Rarely. Cloud Studios is a product studio, not an agency, most of its capacity goes to its own apps. It takes on a small number of partnerships a year, usually zero-to-one work where a founding team needs design and engineering from the same people.
The studio is not trying to fill a pipeline. Every partnership costs time that would otherwise go to its own products, so the bar is whether the work is something the studio would be glad to have built. That makes it a bad fit for a lot of projects, and worth saying so up front rather than three calls in.
| Good fit | Not a fit | |
|---|---|---|
| Stage | Zero to one - an idea, a prototype, or a first version that needs to be right | Maintaining or extending an existing large codebase |
| Scope | Design and engineering together, by the same people | Design-only handoff, or building someone else's finished spec |
| Decision-making | You can decide things without a committee | Approval chains that make iteration slower than building |
| Cloud Studios | A typical agency | A freelancer | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who does the work | The same people who scoped it | A rotating team behind an account manager | One person, usually one specialism |
| Design and engineering | Both, in one team, no handoff | Separate teams, formal handoffs | Usually one or the other |
| Pricing | Scoped per project | Retainer or day rate | Hourly or day rate |
| Availability | A few partnerships a year | Continuous | Continuous |
| Incentive | Ship something worth showing | Extend the engagement | Bill the hours |
The middle column is not a criticism of agencies. It is a description of what happens when a business model requires billable utilisation: the work gets split into roles, the roles get handed between people, and the person who decided how something should feel is not the person who builds it. That gap is where product quality goes. A two-person studio has no way to create that gap, which is most of the advantage.
Every engagement starts as a design problem. Before anything is built, there is a prototype that people can actually use, because a prototype settles arguments that a document only postpones. Engineering starts once the shape is right, and the same people carry it through.
Work ships in visible increments rather than arriving at the end. You see the real thing early, which is the only reliable way to find out whether it is right.
The studio applies the same standard here as to its own products: experience over features. If something adds capability but costs clarity, it gets cut, and that will be argued for rather than done quietly.
Email hello@cloudstudios.online with what you are building, where it currently stands, and roughly when you would want to start. Cloud Studios replies within two business days, and will say no quickly if it is not a fit, which is more useful to you than a slow maybe.
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Rarely. Cloud Studios is a product studio, not an agency, most of its capacity goes to its own apps. It takes on a small number of partnerships a year, usually zero-to-one work where a founding team needs design and engineering from the same people.
Zero-to-one product work: taking an idea to a shipped, usable first version. That means interface design, iOS and web engineering, and the product decisions in between. The studio does not take on maintenance of existing codebases, staff augmentation, or marketing-site builds.
Engagements are scoped and priced per project, not by the hour, after a conversation about what you are building. There is no rate card, because the studio takes on few enough projects that each one is priced on its own terms.
Email hello@cloudstudios.online with what you are building, where it currently stands, and when you would want to start. Cloud Studios replies within two business days and will say no quickly if it is not a fit.