Questions agencies ask
before scoping.

No. I don't run an agency, I don't take client work in your accounts, and I don't pitch the logos you bring me. I'm building a software platform in this space and I'll say so plainly on the first call — if that's a conflict for you, better we find out in minute three than month three.

That's the default. What I build ships under your brand, in your repos and vendor accounts. I don't need attribution and I'm happy to be invisible to your clients.

You do, outright, including the code. I reuse my own patterns and general know-how across engagements — nobody gets your client data, your ICPs, or your configuration.

I decline work that directly conflicts with an active client, and I'll tell you the shape of the conflict before taking anything on. Adjacent isn't the same as competing; I'll be honest about which one it is.

Ongoing engineering capacity, yes — that's the fractional retainer. Running your client delivery day to day, no. That's your business, and you shouldn't outsource it to one person you don't employ.

Usually not. Most agencies don't have a tooling gap, they have a plumbing gap: good vendors with nothing joining them, no approval step, and no reporting layer. I build what goes between them and kill only the tools that are genuinely redundant.

A decision-maker on the call, access to the repos and vendor accounts when we get there, and one person on your side who'll own the thing after handoff. Without that last one, any build decays.

Builds are fixed-price against a written scope. The retainer is monthly with no minimum. I quote after the intro call, because a two-client agency and a twenty-client agency need different machines and I'd rather not pretend otherwise.