A monthly retainer whose size depends on how much of the month is reserved for you and how fast you want to move. The band comes in writing when you ask.

How long do we commit for?

A quarter, then month by month on a month’s notice. No annual lock-ins.

If we stop, what is left?

Everything. The code, the repository, the environment and the written decisions, handed over without an argument. A studio that makes leaving expensive is selling captivity, and we would rather lose the retainer.

The monthly retainer

A product is developed, not ordered in pieces.

One monthly retainer instead of a series of separate commissions. The people on it already know your system and do not start from the beginning every time.

Separate commissions make you pay for the learning every time.

Each new commission starts with an estimate, a contract and a week in which somebody works out how the system fits together again. You pay for that week every time. The decisions taken six months ago are in nobody’s head, because the people were different.

A monthly retainer removes exactly that. No estimate for every small thing, no contract for every change, and no week of learning, because the people are still there.

The month

What a month looks like.

The method itself is set out on the consulting page. Here it turns in a circle rather than running in a line, because a product has no end.

We planHalf an hour: what matters now, what falls away. You set the order.

We buildTwo weeks of work, and at the end of each something you can put in front of a user.

We releaseWhen it is ready, not when the month ends. Releasing here is a habit.

We lookAt what happened to the numbers and to the users, and next month’s priorities come out of that.

Who

Who it is for, and who it is not.

A product meant to live for years. Something that earns money or saves work and will keep changing for as long as it exists.
A team with no developers of its own. Or with one, who should not be left alone with the whole system.
A founder who wants pace. A decision today, in the product this week or next.

It is not for a one-off project with a clear end: that is the first-version package. And it is not for a system that simply must not fall over: that is a support plan.

The questions

What people ask before they sign.

What does it cost? A monthly retainer whose size depends on how much of the month is reserved for you and how fast you want to move. The band comes in writing when you ask.
How long do we commit for? A quarter, then month by month on a month’s notice. No annual lock-ins.
If we stop, what is left? Everything. The code, the repository, the environment and the written decisions, handed over without an argument. A studio that makes leaving expensive is selling captivity, and we would rather lose the retainer.

The beginning

Tell us about the product.

Write to us

What the product is, who uses it, and what you want to be different in three months.