About
How we work
1
Listen
Every engagement opens with a written brief from the publishing partner and one long, uninterrupted conversation. We are trying to understand what the actual category looks like — not what a slide deck would make it sound like. The first session is unbilled.
2
Sketch
A short, deliberate prototype loop — usually a week. We decide what stays and what gets cut. Most things get cut. The prototype is the artefact a partner can react to before any commitment is made.
3
Ship
Submit, watch real usage, refine. The first release is the start of the work, not the end. We expect to be embarrassed by version one and reasonably proud of version four. Every release is on a written cadence the partner can plan around.
4
Hand over
Every project is built so a publishing partner could hand it off to another team in a year and recognise the codebase. Documentation is what makes the work survive past us — we end every engagement with a closing brief.
What we believe
Native, on purpose.
We ship native iOS and native Android because phones are not browsers. Cross-platform UI looks fine in a demo and worse in the field. Maintenance cost is lower because of this, not higher.
Defaults are the product.
Most users never open a settings screen. The first-run path is the only path that scales at large numbers. We spend more design time on defaults than on options.
Subtraction is a feature.
Each release we ask which thing to remove. The answer is rarely “nothing”. A narrow utility ages well; a broad one rots quietly under a settings menu. We pick scope on purpose.
The handover is the point.
Every project we ship is built so a publishing partner could hand it off to another team in a year and recognise the codebase. Documentation is what makes the work survive past us.
Common questions
// 01
What kinds of partners do you work with?
Publishing partners that have already shipped a category once, or are confident in one they want to occupy. They want a small, well-built thing rather than a big, half-built one. We are a poor fit for very large institutional partners with their own internal mobile benches.
// 02
What sort of apps do you ship?
Native iOS and Android utility apps in six fixed categories: cleaners, VPN, scanners, converters, privacy utilities, battery & device. We work in these and only these — taking on a category we have not shipped well in is, in our experience, how a small studio quietly ships poorly.
// 03
How long does an engagement run?
A discovery sprint of two to three weeks, followed by an execution phase of six to twelve weeks per release. Both phases are written into a brief signed before either of them starts.
// 04
How are fees structured?
Fixed engagement fee, written into the engagement letter alongside scope. We do not bill hourly, we do not bill per feature, and we do not unbundle the fee after the fact. The number is a known quantity from the day the work begins.
// 05
Do you sign NDAs?
Mutual NDAs as a default. We do not maintain a public client list, so the NDA is largely a paperwork formality, but we would rather formalise it than skip it.