Process
The speed comes from the waiting we removed.
Very little of a normal build is spent typing. It is spent waiting. For a spec, for a mockup, for a review, for the next sprint to start. We close those gaps. The engineering judgement stays where it was.
The build, step by step
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01
Shaping
days 1-3
One working session with the people who own the outcome. We want the problem, the users, the limits that cannot move, and whatever you already know is wrong with how it works today.
You leave with a written scope, a milestone plan and a price. If the job is smaller than you assumed, you hear that here. That conversation is cheaper for both of us than a contract.
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02
Design system and prototype
week 1-2
The system comes before the screens. Colour, type scale, spacing, states, components. Then the real screens on top of it. Not static mockups, a build you can click through on your own phone.
Trying four serious directions and throwing three away costs us a day rather than a fortnight. So the one you pick is a choice, not the only option there was time for.
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03
Build
the main stretch
Small changes, merged often, always ready to deploy. Architecture and the data model get decided by an engineer and written down before the first endpoint exists. Those are the decisions you live with longest.
Nothing lands unread. Types, tests and a second pair of eyes are the gate. The codebase has to read like something a person will still understand in a year.
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04
Ship and operate
launch and after
Environments, pipelines, monitoring, alerting, and a release process your own team can run. We would rather be optional than necessary.
After launch you can keep us on for ongoing work, or take a documented handover. Repository, infrastructure, decisions and why we made them.
Standards
What we do not cut.
Speed is only worth having if what sits underneath it holds. These stay fixed whatever the deadline looks like.
- The price we agreed
- Quoted per project, not per hour. If the scope changes you get a new number before anyone starts work on it, never an invoice you did not expect.
- Your ownership of the code
- Everything sits in your repository and your accounts from day one. If you replaced us tomorrow, another team could pick it up and keep going.
- Architecture and data modelling
- The shape of the system is the most expensive thing to reverse later. It gets decided on purpose, in writing, before the building starts.
- Security and privacy
- Sign-in, permissions, secrets, data retention and what leaves your servers. Checked by hand every time.
- Search visibility
- Rendering, markup, speed and metadata are part of the build for anything with public pages. Adding them afterwards costs more and works less well.
- Owning our mistakes
- If something we shipped is broken, we fix it. There is no version of that sentence with an excuse in it.
Start with a sprint, not a contract.
Two to three weeks, fixed price, something running at the end. If the work does not convince you, you have lost a sprint instead of a quarter.