From first call to shipped.
Hiring a developer you have never met is mostly an exercise in managing uncertainty. Here is exactly how an engagement runs, so there is less of it.
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01
A free consultation
Thirty minutes on a call. The goal is to understand the problem, not to sell you anything — there is no deck and no pitch, because at this stage neither of us knows yet whether there is a project here.
The most useful thing I can do on that call is sometimes to talk you out of it. If an off-the-shelf tool already does what you need, or the problem is a process problem that software will only make faster and more expensive, I will say so. That is a cheaper answer for you than finding out three months in, and it costs me nothing but half an hour.
What helps: bring the actual thing that is going wrong. A screenshot of the spreadsheet, the report nobody trusts, the two systems somebody retypes between. Specifics beat requirements documents.
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02
A written scope and estimate
Within a week you get a written summary: what we would build, in what order, and an hours estimate so you can budget against it. It is a document you can take away, sit on, show to a partner, or use to get a second quote. There is no charge for it and no obligation attached to it.
The ordering matters as much as the total. Work is sequenced so the piece that removes the most pain lands first, which means if you stop after phase one you have still bought something useful rather than a third of a system.
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03
Build and ship, in increments
Progress goes live as it is built, not all at once at the end. You see working software early and often, and you can steer on the basis of something you have used rather than something you were shown a mockup of.
This is also the honest way to bill hourly. You can see what the hours bought while they are being spent, and if priorities change partway through — they usually do — changing direction costs a conversation rather than a renegotiation.
Who you are actually hiring
Tech Efficient is one person. I take the call, write the estimate, build the thing, and answer the email when something breaks at an awkward hour. There is no account manager in between and no handoff to somebody more junior once the contract is signed.
That has an obvious limit, and it is worth being straight about it: one person is not the right choice for work that needs five developers in parallel. It is a very good choice for the kind of work most small businesses actually have — two systems that should talk to each other and don't, a process held together by somebody retyping, a report nobody trusts.
What it costs
Hourly, against the estimate from step two. Small businesses are usually surprised in both directions: integration work that sounded expensive is often a few days, and the "simple" report that has to reconcile three systems rarely is. The estimate is where that gets settled, before anybody has committed to anything.
Start with the free consultation
Tell me what you're trying to build. I'll reply the same day.