what the call is

thirty minutes on a call. you describe the problem in your own words. we ask the questions we need to understand it. by the end we both know whether to keep talking.

if we are a fit, a free two-to-three page scoping note follows within a week — the problem in your words, a proposed approach, deliverables, two pricing options, and the timeline. you keep that document either way.

the questions we ask

the same handful, every time. what does success look like a quarter from now. what has already been tried. who else is involved in the decision. what is the constraint that is actually limiting you — money, time, headcount, or clarity.

we ask because the right scope depends on the answers. a six-week build for the wrong problem is a more expensive mistake than a missed quarter. the questions are how we earn the right to scope honestly.

honest about fit

the call is also where we tell you if a different shop is a better match. body-shop staffing, pure short-term tickets, ml model training — those sit outside our work, and we say so. we keep a network of people whose craft we know, and the call ends with a working introduction instead of a sales loop.

long-term reputation matters more to us than one-time revenue. the cheapest path to a referral is to be useful even when the answer is 'someone else'.