How we work

The rhythm

None of this is bureaucracy. It exists so that nobody is ever surprised. That is the only reason any of it exists.

Every morning

A short standup with your team and your lead. What's moving. What's stuck. What's next.

Every day, in writing

What did I do yesterday? What am I doing today? What's blocking me? Three lines. Two minutes. Saves hours.

Every Monday

Your week's plan, with real dates on it, where your team can see it.

Every week, with the client

A demo of something working. Not a status update — a demo. Progress you can see beats progress you're told about.

Every quarter

The whole company in one room. Numbers, wins, what's coming, and anything you want to ask.

Every December

The appraisal. Nothing in it should ever be a surprise — that's what the other 51 weeks are for.

We run on our own software

We used to run this company on tools other people built. Now we run it on PerformNicely, which we built. We hire through RecruitNicely, which we also built.

This is not a marketing decision. It's a discipline.

When you use your own product every day, you can't lie to yourself about it. Every rough edge is an edge you feel. Every slow screen is a screen you wait for. There is no gap between the people who build the thing and the people who live with it.

If it isn't good enough for us, it isn't good enough for them.

The people who hire us

Everyone in this industry talks about the user's experience. We think somebody else deserves the same care: the founder. The person who started it. Who carries the whole thing. Who usually has nobody to tell when they're frightened.

We call it Fx — Founder Experience. It comes down to four habits.

Outcome first

Tell them what moved, in numbers. Not what you were busy with.

Radical clarity

Make every trade-off simple enough that they can decide quickly. No jargon. Ever.

Bad news early

The moment you know, they know.

Build with them

They are not a client on the far side of a wall. They are on the team.

No surprises

The rule underneath all of it. It does not bend.

A client can forgive a delay. A bug. A wrong estimate. Even a bad week. What they cannot forgive — and should not — is finding out late.

• The moment you know, they know. Not after three days of quietly trying to fix it.
• Never let a demo be the first time they hear about a problem.
• Never promise a date you don't believe. An honest "three weeks" beats a hopeful "one week" every time.
• Never go quiet. To a founder, silence sounds exactly like something going wrong.

One client described us as part of their founding team, rather than a vendor. That wasn't a compliment we were given. It was one we earned — one honest conversation at a time.