Software projects don't fail evenly. They fail at the moments when expensive assumptions are discovered to be wrong: the team is 6 weeks in and realises the API they're building against doesn't expose the data they need; the architecture that worked for the MVP isn't compatible with the scaling requirements they agreed to later; the third-party dependency they chose for speed has licensing terms that prevent the commercial use case.
Each of these failures is a technical decision that should have been made, or at least examined, during technical strategy. A 3-week strategy engagement that surfaces one of these issues pays for itself many times over.
01Architecture decision records
We document every major architecture call in a structured record: the context, the options we weighed, the trade-offs, and the decision. These are the choices that are expensive to reverse, single-tenant vs. multi-tenant data, REST vs. GraphQL, serverless vs. containerised. Future engineers see the reasoning, not just the outcome.
For every component where building is a real option, we model the honest total cost of ownership, not just the sticker price. Auth (Clerk or Auth0 vs. self-hosted), payments (Stripe vs. a direct processor), search, comms, AI. You get a clear recommendation with the reasoning, not a list of options to puzzle over yourself.
03Technical scope definition
We turn product requirements into a scope precise enough to quote a fixed price against. User stories with testable acceptance criteria, data models, API specs for the key endpoints, edge cases, and an explicit out-of-scope list. This document is the contract that removes scope creep as a cause of overruns.
We map every system the product has to connect to: third-party APIs, internal databases, legacy systems, payment and comms providers. This is where timelines slip, the API that needs a paid tier, the internal system with no API, the auth model that fights you. We surface those before development, not six weeks into it.
05Technology stack selection
We pick the stack for your product's actual requirements, not for what is fashionable or what the team already runs. Performance, latency, team capability, and operating model all factor in. A global product with a sub-100ms target needs a different answer than an internal tool, and we show our work on each call.
A development roadmap with sprint-level detail, not vague milestones. Phase 0 stands up infrastructure and CI/CD. Phase 1 ships the MVP. Later phases address what real usage reveals. Each phase carries an explicit scope, a duration range, and a cost range, so the fixed-price contract becomes an agreement about outcomes, not a negotiation about hours.
What you walk away with
Three documents, not a slide deck. Each one is an input to a fixed-cost build, and yours to keep whoever builds it.
- 01
A validated product scope
User stories, wireframes, and acceptance criteria that define exactly what gets built. Precise enough to quote a fixed price against.
- 02
A technical architecture document
Stack selection, system design, the integration map, and every key decision recorded with its rationale. The blueprint your build team works from.
- 03
A costed build plan
A phased roadmap with time and cost estimates at sprint-level granularity. The direct input to a fixed-cost development contract.
Engagement
What the engagement looks like
A focused single-product engagement runs 2 to 4 weeks. Complex multi-system products with heavy integration run 4 to 6.
- Week 1
01Kickoff and discovery
We map your requirements, constraints, and the decisions that need making. We review what already exists and where the real risk sits.
- Week 2
02Architecture and analysis
We make the architecture calls, run the build-vs-buy analysis, and map every integration. Each decision gets documented as we go, with its trade-offs.
- Weeks 3–4
03Scope and build plan
We define the technical scope and produce the phased, costed build plan. You walk away with something you can act on immediately, or take to any team.
Fit
Who runs a technical strategy engagement
01Founders without a technical background
You need to understand what a technical decision commits you to before you pick a development partner.
02CTOs weighing a re-architecture
You are evaluating a major rebuild or a new product line and want the big decisions pressure-tested first.
03Teams burned by scope creep
A past project drifted or went the wrong direction. You want the next one de-risked before a line of code is written.
04Anyone facing a build-vs-buy call
A core capability could be built or bought, and the decision is expensive to get wrong.
What it costs, and why it pays for itself
01
- Typical fee, scoped to complexity
- $8K–$20K
02
- Of the fee credited toward your build
- 100%
03
- Where the fee typically pays for itself
- 1st sprint
We are a development company, not a pure strategy consultancy. We design a system we are likely to build, so we design for buildability, not theoretical elegance. If you choose to build with another team, the discovery output is yours to take.
Make the expensive decisions before they're expensive.
Tell us what you're planning to build. We'll run the technical strategy engagement and give you the build plan.
