When Bradley Taylor’s software services company experienced a surge in revenue in 2009, he did what any smart entrepreneur does — reinvested some of the profits. But for Taylor, 39, whose company is based in Savannah,Ga., that meant buying a 500-acre heritage livestock farm to raise Pineywoods cattle, Gulf Coast sheep, and Ossabaw Island hogs, among other rare local breeds — not more computer servers.

Welcome to the software industry, Southern style.

Taylor, founder and CEO of Rails Machine, which provides support for tech startups using the Ruby on Rails web application framework, has nearly 20 years of experience as a software developer, including stints at big-name firms in California and Colorado.

But in many ways, he seems far removed from the go-go world of venture capital financingand big-money IPOs. Rails Machine, which Taylor started in 2006, has six employees and an annual revenue growth rate of around 75 percent. Unlike a lot of young tech companies, however, it is not pounding the pavement for outside funding or going on a hiring spree.

“Do we really need 50 employees?” says Taylor, who clearly thinks not.

Taylor prefers to view his software business in the Jeffersonian tradition of the farmer who tends his own small corner of the world, primarily to meet his own physical needs and those of his employees.

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