Every question we get asked before the first call
Collected from real conversations, answered the way we'd answer on the call — so the call itself can be about your business.
Money & terms
How do you charge?
Three models: a fixed monthly rate for a dedicated team, milestone billing for a scoped project, or a software-for-equity deal. Never hourly.
When is the first payment?
After the first delivery. No large deposits — the diagnosis and the estimate are both free, and build invoices follow accepted milestones.
What if the project runs over?
If we under-scoped, the overrun is ours. If you change the scope, the change is priced openly before work continues — never discovered on an invoice.
Can we stop mid-engagement?
Yes — after any milestone (projects) or with 30 days' notice (teams). You keep everything produced to that point, documented.
Ownership & confidentiality
Who owns the code and IP?
You do, in full, on every paid model — transferred as payments clear. In equity partnerships, ownership follows the shareholder agreement we sign together.
Do you sign NDAs?
Before any detailed discussion — yours or our standard mutual NDA. Confidentiality also covers our case studies: we never name clients publicly.
Are we locked in to you for maintenance?
No. Everything ships documented for handover — architecture records, runbooks, tests. The operate retainer is an option, not a hostage situation.
Can you work under our security requirements?
Usually yes — VPN-only access, your devices, your cloud accounts, background checks where required. See Security & data handling.
Day-to-day collaboration
How much of our time do you need?
One accountable owner, 2–4 hours a week: the Friday demo, async answers, and milestone acceptance. We're structured to not need meetings.
Whose tools do we use?
Yours — Slack or Teams, your tracker, your calendar. We adapt to your stack, not the other way around.
Do we talk to engineers or account managers?
Engineers. There are no account managers. Every engagement is led by a partner who codes or scopes systems and sits in your weekly demo.
Which time zones do you cover?
Yours — the team is fully remote and distributed. Overlap windows are agreed at kickoff and kept.
Fit & expectations
What size of company do you work with?
Mostly operators from ~30 to a few hundred people, and funded or revenue-generating founders. Big enough to have a real process problem; small enough to decide quickly.
What do you say no to?
About a third of requests — usually because buying beats building, or the payback math doesn't clear 12 months. You get the "no" in writing, with reasoning.
How fast can you start?
Diagnosis within a week of your request. Projects start when the estimate is signed; dedicated teams typically embed within 2–3 weeks.
What does "done" mean to you?
Running in production, used by your team, hitting the metric named in the estimate — with monitoring, documentation and a 90-day warranty behind it.
A question we didn't answer?
Ask it on the call — thirty minutes, a partner, no salesperson.