How we work
A development process built around not wasting your money
Five stages, the same whether the project is four figures or six. You always know what is happening, what it has cost so far and what happens next — and you can open the thing we are building at any point.
Discovery
Before anything is priced, we work out what the software actually has to do.
We start with a call — usually under an hour — where you describe the problem in your own words. No specification required. Then we look at how the work runs today: the spreadsheets, the emails, the whiteboard, the thing one person does on a Friday that nobody else knows how to do.
We speak to the people who will use the software, not just the person paying for it. That distinction is why bespoke builds fail: the person who signs off is rarely the person doing the data entry at 4pm.
Discovery ends with a written summary of the process as it stands, the bottleneck we are targeting, and what success looks like in numbers — hours saved, errors avoided, orders taken.
What we need from you
- An hour on a call and access to one or two people who do the work
- Any existing spreadsheets, exports or screenshots you can share
Scope and fixed quote
You get a written scope and a fixed price before a line of code is written.
We turn discovery into a phased scope: what is in phase one, what is deliberately left for later, and what we recommend you never build at all. Anything we think is a waste of your money, we say so here.
The price is fixed against that scope. If you change your mind mid-build — and most people do — we tell you what the change costs before we do it, and you decide. Nothing appears on an invoice that you have not already agreed.
For larger platforms we phase the work so that the first phase is small enough to prove the idea before you commit to the rest.
What we need from you
- A read-through and any corrections
- A decision on phasing and a signed scope
Design
Screens before code, because changing your mind at this stage is free.
We design the real screens — the actual list views, forms, dashboards and mobile layouts — and put them in front of you as something you can click through. Not a mood board.
Everything is designed mobile-first. Most internal software is used on a phone at least some of the time, and most customer traffic is mobile, so a desktop-only design is a design that is wrong for the majority of its use.
Where the project includes a public site, this is also where SEO structure gets decided: page hierarchy, URL patterns, heading structure and what each page is actually meant to rank for.
What we need from you
- Feedback on the clickable designs
- Logos, brand colours and copy where you have them
Build and review
Two-week slices against a live link you can open whenever you like.
Every project gets a staging environment from day one. You have a URL, you can log in, and you can watch the thing take shape. There is no six-month silence followed by a big reveal.
At the end of each two-week slice we show you what has been built and what is next. If something is not right, it is caught in week four rather than week twenty.
Testing runs alongside — real devices, real browsers, real slow connections. Accessibility and performance are part of the build, not a phase we run out of budget for.
What we need from you
- A short review every two weeks
- Real data or content when you have it
Launch and support
We deploy it, monitor it, train your team and stay on to keep improving it.
Launch is a checklist, not an event: production deploy, SSL, backups, monitoring, analytics, redirects from any old site, and a search-engine submission where relevant. We watch it for the first few days.
Your team gets training — a live walkthrough and a written guide with screenshots — so nobody is guessing at the new system on their first Monday with it.
Then we stay. Most clients keep a small monthly retainer for hosting, monitoring, fixes and the steady stream of small improvements that only become obvious once real people are using the thing.
What we need from you
- An hour for training
- DNS access if we are pointing a domain at it
Principles
Four things we will not compromise on
Working software beats documentation
You will see something running early. A working slice tells you more in five minutes than a fifty-page specification tells you in a week.
The smallest thing that solves it
We build the version that fixes the actual bottleneck, put it in real use, and let real usage decide what gets built next. It is cheaper and it is more likely to be right.
No surprises on the invoice
Fixed quotes, agreed changes, and a conversation before anything unexpected costs money.
Built to be handed over
Readable code, real documentation and a repository you own — because you should never be trapped with a supplier by the shape of your own codebase.
Questions
About working with us
The practical questions people ask before signing anything.
How involved do I need to be?
Less than most people expect. Budget an hour or two for discovery, a review of the designs, and a half-hour catch-up every two weeks during the build. The projects that go best are the ones where one person on your side can make decisions without convening a committee.
What if I want to change something mid-build?
Tell us. We will price the change and tell you whether it affects the timeline before we start it. Small changes are usually absorbed; larger ones get quoted. Nothing gets built — or billed — without you agreeing to it first.
What happens if the project goes over budget?
On a fixed-scope project, work inside the agreed scope is our risk, not yours. If we underestimated, that is on us. The only things that move the price are changes you have asked for and approved in writing.
Do you sign NDAs?
Yes, routinely, and we will sign yours rather than insisting on ours. We can send one over before the first call if you would rather talk freely.
How do payments work?
Typically a deposit to start, staged payments at agreed milestones, and a final payment on launch. Intellectual property transfers on final settlement. For retainers, a monthly standing order or direct debit.
What if we get to discovery and you think we should not build it?
We tell you, and we do not charge you for the conclusion. It has happened more than once — sometimes an existing product does 95% of the job for £50 a month, and the honest answer is to go and buy it.
Stage one is a conversation
No commitment and nothing to prepare. Tell us what is not working and we will tell you what we think it takes to fix it.