5 Questions to Ask Before You Hire Any Dev Agency (We'll Answer Them About Ourselves)

So here are five questions worth asking any agency you're considering — not just us. We'll answer them about ourselves first, honestly, including the parts that don't sound like marketing copy.

1. How big is your team, really?

This is the question people ask on almost every discovery call, usually early, usually a little carefully — because "how big is your team" is really shorthand for "can you actually deliver, or is this one person with a nice website."

Our answer: Nine people. Not a hundred, not a shell with a network of freelancers we assemble per project. A dedicated team of developers, designers, and operations people who've worked together across 26+ projects since 2020. We're not the biggest agency you'll find. We're sized to actually know what's happening on every project we take on, which is a trade-off we've made on purpose.

If an agency dodges this question or answers with something vague like "we have a global network of talent," that's worth noting. It usually means the team assembling your project didn't exist until your project needed it.

2. What happens if it doesn't work out?

Every agency will tell you about their best projects. Almost none will tell you what happens when a project goes sideways — because it does happen, in this industry and every other one.

Our answer: We've fired a client before. Not often, and not lightly, but it's happened when the relationship stopped being workable — scope that kept moving without honest conversation, communication that broke down past the point of repair. We'd rather end a mismatched engagement cleanly than drag both sides through a project neither of us can do well. On the flip side, if we're the ones who fall short, our contracts are built around milestones specifically so you're never locked into paying for work you haven't seen — you can walk away with what you've paid for, not empty-handed.

An agency that's never had a project go wrong either hasn't done enough of them, or isn't telling you the full story.

3. Who actually owns the code when this is done?

This is the question we think gets asked far too rarely, and it's the one with the most expensive consequences if you skip it. Some agencies build on proprietary platforms you can't take elsewhere. Some hold repositories hostage if a relationship ends badly. Some contracts are vague enough on IP that it becomes a legal question nobody wants to have.

Our answer: You own it. Full stop. Source code, design files, credentials — all of it, spelled out in the contract before work starts, handed over completely at handoff. If you left us tomorrow and hired someone else, you'd have everything they'd need to pick it up without starting over. We think this should be the default everywhere. It isn't, which is exactly why it's worth asking directly instead of assuming.

4. What won't you build?

This one throws people off, because most sales conversations are built around saying yes. But an agency that says yes to everything is either overcommitting or padding scope with work you don't need.

Our answer: We'll turn down a project if it's not a fit — wrong stage, wrong budget for what's being asked, or an idea that needs a conversation before it needs code. We'd rather tell someone their $2,000 budget doesn't match a full marketplace platform build, and mean it, than take the deposit and quietly scale expectations down mid-project. It costs us short-term revenue sometimes. It's also the only way "96% of our clients come back" stays true instead of becoming a number we'd have to explain away.

5. Can you actually show me the receipts?

Not testimonials — those are easy to curate. Actual proof: real projects, real outcomes, people willing to talk about what it was like to work with you, including the rough patches.

Our answer: Yes — and we'd rather you talk to a past client directly than take our word for anything in this article. Ask us for a reference on a call and we'll connect you. If an agency hesitates when you ask to speak to a past client, that hesitation is itself an answer.

The actual point of this list

None of these questions are about finding the cheapest option or the fastest turnaround. They're about finding out whether an agency will still feel honest six months into a working relationship, not just during the pitch. Ask any agency you're evaluating these five questions — including us. If the answers are vague, evasive, or change depending on who you ask, that tells you more than any portfolio page will.

Want to ask us these in person instead of reading about them? Book a free 30-minute strategy call — bring harder questions than these five if you've got them.

Photo by Hadija