Client work

Flagon builds software for clients. That surprises people who know us for building products in the open, so this page explains why, and spells out how the work runs, so anyone thinking of hiring us can read the terms before they ever send an email.

Why we do it

Client work is how Flagon pays its way while our own products brew. We don't take outside money, and we'd rather fund the company by doing work we're good at than by selling a future we haven't built yet.

It's also how we stay honest about what's worth building. Every client project is a close look at a real business with real problems, and the gaps we keep running into are the best list of product ideas we could ask for. Some of the best software companies started exactly this way: building for other people until a problem was clear enough to solve once, for everyone.

How we pick the work

We take on a few projects at a time, so we choose carefully. We say yes when:

• We can do the work well, and we'd put our name on the result.
• The client wants it built right, not just built cheap.
• The scope fits the time we have, without cutting the corners that matter.

We say no, with a reason, when we're the wrong fit, when the project would only work by overpromising, or when we'd be building something we don't believe should exist. A clear no early is a kindness to everyone.

How we price it

Rates are published and the same for everyone. Ongoing product work is a monthly subscription priced by how much you want moving at once, not by hours or headcount. Billing by the hour rewards being slow, and billing by the head turns a client into a staffing customer; we'd rather be paid for progress and carry the team, coordination, and project management ourselves. A workstream is one priority list: bring as many initiatives as you like, coupled or not, and we work them in the order you set. A second workstream is for when you want two things moving at the same time, not for having more ideas. Business websites are fixed-price, quoted before we start. Ongoing work is month to month, so nobody's locked in.

Whatever the offer, we write the plan down plainly before we start: what's in, what's out, how long it should take, and what we'd cut first if things get tight. A fixed-price website's quote comes from that scope; a subscription's price never changes with it. And no price ever depends on who's asking.

How the work runs

You talk to the person doing the work from the first email. You get working software every week, not a status report about software. When something changes, a date, a cost, a risk, you hear it from us first and in writing.

Who owns what

The code, designs, and content we make for you are yours once paid for, along with the keys to everything it runs on. We don't hold work hostage, and handing it off cleanly is part of the job, not an upsell.

We keep the right to reuse general-purpose tools and know-how that aren't specific to your business, and we may open source those pieces, which is how open source works here. We never publish your code, your data, or anything you've told us in confidence. We'd like to write about the work and show it on our site, and we always ask first.