Gate 01
Discovery
- NDA in place before disclosure
- Requirements documented
- Scope agreement in writing
/ Approach
You pay for results. Not time. Not promises.
Engagements run through four gates. Each gate has a defined deliverable, and payment is linked to that deliverable rather than to elapsed hours. Scope is agreed in writing before any feature code is written.
Gate 02
Architecture
- System and AI architecture
- Data flow and stack confirmed
- Privacy and compliance review
Gate 03
Build
- Working prototype
- Core features complete
- Demonstrable against scope
Gate 04
UAT & handover
- Acceptance testing and fixes
- Documentation and deployment
- Full transfer of intellectual property
/ Why gates
The compliance gate comes before the code.
Gate 02 is where data flows, retention rules, and evaluation criteria are agreed in writing. Legal and compliance reviewers assess an architecture rather than a finished product — which is the only point at which their feedback is still inexpensive to act on.
Scope before build
What is in and what is deferred is written down at Gate 01. Deferred items are named explicitly rather than left ambiguous.
Architecture before features
Data flow, model routing, and privacy controls are settled at Gate 02, before the first feature is implemented against them.
Handover means handover
Documentation, deployment, and full IP transfer close the engagement. You are not dependent on us to keep running what we built.
/ Engagement
How a conversation starts.
/0.1
Share the problem
Describe what you are trying to deliver and the constraints you operate under. We map it to a candidate architecture before quoting anything.
/0.2
Discovery sprint
Scope, privacy requirements, and whether AI is genuinely the right instrument for the problem — including when the answer is that it is not.
/0.3
Architecture proposal
A written architecture, reviewed with our technical lead, in enough detail for your own engineers to interrogate it.
/0.4
Milestone agreement
Gates, deliverables, and payment schedule agreed in writing. You pay for delivered work.
/ Questions
The things buyers actually ask.
/01
How do you price an engagement?
Against deliverables, not hours. Each gate has a defined output, and payment is released when that output is accepted. Scope is agreed in writing at Gate 01, before any feature code is written, so what you are paying for is settled before the build starts.
/02
Who owns what you build?
You do. Full transfer of intellectual property closes the engagement at Gate 04, together with documentation and deployment. We do not retain a licence, and there is no proprietary runtime you have to keep paying for.
/03
What happens after handover?
The system is yours to run, and it is documented so that your own team or another vendor can pick it up. If you would rather we continued to operate or extend it, we offer support and managed services as a separate arrangement — not as a condition of the build.
/04
You are a small team. Can you carry our scale?
We are small and senior by design. The people who scope an engagement are the people who deliver it, so nothing is lost in a handover to an unfamiliar team, and there is no layer of junior resourcing between you and the code. Where a programme needs more capacity than we can responsibly staff, we say so at Gate 01 rather than at Gate 03.
/05
Can our legal and compliance team review before you build?
That is what Gate 02 is for. Data flows, retention rules, and access controls are agreed in writing before implementation, so your reviewers assess an architecture rather than a finished product — the only point at which their feedback is still inexpensive to act on.
/06
Do you sign an NDA before we talk in detail?
Yes. An NDA is in place at Gate 01, before any detailed disclosure in either direction. We extend the same discretion to our own clients, which is why this site describes engagements by type rather than by name.