Values
Five things we care about enough to name.
No manifesto, no inspirational poster. Working principles that show up in what we actually do.
Fixed scope, fixed price, named hour cap
Every proposal we send has one number, one timeline, one hour cap. No open-ended engagements. No retainer disguised as a project. No "time and materials" billing that punishes the client for scope creep we didn't flag.
When scope changes (and it does, on most projects) we agree on the delta before the next build. You never get a surprise invoice. We never feel pressured to ship half-finished work to protect margin.
This isn't generosity. It's discipline. Constraints force sharper scoping conversations at the start, which produces better projects than loose engagements produce.
Weekly ground truth
Every project runs on a weekly cadence. A weekly call, a weekly build live on a staging URL, a weekly hours report. You know what we did with your money this week and what we'll do next.
If we're approaching the hour cap, we flag it in the Wednesday report. If the week produced less than we hoped, we say so. If something we tried didn't work, we name it and show the revised approach.
Ground truth isn't harder than theater. It's less comfortable. We prefer the less-comfortable option, because projects are shorter and end cleaner when everyone knows exactly where they stand.
Craft you can defend a year later
Every case study on this site is something we stand behind a year after launch. Not because the work is perfect (nothing is) but because the decisions were right for the context and the client is still using what we shipped.
Craft, in this sense, isn't about how pretty the work looks in a portfolio thumbnail. It's about whether the underlying choices (the information architecture, the interaction patterns, the tech stack, the typography system) hold up when the client starts editing, extending, and maintaining the work without us.
We'd rather ship a smaller thing with defensible craft than a bigger thing we quietly wouldn't want on the site in twelve months.
Direct, small, personal
Small team, big network. And the client always gets the small-team experience. Michael handles client strategy. Nick handles the build. Network collaborators are introduced by name and stay on the project through launch.
We don't have an account-management layer. We don't have a pitch team. We don't rotate senior staff out once the contract is signed. If you meet us on a call, you're meeting the people doing your project.
This scales worse than agency models. That's the trade-off. In exchange, clients get faster decisions, less translation loss, and no mystery about who's actually in the code and the design files.
Honest about fit, including when we're not the fit
A disproportionate share of agency revenue comes from projects nobody should have closed. The agency needed the revenue. The client didn't need the service. Both agreed anyway, and the work underperformed for reasons the agency never had incentive to name.
We turn down work (and recommend competitors or alternative approaches) when the fit is wrong. A configurator when the actual problem is better photography. A 3D explainer when the actual problem is the sales deck. A full brand refresh when the actual problem is a broken landing page.
Losing a project early is cheaper than a bad project that erodes a relationship. We'd rather be the studio you call back for the next thing than the one that made the last thing.
Self-selection
What these values imply about who hires us.
If you want this, we're aligned.
- checkA studio that tells you when the brief doesn't fit the solution
- checkA studio that ships in weeks, not quarters, on comparable scope
- checkA team where the people doing your work are the people on your calls
- checkA single fixed price with no intake theater
- checkCraft that holds up past launch week
If you want this, we're the wrong call.
- closeAn RFP intake with six rounds of narrowing
- closeA pitch team of people who won't touch the deliverable
- closeA proposal structure that bills by the hour with no ceiling
- closeA studio that tells you what you want to hear
Happy to recommend someone who's a better fit.