Six claims, each with a way to check it.
Anyone can write “senior team” and “transparent process” on a website. Below, every claim is followed by the specific thing you can point at if we stop doing it — which is the only version of this page worth reading.
- Staffing
- Senior, named upfront
- Milestone one
- Fixed price
- Ownership
- Yours from commit one
What is different here, and what it costs.
Two of these cost us money. We have left them in because a list of advantages with no trade-offs is marketing, not information.
The people who scope it build it
Whoever writes your scope is on the delivery team. Nothing is won by seniors and quietly handed to whoever is free the following month.
Everyone on the engagement is named in the statement of work.
Fixed price on the first milestone
Discovery ends with a scope and a number. If we estimated badly, that is our problem to absorb, which is a strong incentive to estimate carefully.
Milestone one is fixed price, always.
You own everything
Code, infrastructure, accounts, domains, and pipelines are in your name from day one. There is no hosting arrangement designed to make leaving difficult.
Ask for a full export at any point and it takes an afternoon.
We write the risks down
Every scope document has a risk section naming what could go wrong and what it would cost. Uncomfortable to write, cheaper than the alternative.
The risk list is in the scope, not in a verbal caveat.
Senior only, which has a cost
We are more expensive per hour than an agency with a delivery pyramid, and cheaper per shipped feature. If your work genuinely needs volume rather than judgement, we are the wrong choice and will say so.
We will refer you on rather than take a bad fit.
Handover is contractual
Documentation, a recorded walkthrough, and a supported transition period are line items in the agreement, not goodwill at the end.
It is written into the statement of work.
Listen first. Build in the open. Leave it better.
Three stages in a fixed order. The first one is the one clients ask to skip, and skipping it is the single most reliable way to make a project cost more than it should.
- 01
Listen first
Two weeks before anyone writes production code.
We read the existing system, sit with the people who use it, and write down what we found — including the parts of your brief we think are wrong. You get a scope with named risks and a fixed price for the first milestone. If the honest conclusion is that you should not build this, you get that instead, and you keep the document.
Output · Scope, risk list, milestone price
- 02
Build in the open
Weekly demos against a board you can see into.
You are in the repository and the tracker from day one. Every week there is something running to look at, not a status update. When an estimate moves, you hear it that week with the reason attached — never in a summary at the end of the month.
Output · Weekly demo, open board, running system
- 03
Leave it better
The exit is designed at the start.
Handover is a deliverable, not a favour. Documentation aimed at your next hire, a recorded walkthrough, and a period where your engineers drive while we review. Success is your team shipping the second version without us.
Output · Docs, recorded handover, supported transition
Six positions we hold on purpose.
Each of these has a cost attached, listed underneath. A position with no cost is a preference.
Boring technology, chosen on purpose.
Postgres until Postgres is genuinely the problem. Novelty is a cost paid by whoever maintains this after us.
An estimate is a forecast, not a promise.
So we give ranges, say what would narrow them, and tell you the same week they move.
If it is not monitored, it is not shipped.
A feature nobody is alerted about is a feature you will hear about from a customer.
The best deliverable is a team that does not need us.
This makes our engagements shorter than our revenue would prefer. We think it is why they get renewed.
Say the unwelcome thing early.
A scope problem raised in week two is a conversation. In week ten it is an invoice dispute.
Write it down or it did not happen.
Decisions, reasons, and rejected options. Memory is not a handover artefact.
When you should not hire us.
- You need a large team staffed next week. We scale deliberately and will not subcontract people we cannot vouch for, so somebody else will be faster.
- You want a fixed price on a twelve-month scope. Nobody can price that honestly, including us.
- The work is volume rather than judgement — a hundred near-identical pages, or a long queue of small tickets. A production agency will do it better and cheaper.
- You need someone to agree with a decision that has already been made. We will keep saying the uncomfortable thing, and that gets expensive for both of us.
In any of those cases, ask anyway — we keep a short list of people we would recommend, and a referral costs you nothing. More in the FAQ.
Send the awkward version of the problem.
Not the tidied-up brief — the actual situation, including what has already been tried and what everyone disagrees about. That is the version we can give a useful answer to.