BBR Studio Labs is based in Istanbul, Türkiye, and works remotely in English. We have no Australian office, company or staff. Istanbul is behind Australia, not ahead of it, which produces a different rhythm from the US or European offshore model: your late afternoon is our morning, and most of our working day happens during your night. This page explains how to make that work, and when it will not.
Times are for Sydney and Melbourne in standard time (AEST), when Istanbul is seven hours behind. During daylight saving every Sydney time below moves one hour later.
How BBR runs projects ↗It is 02:00 to 09:00 in Istanbul and we are offline. You test the latest staging build, read the most recent written update and leave feedback and decisions in the tracker. Nobody is waiting on you in real time, so this fits around your other work.
Istanbul starts at 09:00. This is the slot for planning calls, milestone demos and anything that needs a conversation. We begin the day by reading your notes, so the call starts from your feedback and nothing needs repeating.
The remainder of the Istanbul working day, 11:00 to 18:00. Development continues while your evening and night pass. Questions that come up are written down with the options and our recommendation, so you can answer with one line in the morning.
Completed work is on staging, and written progress updates arrive on the cadence agreed for the project. The cycle repeats. When it runs well, a change you request on Tuesday can be in front of you on Wednesday without anyone working unusual hours.
Istanbul is on UTC+3 all year with no daylight saving. The table shows when a 09:00–18:00 Istanbul working day falls in each Australian city, and how much of it sits inside a 09:00–17:30 local working day.
| City | Hours ahead of Istanbul | Istanbul 09:00–18:00 in local time | Overlap with your 09:00–17:30 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Hobart (AEST, roughly April to October) | 7 | 16:00–01:00 | 16:00–17:30, an hour and a half |
| Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Hobart (AEDT, roughly October to April) | 8 | 17:00–02:00 | 17:00–17:30, half an hour |
| Brisbane (all year) | 7 | 16:00–01:00 | 16:00–17:30, an hour and a half |
| Adelaide (ACST, roughly April to October) | 6.5 | 15:30–00:30 | 15:30–17:30, two hours |
| Adelaide (ACDT, roughly October to April) | 7.5 | 16:30–01:30 | 16:30–17:30, one hour |
| Darwin (all year) | 6.5 | 15:30–00:30 | 15:30–17:30, two hours |
| Perth (all year) | 5 | 14:00–23:00 | 14:00–17:30, three and a half hours |
Perth has a comfortable afternoon of shared time. Brisbane, and the south-eastern capitals in winter, get a workable slot at the end of the day. The tight case is Sydney and Melbourne during daylight saving. From about October to April, Istanbul’s 09:00 is your 17:00, so a call means either you staying until 18:00 or us starting early by agreement. Both are manageable once or twice a week. Neither is pleasant every day, and we would plan the project so that daily calls are not needed.
What makes this workable is that the build does not depend on the overlap. The scope and acceptance criteria are written down, progress is reported in writing, and the staging link always shows the current state. If that is already how your team works, the time difference starts to help: you review during your day and we build during your night.
Australian developer salaries are high by global standards, and domestic agency rates follow them. The engineering effort needed for a product is the same in Surry Hills as in Istanbul. The cost of each week of that effort is not. Our breakdown of MVP development cost shows the effort-times-rate arithmetic with typical regional bands. It is in US dollars, but the method is what counts. Whether to outsource at all is a separate question, which we cover in in-house vs outsourced development.
Australian companies have used offshore development for a long time, mostly with teams in South and South-East Asia, which share more of the working day. A studio in Istanbul offers less overlap than those regions. The model we offer is a small senior team, a fixed scope and written communication, so compare us on those terms and not on convenience of hours.
Each is simple when planned for, and irritating to fix once real customers are using the product.
Australian consumers expect the displayed price to be the full price, including GST. Business customers expect a tax invoice showing the GST amount. Your billing setup should produce both correctly.
Australia is a long way from the default US and European cloud regions, and users notice the delay on every request. Hosting the application and database in an Australian region gives local users a responsive product, and answers the data-location question that enterprise and government buyers tend to ask.
Cards through a mainstream payment provider are sufficient for most first releases. Australians also know PayID and BPAY well, which can matter for invoices, memberships and larger payments. We would raise this during scoping and not build it on spec.
Day-month-year dates, Australian spelling, state and postcode validation, mobile numbers in both 04 and +61 formats, and time zone handling that accounts for states that do not observe daylight saving.
The Privacy Act 1988 and its thirteen Australian Privacy Principles set the rules for collecting, using, disclosing and securing personal information, overseen by the OAIC. Under the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme, organisations covered by the Act must notify affected individuals and the regulator of breaches likely to cause serious harm. Some small businesses are currently outside the Act, with important exceptions such as health service providers. Reform of the Act is under way, and customers and investors will ask about privacy regardless, so we advise against relying on that exemption when designing a product.
The principle most relevant to an offshore developer is the one on cross-border disclosure. An Australian organisation that discloses personal information to an overseas recipient generally remains accountable for how that recipient handles it. The practical response is to avoid the disclosure:
If you are considering fintech features that use the Consumer Data Right, or anything involving health records, the accreditation and regulatory questions need to be answered before the scope is fixed. This is general information and not legal advice. BBR does not hold ISO 27001, SOC 2 or IRAP-related certifications.
This is common practice, offered as general information. Please ask your solicitor and accountant to confirm what applies to you.
| Topic | Usual approach |
|---|---|
| Agreement | English-language services contract with a written scope, milestones, acceptance criteria and a process for pricing changes before they are made |
| IP ownership | Code and deliverables assigned to your company under the contract. Third-party and open-source components listed with their licences |
| Confidentiality | Mutual NDA on request, on your template or ours |
| Currency and payment | Invoices in AUD, or USD if you prefer, paid by international bank transfer against accepted milestones |
| GST | Services purchased from overseas may be subject to reverse-charge rules for the buyer. Check with your accountant |
| Governing law | Negotiated in the contract. Ask your solicitor to review this clause |
For how milestones, acceptance and handover are usually structured, and where offshore projects tend to fail, see outsourcing app development in practice.
The review-by-day, build-by-night cycle suits work with a clear written scope. That describes most first releases and most well-defined business software:
It suits exploratory work less well, where the direction changes through conversation several times a day, and it does not suit production support that must respond within Australian business hours unless that has been arranged separately. If your project looks like that, a local team or a hybrid of local lead and offshore build will serve you better, and we would tell you so.
No. BBR is an overseas supplier based in Istanbul, Türkiye, and all work is remote. If a customer contract, government panel or funding condition requires an Australian supplier, we are not the right choice.
Late afternoon on the east coast. Istanbul starts work at 09:00, which is 16:00 in Sydney and Melbourne during standard time and 17:00 during daylight saving. Brisbane is 16:00 all year, Adelaide 15:30 or 16:30, and Perth 14:00. Calls are booked in that window. A short early start on our side can be agreed for important sessions during the daylight saving months.
Assume it will not. The R&D Tax Incentive is aimed at activities conducted in Australia, and overseas activities are generally eligible only in limited circumstances that require an advance finding. If the incentive is an important part of your funding, talk to your R&D tax adviser before engaging any offshore team.
We are an overseas supplier, so our invoices do not work the way an Australian supplier’s would. Services bought from overseas can fall under reverse-charge GST rules for the Australian buyer, depending on your GST registration and how the services are used. Your accountant can confirm whether that applies. Invoices are issued in AUD, or in USD if you prefer.
Yes, and for products with Australian users we recommend it. The major cloud providers run Sydney regions, and some also have Melbourne. Hosting is set up in an account your company owns, in the region you choose, and we deploy to it.
Tell us about the product, your city and your timeline. A written reply with questions and a suggested scope will be waiting the next morning, along with proposed late-afternoon call times.
Contact BBR ↗