How working together actually goes.
Eight steps, in order, from a free first conversation to your systems being quietly looked after every month. No step commits you to the next one.
The sequence
first call through monthly care-
01
A conversation, before anything is bought
Thirty minutes to work out whether we're the right fit for your problem. How big your setup is, what's running and when it last got a security update, what any renewal or subscription quote looks like, and whether anything is locked in place by a software vendor or a regulation. Some of these calls end with "stay where you are" or a referral to someone better suited. That's a real outcome, not a sales tactic.
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02
Review, week one: what you actually have
With look-but-don't-touch access to your systems, we build the complete list: every server, every program, every version, who uses it, how much it matters, and when its security updates end — or ended. We also map what depends on what, which is usually where the first surprise shows up.
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03
Review, week two: what it costs, and whether you can move
A three-year cost comparison — staying as you are, paying the vendors' subscriptions, or moving to supported free software — built on your real quotes and your real hardware, not list prices. Then a plain verdict: what can move, what can't, what has to change first, and in what order. Delivered as a written report and walked through with whoever has to approve it.
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04
The design, on paper before anything is built
How many servers, how your data is protected, what happens when a machine fails or the power goes out, how backups work. Written down and reviewed with your team or IT person until they can explain it back — because they're the ones who'll live with it.
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05
A trial run, carrying real work
A pilot system is built exactly the way the real one will be, and some of your less critical work moves onto it for a few weeks. Then we break it on purpose — pull a machine out, cut a connection, restore from backup — to prove it behaves the way the design promised, before anything important depends on it.
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06
The move, in careful stages
Least critical systems first, grouped so things that talk to each other move together. Every stage has a tested way back, and nothing on the old system is deleted until its replacement is confirmed working and signed off. Your business keeps running the whole time.
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07
Handover, to your people
Step-by-step guides for the things that will actually come up — adding a server, swapping a failed disk, restoring a backup, reading a warning — plus all the documentation and build scripts, delivered to you. Then a working session where your team or IT person does those things themselves rather than watching us do them. You could run this without us. That's the point.
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08
Monthly care, which is where it stays
The monthly agreement starts once everything is stable, not before — taking on responsibility for a system nobody has examined is a way of inheriting someone else's problem at a fixed price. Onboarding connects your systems to our AI monitoring, which watches health, backups, and security bulletins around the clock and preps each month's updates in advance. From then on: updates applied in a scheduled window, capacity checked before it runs out, a real restore tested every month, and a monthly availability report.
How we work
promises and limits, statedalways
- The design is written down before it is built, and the build is documented and scripted — so anyone competent could take over.
- You get everything: the documents, the guides, the reasoning. No dependency on us is built into the result.
- Bad news arrives early and in writing. A schedule that slips is reported the week it slips.
- Anything that can't be moved is named as such, not quietly worked around.
- Look-but-don't-touch until agreed otherwise. Nothing in your business changes without a scheduled window.
never
- No 24/7 human answering. The monitoring watches around the clock; the engineer responds in business hours. Said on every page where it matters.
- No help desk or desktop support for your staff's computers.
- No fixing problems inside your business applications themselves.
- No reselling hardware or licenses, and no commission on anything you buy.
- No claimed partnerships or certifications that haven't actually been granted.
Who this suits
and who it does notThis works well for businesses of roughly ten to a few hundred people that run real systems on their own premises — manufacturing, logistics, professional services, clinics and practices — whether you have a small IT team that's stretched thin or no IT person at all. If your data has to stay in your building, for speed, for cost, or because a regulator says so, you're in the right place.
If your people are also itching to build tools — or already building them in spreadsheets and AI chats — the app platform runs on the same servers. If they're not, it won't be proposed.
It works badly for businesses that need someone on call overnight, that want one vendor for desktops and servers and phones, or that are shopping for the cheapest quote rather than the one with the risks written into it. Those are all reasonable things to want. They are not this practice.
Start with the assessment
Start with step one. Thirty minutes, no charge, and an honest answer about whether this is worth pursuing.