Here’s how we work and the values that guide everything we do:

🤝 Collaboration

We’re part of a team. Unlike some agencies, we don’t place project managers as buffers; instead, you'll connect with every team member in your project. You’ll always have a primary point of contact for making life easier, but don’t be surprised if you’re exchanging ideas directly with developers. This way, everyone has a clear understanding of your vision, goals, and rationale—avoiding miscommunication or delays.

You’re also a vital part of this team. We consider you a co-creator, actively involving you in decisions that shape the project.

🅾️ Ownership

We take full responsibility for our work from start to finish. Beyond coding, we’re problem solvers who are genuinely invested in your success. What does this mean in our day-to-day work? Before we touch any code, we want to understand your goals and market context so we can make the right decisions together. You’ll find us asking questions, exploring options, and offering ideas based on data, experience, or user insights. But ultimately, you can rely on us to get things done right, every time.

And if you ever need us, we’re just a message away, ready to help. Plus, we offer a lifetime guarantee on major bug fixes.

🎓 Quality

Quality is our core. We take pride in delivering top-notch solutions and hold ourselves to high standards in every project. At Apex we support each team member’s growth with internal training, we encourage each other to stay curious, explore new technologies, and constantly improve. Our thorough hiring process ensures you’ll always be working with a skilled team dedicated to excellence from start to finish.

We’re committed to learning from our successes and failures, openly sharing our knowledge so we can deliver better results every day.

⏩ Pace

It’s important to note, that next to quality, speed matters a lot in product development. You may ask at this point, how do we balance these two? Frankly, we make decisions based on each situation: we know, that sometimes opting for a faster solution will end us up in a better position. The key, to eliminate risks is to use an iterative, feedback-driven process. You can expect regular demos every week or two, where we’ll review the latest increments and gather your input to keep us aligned and moving forward efficiently.

🪟 Transparency

Transparency keeps us aligned and builds trust. We believe in being upfront and clear about progress, changes, costs, billing—everything. Through our collaboration, you’ll have direct access to tools like Slack, Jira, and Notion, which help us stay not just organized, but transparent, and efficient. Trust and openness make great partnerships possible, and we’re here to keep things as straightforward as possible.

⬜ Simplicity

In the complex world of software, simplicity is gold. We prioritize clear, effective solutions without unnecessary complications. No long email threads, no reports or fancy miro boards unless they add value. Instead, we schedule focused check-ins to discuss and document what matters.

👥 Team

We bring you a complete team with the expertise to deliver end-to-end. Our team can handle every part of your product, so you won’t need outside help—except you. Your input is invaluable! With a smaller, well-aligned team, we can iterate quickly and stay responsive. We’re also open to working alongside other specialists, like design or marketing teams, when needed.

Our team knows the ups and downs of product development. We have experience in founding and building to pivoting, scaling, and failing products.

And lastly, we work with people you’ll enjoy spending time with. Because when you’re building something great together, it helps to like the folks by your side.

Managing projects

Every project is unique, but there are a few guiding principles we stick to for smooth project management.

Project kickoff - Setting the stage

This essential meeting sets the tone for our collaboration. This is where you’ll meet the team, go over the project scope, and establish how we’ll work together. Here’s what to expect:

• We dedicate time to getting to know each other. When you spend 2-4-8 hours a day together as a team, it’s essential to enjoy the people’s company around you.
• We talk about the project vision and detailed scope. By now, everyone knows what the project is about, but it’s invaluable for team members to hear your story firsthand. We hear out your vision, get to know the target market, user needs, business model, and solution details. Then we explore the project scope: What’s the MVP or first milestone? What technical details or constraints should we consider? Together, we map out a high-level user story map.
• We discuss how we collaborate. We’ll decide together on communication channels, meeting rhythms, task tracking, and responsibilities. While we have recommendations for each, it’s all about finding what works best for everyone.
• We agree on next steps. At the end of kickoff, we’ll have clear next steps and responsibilities so everyone’s set to move forward confidently. After the session, we’ll also send a written summary you can easily reference.
• We set up tools. If it hasn’t been already done, we’ll configure tools like Slack for messaging, Notion for documentation, Jira for project management, Miro for workshops, and Google Meet or Slack Huddles for meetings. Or else if we decide so.

Project monitoring - Staying on track

We keep a close eye on progress to ensure everything stays aligned with our goals. Since we’re focused on incremental, user-centered development, we may collaboratively decide to change direction based on new insights—and that’s a good thing! Our goal is to remain adaptable. You’ll have clear, real-time access to project status and updates through our project management tools, so you’ll always know where things stand.

• Delivery: Most of the time we work in 2-week sprints (unless the project calls for a different pace). This allows us to deliver tangible results regularly and keeps us on track. After each sprint, we review or demo the latest results together and plan for the next stage together.
• Project closure: Once the scope is delivered, we hand over all necessary documentation and access, setting you up to navigate forward confidently. By this point, if we’ve done our job well, you’re fully prepared to manage the product independently, and there shouldn’t be any surprises. However, it’s still nice to give things a proper closure. And for what is next, we’ll be always there to provide lifetime support for any major bugs that arise. If you’d like to keep the collaboration going, we’d be happy to set up a follow-up to discuss the next steps. And if you’re pleased with our work, we might ask for feedback on Clutch or a potential case study!
• Who manages all this? While we don’t have dedicated “project managers”, each team has someone responsible for keeping things organized. Depending on the project’s needs, this could be a facilitator, scrum master, product manager, tech lead, or another team member with project management responsibilities.

Dirty part

Estimates

As mentioned earlier, we base our collaboration on thorough estimation. But as we all know, software development is inherently complex and unpredictable, so rather than fixed budgets, we use estimations. Estimations are live documents, that we follow throughout the collaboration. This allows for adjustments if the scope, timeline, or budget needs to shift due to pivots or new insights.

You might be familiar with the scope-budget-time triangle🔺: if the budget is fixed, we’ll need to adjust either scope or time. We know, that the estimation approach requires mutual trust early on, which is why we invest considerable effort into accurate estimates. We’ll ask questions and host workshops, so we can provide a clear picture of the project based on current knowledge.

Our estimates not only cover feature development, but also potential challenges, and unseen risks. They’re a way to guide progress, foster discussions, and manage risks—all of which we’ll monitor and refine together throughout the project.

Sprints

We work in sprints, which is a flexible, iterative approach that helps us stay responsive to change and manage risks. Sprints break the project into manageable pieces, focusing on specific features or improvements in each cycle. This approach lets you see results quickly, providing regular opportunities for feedback and adjustments based on what we learn as we go. Typically, sprints last about two weeks, though this may vary depending on project needs. Here’s what a sprint usually looks like:

1. Planning: At the start of each sprint, we review priorities, define goals, and agree on specific tasks to tackle.
2. Check-Ins: During the sprint, the team is fully focused on these tasks. We hold daily check-ins for alignment and any necessary adjustments.
3. Demo: At the end of the sprint, we demo the completed work, giving you a chance to see progress, provide feedback, and discuss any improvements for the next cycle.
4. Retrospective: Finally, we reflect on the sprint, discussing what went well, what could improve, and any adjustments needed for the next sprint. This step is all about refining how we work together.

Pricing, Billing, Invoicing

Our rates are flat and reflect the caliber of our team. Each member, whether a developer, product manager, scrum master, or designer, brings top-notch skills and dedication, so we don’t vary our rates based on roles.

Ideally, developers work full-time on your project, as part-time availability can make progress more challenging for everyone. Roles like product managers, scrum masters, or designers may be allocated part-time, depending on project needs.

We work in sprints, and billing follows suit. After each demo, you’ll see the progress and decide if it meets your expectations. At the end of each sprint, we invoice for the hours our team has dedicated to your project. It’s straightforward, transparent, and keeps us all aligned.

Contract

We sign contracts upfront, using either our template or yours—whatever works best for you.