Why we sometimes
tell you no.

You come to us with an idea, a budget in mind and the urge to get going. And sometimes, instead of saying yes to everything, we tell you that part of it isn’t worth your while. It looks like we’re shooting ourselves in the foot. We’re not. It’s probably the most profitable thing we do.

The supplier who says yes to everything is the problem, not the solution

You’ve seen it happen, or you know someone who has. Somebody commissions a digital project, the supplier nods along to every request without blinking, and months later there’s something expensive, tangled and half-finished that nobody can maintain. The invoice came out fine. The result didn’t.

The easy yes is comfortable on day one and costly ever after. When someone accepts everything you ask without questioning a thing, it’s usually not because they’ve got it all worked out. It’s because billing you for it pays better than telling you you’re wrong.

The easy yes is comfortable on day one and costly ever after.

What happens when we tell you no

Our "no" is never a flat "no". It’s usually one of these three things, and every one of them saves you money or time.

• "You don’t need this yet." You want twenty features; you need six to launch. The rest are assumptions you’ll test with real users. We build the six, you launch, and we decide the rest with data, not hunches.
• "What you’re asking for won’t fix it." Sometimes you ask for an app when what actually hurts is an internal process. We could build the app, bill you for it, and the problem would still be there. Better to look at it first.
• "This already exists and it’s cheaper." If an off-the-shelf tool already does what you need, we won’t build you a bespoke one just for the sake of it. You lose, and so do we.

It isn’t generosity, it’s how trust is built

Let’s be clear, we don’t do it out of kindness. We do it because it works better for both of us over the medium term. A client you sell things they don’t need comes back once and never again. A client you tell the truth to, even when you bill less that day, comes back, recommends you and trusts your next "yes" precisely because they’ve already heard you say "no".

"No" protects us too

There’s a selfish side to it, and we won’t hide that either. A bloated project, built grudgingly because the client kept pushing, ends up being a project that doesn’t go well. And what doesn’t go well carries your name and ours. We’d rather deliver less and have it work than deliver more and have to defend it afterwards.

So when we tell you no, we’re not closing the door on you. We’re telling you where we think your project is really won or lost, so you can decide for yourself with the facts on the table.

What you can expect from us

When you tell us what you want, we’ll tell you what we genuinely think. If part of it doesn’t suit you, we’ll say so before we build it, not after we’ve billed it. And if what you need isn’t us, we’ll tell you that too. Losing a project that was never meant to be ours isn’t losing anything.

That’s the difference between a supplier and a partner. A supplier sells to you. A partner, sometimes, holds you back.

Undercoverlab

Technology without drama. From Andorra.