StartupENGINEERING
All decision skills
Decision skill · FreeProduct Loop

How to vet a dev agency before you sign

How do you vet a dev agency for your MVP when you can't judge the code yourself?

Download the skill

Version 1.0 · Plain text · No email required · CC BY-SA 4.0

What this skill does

Hand this file to Claude or ChatGPT. The assistant interviews you, one question at a time, through this decision's determining questions — on your specifics. It then applies the decision rules to your answers and gives you the recommendation plainly, with the conditions under which it would change.

The decision it executes
How to vet a dev agency before you sign →

The checks that actually separate a good agency from a good sales team — reference calls that work, portfolio questions they can't rehearse, and the contract terms that protect you.

The guide is the canonical version: determining questions, paths with dated costs, what I'd do, and limits. It belongs to The Product Loop.

Escalation clause
An honest tool knows its edges.

This decision stops being self-serve — and needs a human with scars in the room — when:

  • The product is in a regulated domain (health, finance, or anything with a compliance regime) — this walkthrough checks general competence, not domain-specific competence, and that gap needs a specialist.
  • The contract size is large enough that legal review is mandatory — IP assignment, escrow, and termination clauses need a lawyer, not a checklist.
  • The engagement has already started and is showing failure signals (missed milestones, staff swaps, surprise invoices) — that is a rescue, not a vetting problem, and it needs hands-on human help quickly.
  • The founder already has a trusted technical person available — that person should run the technical vetting; this walkthrough is the substitute, not an addition.
When this skill revises
Optional. The download never depends on it.

Skill revisions and cost updates are announced in the newsletter.