Contact us

Our process - How we work

No jargon, no mystery. We work in two modes: a strategic retainer for ongoing technical leadership, and project delivery for build and modernization work with a defined finish line. The shape of the engagement should match the shape of the work.

Mode A - Strategic retainer

For founders and leadership teams who need an experienced technical partner on call. This covers Diagnostic, Advisory, Fractional CTO, and Strategic Partnership engagements. The shape of the work is ongoing leadership, not a one-off project.

How a retainer engagement runs - Four steps from first conversation to quarterly review.

We're not selling hours. We're buying ourselves the context to give you good advice, then giving it consistently.

  • 01. Diagnostic (1-2 weeks). A focused engagement to understand your systems, team, and business pressures. Architecture review, team assessment, and a prioritized set of recommendations you can act on whether or not we keep working together.
  • 02. Engagement design. We agree on cadence, scope, and success criteria together. How often we meet, what I'm on the hook for, what I'm explicitly not, and how we'll know the engagement is working.
  • 03. Ongoing leadership. Weekly CEO sync, async access in between for the questions that come up between meetings, and a monthly written synthesis so the strategic picture stays clear instead of getting lost in the day to day.
  • 04. Quarterly review. Every quarter we step back. Tier graduation up or down, scope adjustment, or a clean exit if the engagement has done its job. Renewing should be a deliberate choice, not a default.

Mode B - Project delivery

For build, modernization, and integration work with a defined outcome. Discovery through handoff, with clear scope and a finish line.

Discovery

We start by understanding your problem deeply. What are you trying to achieve? What constraints exist? What has been tried before?

This is also where we assess fit. Not every project is right for us, and we give honest assessments. If we're not the right team for the job, we'll tell you and point you in a better direction if we can.

By the end of discovery, we both know exactly what we're solving and whether it makes sense to move forward together.

What this looks like

  • Technical deep-dives
  • Architecture review
  • Scope definition
  • Feasibility assessment
  • Fit evaluation

Proposal

Clear scope, timeline, and approach. No ambiguity about what's being delivered.

We define milestones, communication cadence, and success criteria upfront. You know what you're getting, when you're getting it, and how we'll measure success.

Fixed-price or time-and-materials depending on the engagement. Straightforward pricing with no hidden costs.

What you get

  • Clear scope. A detailed breakdown of what will be built, with explicit boundaries around what is and isn't included.
  • Defined milestones. Checkpoints where you see working software and can course-correct before we've gone too far.
  • Transparent pricing. No surprises. You know the cost structure before work begins.

Build

Iterative development with regular check-ins. You see working software early and often, not just at the end.

We adapt as we learn more about the problem. Requirements evolve, that's normal. What's important is that changes are deliberate, communicated, and accounted for.

You get direct access to the engineers doing the work. No account manager telephone game. The people building your software are the people you talk to.

How we work

  • Regular demos
  • Direct engineer access
  • Iterative delivery
  • Transparent progress
  • Adaptive scope

After launch - Deliver and hand off

Handoff includes documentation, knowledge transfer, and a support runway. Your team can maintain and extend what we built. We're not in the business of creating dependencies on ourselves.

  • Documentation. Every project ships with clear documentation so your team can understand, maintain, and extend the work without us.
  • Knowledge transfer. We walk your team through the architecture, decisions, and trade-offs so they own the system, not just the code.
  • Support runway. A defined support period after launch to handle questions, bugs, and the inevitable surprises that come with going live.
  • No lock-in. You own everything we build. No proprietary frameworks, no vendor dependencies, no hostage situations.
  • Clean handoff. Access, credentials, infrastructure, all transferred to your team with nothing left dangling.
  • Ongoing availability. Need us again six months later? We're here. But you'll never need us just because we made ourselves hard to replace.

Tell us about your project

Say Hey

Our offices