How we work
Four stages, and you can stop after any of them.
Every one is separately priced and separately useful. Nothing here depends on you being locked in, because a founder who feels trapped is a founder who disappears.
01
Discovery
Written scope, technical approach, milestone plan, a costed estimate and the full ongoing cost picture. Payable up front, and credited in full against the build if you proceed within 90 days. It is also fundraising material. A costed technical plan, an architecture and a delivery roadmap is something you can put in front of an investor.
02
Prototype, if you need one
A working thing you can put in front of an investor or a first customer. For an unfunded founder this is usually the step that unlocks everything else, because it is what gets you the money that pays for the build.
03
Build
Billed on milestones, not up front and not in arrears. If you stop at milestone two, you have paid for milestone two. Our minimum build engagement is £10,000; below that we will sell you discovery or fixed-scope work at day rate and say so.
04
Go-live, then Run
The Run agreement is signed at the start, alongside the build agreement, so it is never a late surprise. But it is billed from go-live — not signature. Charging a pre-revenue founder to support a product that does not exist yet is hard to justify, and it adds an affordability barrier for no good reason. The term starts when your product goes live, not when you sign. You are not paying for support of something that does not exist yet, and you are not committing from a date before you have seen it working.
Ownership
Your accounts, your code, from day one
Your cloud accounts are created in your name at the start, not migrated to you at the end. We get access to them; we do not own them. The code and the IP are yours as you pay for them, milestone by milestone. This is not a concession we make when asked — it is how the engagement is set up before it starts.
Included in every build
- Design and build
- Testing and deployment
- Cloud set up in your accounts
- Documentation and handover
- Code and IP, yours as you pay
Not included
- Third-party licences, at cost
- Cloud hosting, billed to you directly
- Cyber Essentials fees, from £320
- Content and copywriting
- Anything outside the agreed scope — priced in writing first
Leaving
What if we can’t afford it in six months?
Then tell us and we hand over properly. Your cloud accounts are in your name from day one, you own all the code, and you get 30 days and full documentation. We’d rather you leave cleanly than disappear.
What a handover means, concretely
- Your cloud accounts are already yours — there is nothing to transfer
- All source code and IP, for everything you have paid for
- Full written documentation of what was built and how it runs
- 30 days from the day you tell us, so you are not handing over in a panic
The only thing you owe on the way out is the unearned part of any build discount — pro rata, by month, and nothing else. We’ll show you that number before you sign, and again if you ever ask for it. How the term and the clawback work.
After the minimum term Run is rolling, with 30 days’ notice either side.
Any of this you want in writing before you talk to us?
That is rather the point of publishing it. If something on this page is not clear enough to plan around, tell us and we will fix the page.