How it works

The shape of a typical engagement.

Below is the working pattern. Real engagements vary, but the structure and the principles do not. We tell you everything upfront because it is the only way the engagement works for both sides.

The engagement, step by step

From first conversation to clean exit.

01

Readiness assessment: thirty minutes, no charge

We talk through your product, your buyers, the deals on the table, and the friction you have been hitting. By the end we both know whether the engagement makes sense. If it does not, we will say so and point you somewhere useful. If it does, we move to a scoped proposal.

02

Scoped proposal: a written engagement letter

Specific scope, named deliverables, retainer figure, day rate, setup fee, payment terms, notice period, and the graduation triggers we expect to see. No marketing language, no padding. If something is not in the letter, we are not committing to it.

03

Onboarding: the first sixty days

Product training, materials adaptation, UK positioning work, initial demos to a small selection of prospects, regulatory mapping, setup of any continuity arrangements. This is the busiest period of the engagement; the setup fee covers it.

04

Active landing: months three to six

POCs, deployments, third-party risk questionnaires, follow-up demos, compliance conversations with buyer-side architects. The work is variable in volume and we bill it transparently. The retainer covers availability and the included scope; the day rate covers everything above it.

05

Mature engagement: month seven and beyond

Lower baseline. Check-ins, new feature roll-outs, support for live customers, the occasional new POC. The retainer continues; day-rate work tapers; the cost to you naturally falls in line with the actual work profile.

06

Graduation: when you outgrow us

When your annual spend with us consistently passes the threshold of a full-time UK hire, or when your UK ARR justifies a permanent team, we plan the transition. Clean handover, documented relationships, continued availability for an agreed period. We become a referrer and a reference, not a vendor who refuses to leave.

Commercial structure

Three components. Predictable. No commission tail.

We do not work on commission. We do not take equity in lieu of payment. We do not bill you in a currency you cannot reconcile. The commercial structure reflects the actual work profile, which is busy at the start and lighter as the engagement matures.

Setup fee.
Paid in advance. Covers the intensive first sixty days of onboarding. A meaningful number that filters seriousness on both sides.
Monthly retainer.
Billed monthly in advance. Covers availability, a named contact, and an agreed allowance of demos, calls, and standing work.
Day-rate work.
Deployment, POCs, on-site visits, anything beyond the retainer allowance. Billed weekly against an agreed scope, paid promptly. No surprise invoices.

Pull-through services such as escrow arrangements, deployment infrastructure, and third-party tooling are priced separately as line items. Nothing is buried in the retainer.

Detail of a textured surface. Karola G / Pexels
A reasonable comparison

Calibrated against what you would otherwise hire.

The real comparison is not to "doing nothing." It is to the mid-level UK sales engineer or solutions architect you would otherwise hire to do this work. A typical fully-loaded cost for that hire in London is £85,000 to £115,000 per year, plus three to six months of ramp time before they are productive, plus the structural risk of an employment relationship that is hard to unwind if the fit is wrong.

A mid-level UK hire

£85k–£115k annually, fully loaded

Three to six months from signed contract to productive output. Recruitment fee of 15–25%. Single skill set. Employment risk and severance exposure if it does not work. Cannot reasonably be paused if your UK plans change. May or may not have regulated-industry credibility; you find out after the fact.

An engagement with us

Materially below that, productive from week two

Setup fee plus monthly retainer plus day-rate work calibrated to actual usage. Productive within days. Regulated-industry credentials demonstrable before signing. Bundled technical, compliance, deployment, and continuity capabilities. Reversible with notice. Cleanly closeable when you outgrow us.

When your annual spend with us reaches the level of that full-time hire and stays there, we are no longer the right answer for you. That is the graduation point, and we plan for it from the beginning.

What we will not do

Clear scope protects everyone.

We are explicit about what is out of scope. The engagement works because it stays inside its own boundaries.

We do not generate sales pipeline.
We are not a UK sales team and we will not pretend to be. Your sales motion is your own; we operate at the technical and operational layer.
We do not take commission.
Commission structures change incentives in ways that work against the founder. Our compensation is retainer and day rate, paid for work done.
We do not represent competing products.
Conflicts are checked at engagement and reviewed quarterly. Where a conflict arises during an engagement, the existing relationship has priority.
We do not accept ninety-day payment terms.
Standard is fourteen days; absolute maximum is thirty for vendors with established UK or EU presence. Foreign-domiciled vendors pay setup and deployment work in advance.
We do not work for free in exchange for "future opportunity."
Every piece of paid work is paid. Every introduction is one we are happy to make without expectation of return.
We do not stay past our usefulness.
Graduation is named in the engagement letter and planned for. When you outgrow us, we leave well.

A week of hard work that does not get paid is worse than not taking the engagement in the first place. So we structure both sides of the agreement to make that impossible.

The next step is a thirty-minute call.

We will tell you within that half hour whether we are the right answer. If we are not, we will tell you what is. There is no obligation on either side until a written engagement letter is signed.

Request the call →