Six sectors, one problem underneath all of them.
Different trades, same shape: data in several places, none of it agreeing, and somebody holding it together by hand.
Burners, gas controls and the engineers who service them in the field
Catalogues in the tens of thousands, where fitment decides everything
Vehicle stock that has to stay true across a website and a marketplace feed
The gap between a configured order and a factory that can actually make it
Getting a platform through the technical work that was standing between it and launch
Course delivery, booking and the operating model behind a personal brand
What you are probably thinking.
If you have not worked with us, these are the things worth asking. Answering them here saves you a call.
You are three people. What happens when you are busy, or ill, or gone?
Fair question, and the honest answer is that it is a real risk you are taking. Here is what we do about it. The code lives in your repository from the first commit, not ours. It is documented on the assumption that the next person to open it is not us. We take on few enough clients that nobody is competing for attention, and we will tell you when we are full rather than squeezing you in.
What you are buying is the senior person actually doing the work. The trade-off is that there is no bench behind them. If that is not acceptable for your risk profile, a larger agency is the right answer and we will say so.
What is this going to cost?
We will not quote properly off a brief, because the brief is always written before anybody has looked inside the systems. What we do is agree a defined first piece at a fixed price: a map of every system you run, what owns which fact and where the same number is being typed twice. It tends to be the most useful document a business has about its own operation, and it is yours whether or not you carry on with us.
After that it is either a fixed-scope project with milestones or a monthly retainer. Tell us the budget early. If it will not stretch, we will say whether a smaller version is worth doing or whether you should wait.
Are we locked in?
No. The code is yours, in your repository, running on infrastructure in your name wherever that is practical. Retainers are monthly and you can stop. We would rather you stayed because the work is good than because leaving is painful, and a client who cannot leave is a client who stops telling you the truth.
We already have a developer. Does that make this awkward?
Usually not. A lot of our work sits alongside somebody else's, and we are generally brought in for the part they do not want or have not got time for. We will not come in and tell you everything they built is wrong, because it usually is not, and because that is a tedious way to behave. If there is a genuine problem with what is there, you will hear it plainly and once.
How long before we see anything?
Something lands every two weeks, and we mean something you can open and use rather than a progress update. The first useful thing is usually the map of what you have and what owns what, which tends to arrive in the first week and is often the moment the actual problem becomes obvious.
One conversation, then one piece of work with a fixed price on it.
No pitch, no deck, no three-week silence while somebody writes a proposal with stock photography in it.