Product strategy, pricing, hiring engineers, and shipping in agencies.
Half of agency delays aren't technical — they're a client who can't make up their mind. Here's how we structure decisions so non-technical stakeholders actually commit, and the sprint keeps moving.
Free scoping is where agencies quietly lose money. Here's how to sell a paid discovery sprint that de-risks the build, wins the client's trust, and stops you quoting into a fog.
Client wants to pay you in stock instead of cash. Sometimes that's a gift. Usually it's a landmine. Here's how to structure equity deals so your agency actually gets paid — in cash, shares, or both.
Most agencies that try to build a product either starve the product or burn the agency. Here's a funding and staffing pattern that keeps both alive through V1.
Most agency retainers quietly die around month four. Here's how we structure ongoing contracts so clients feel the value every week and engineers don't burn out doing invisible work.
Scope creep rarely arrives as a formal change request. It sneaks in through Slack DMs, 'quick calls', and the phrase 'while you're in there'. Here's how we handle it without torching the relationship.
Small agencies keep losing bids for staff-level engineers to product companies with better equity and calmer roadmaps. Here's the hiring playbook that actually works when you can't win on comp.
Enterprise procurement will happily stall your agency for a quarter. A scoped, paid pilot flips the dynamic: you get paid to prove fit, and the buyer gets a shippable artifact before signing the big contract.
Fixed-price contracts don't kill agencies. Fixed-price contracts without escape hatches do. Here's how we structure milestone deals so a bad assumption on day 12 doesn't eat the margin on day 90.
Most agencies hide their day rates behind a discovery call. That's a mistake. A published reference rate card kills tire-kickers, anchors negotiations, and quietly raises your average deal size.
Free scoping is how agencies lose money before a project starts. Here's how to sell a paid discovery sprint, price it, and use it to de-risk the fixed bid that follows.
Every agency owner I know has been burned twice: once by hiring too slow and losing a project, once by hiring too fast and paying salaries into a quiet month. Here's how we think about the bench.
You staffed the project 70% junior to protect margin, utilization is at 85%, and somehow the project is losing money. Here's why the math lies, and how to build a staffing model that actually holds up.
Retainers look like predictable revenue until you audit the hours. Here's how agencies lose 20-40% margin on retainers without noticing, and the operating model that actually fixes it.
Scope creep doesn't kill fixed-price projects — silent scope creep does. Here's the ledger system we use to bill every change without turning every meeting into a fight.
Half your clients will pause, pivot, or vanish mid-build. A kill fee clause turns that from a P&L disaster into a manageable event. Here's how we structure ours.
Most agencies send their strongest engineer to sales calls and wonder why close rates stall. Here's what actually happens in that room, and how to fix it without hiring a full-time sales team.
Enterprise procurement cycles kill agency cash flow. A structured, paid two-week pilot lets you land bigger clients faster, prove technical fit, and dodge the RFP death march. Here's how we run them.
Every agency gets the pitch: 'We can't pay cash, but we'll give you equity.' Here's how to tell a real offer from a wish, and how to structure the deal if you say yes.
Fixed-price projects go sideways because the estimate happens before the thinking does. Here's the paid discovery sprint we run before quoting, and why clients pay for it.
You built something great for a client and now you want to sell it to ten more. Here's the licensing, IP, and rebuild math that decides whether the spin-out becomes a business or a lawsuit.
The first product engineer you hire during an agency-to-product transition will either build your company or quietly break it. Here's how we've seen that hire go right — and wrong.
Retainers feel like recurring revenue heaven until you look at the timesheets. Here's why most agency retainers quietly bleed margin, and the structural fixes that keep them profitable in year two and three.
A practical system for handling scope creep with non-technical clients — how we log, price, and communicate change requests without turning every meeting into a negotiation.
Fixed-price feels safe until the AI-generated scope doc meets reality. Here's how we decide between fixed bids, T&M, and hybrid models on real agency deals — and when each one bites back.
Clients ghost, pivot, or run out of money mid-project. Here's how we structure deposits, kill fees, and milestone gates so the agency doesn't eat the cost when a build stalls out.
Take-home tests lie. Whiteboards lie harder. Here's the paid trial process we use to hire senior engineers at an agency, including the exact scoring rubric and the failure modes we've hit.
Taking equity instead of cash for client work sounds glamorous. Most of the time it's a bad trade — but here's when it actually pays, and how to structure the paperwork so you don't get burned.
Free scoping is how agencies die slowly. Here's how we price a paid discovery sprint that de-risks the build, wins client trust, and closes deals faster than a 40-page free proposal ever could.
Most agencies try to become product companies by building a SaaS on the side. There's a better first step: turn your best repeatable engagement into a fixed-scope, fixed-price SKU. Here's how we've done it.
You can't outbid FAANG on salary, but you can out-hire them on autonomy, variety, and shipping speed. Here's how small agencies actually land senior engineers in 2026.
Every agency owner has felt it: a senior engineer rolls off a project on Friday, and the next one doesn't start for three weeks. Here's how we think about bench time without lying to ourselves or our team.
Scope drift kills agency margins faster than bad estimates. Here's how we handle change requests with non-technical clients without wrecking the relationship or the budget.
Fixed-price deals feel safe until the third change request lands. Here's how we spot the moment to renegotiate to T&M without torching the client relationship or the margin.
Most agencies treat a £8k pilot as a transaction. The ones that grow treat it as a sales motion with a deliberate hand-off into a long-term partnership. Here's the pipeline we use, step by step.
Most agency retainers die quietly around month four. Here's how we structure monthly engagements so clients renew without a sales conversation — and how we kill the ones that should die early.
Every founder eventually gets the pitch: 'We're cash-light but the upside is huge — would you take equity?' Here's the framework we use to decide, and the deal structures that actually pay out.
Free scoping is where agencies lose margin and clients lose patience. Here's how we restructured discovery into a paid, two-week sprint that de-risks the build and closes more deals.
Most agency-to-product transitions die because the product team never gets its own oxygen. Here's the operational playbook we use to spin a product unit out of a services business without breaking either one.
Some of the most dangerous revenue in an agency is the kind that still prints money. Here's how we decide when to kill a profitable service line before it kills our roadmap.
Whiteboard interviews keep failing us on senior hires. Here's the paid trial project we run instead — what it costs, what it measures, and the failure modes to watch.
Most agencies lose money not on the original scope but on the drip of 'small' changes. Here's the protocol we use to keep change requests from quietly killing a project.
Most agency pricing debates are religious wars. After enough botched estimates and uncomfortable invoice conversations, we settled on a three-way framework — and a rule for when to use each.
Free proposals burn senior time and reward tire-kickers. Here's how we restructured the top of our agency funnel around a paid two-week pilot, what we charge, and how it changed close rates and client quality.
Agencies lose deals on the second call — the technical one. Here's how we restructured discovery sales by pairing an account lead with a working engineer, and what changed in close rates and scope clarity.
Retainers feel like the holy grail — predictable revenue, happy clients, no constant selling. Then you check margins six months in and realise you're subsidising the relationship. Here's how it happens and how to fix it.
The contract is signed and the kickoff call is scheduled. Here's how we structure the first 90 days with a new client to avoid the scope, trust, and velocity problems that usually surface in month four.
Trading agency hours for startup equity sounds like the smart long game. Most of the time it isn't. Here's how we evaluate equity deals, the math we run, and the contract terms that actually protect the shop.
Every services shop eventually tries to build its own product on the side. Most of those attempts quietly die. Here's what actually breaks when you run an agency and a product under the same roof — and how to stop it.
Most agencies hit a wall around 15 engineers where senior ICs aren't enough. Here's how we'd hire, scope, and onboard your first true staff engineer without breaking the org.
Scope creep doesn't kill agency projects. The inability to talk about scope creep does. Here's the exact conversation we run when a non-technical client says 'just one small thing'.
Two-month discovery phases used to be our default. They were also where most projects quietly died. Here's the compressed scoping process we now run in five working days — and why it ships better contracts.
Fixed price kills agencies that estimate badly. T&M scares clients who've been burned. Here's the decision framework we use at 72Technologies before signing a contract — and the math behind it.
