
Vintage SUVs, specifically. There's something about keeping a well-made thing running for decades that feels on-brand.
Dogs, coffee, local beer
In that order most mornings, the reverse most evenings. Fitness and a bit of biohacking in between — which is why Nistis and Macro Trainer exist.
Careers & collaborations
We're not hiring right now — we're a very small studio, and we like it that way. But we do take on select client work when the project is interesting and the fit is right: mobile apps, audio and music software, and the tricky technical parts other teams would rather avoid.
If that sounds like your project, or you're a designer, developer, or musician who'd like to collaborate someday, write to us. We read everything, and we reply.
Writing about us?
Thank you. The company is Little Theta LLC, usually written “Little Theta.” The logo in the corner of this page is the official one; drop us a line for high-resolution versions and product screenshots.