Sales is selecting future headaches
"Why we filter sales leads aggressively instead of chasing volume."
Why this exists
Every bad project we built started as a deal we should've rejected. We don't sell to hit arbitrary revenue targets. We sell to find partners who respect execution, pay on time, and let engineers build without interference.
Operational Flow
Filter early: Screen inbound requests on the first call to eliminate low budgets or high-friction clients.
Assess fit: Confirm the client understands our engineer-led communication model before proposing anything.
Establish terms: Define payment milestones and scope boundaries before drafting contracts.
Educate clients: Explain our delivery cadence so they know we don't build status decks or run useless syncs.
Review capacity: Check current engineering and design workloads before booking new start dates.
What good looks like
- Having three high-fit leads in the pipeline instead of fifty unqualified inquiries.
- A prospect reads our guidelines and agrees to work with developers directly.
- Closing a tight-scope deal and receiving the deposit within 48 hours.
What NOT to do
- Don't accept projects outside our technical stack just to keep people busy.
- Don't discount our rates to win a client who haggles on the first call.
- Don't hide project risks or timeline constraints to make a deal look better.
Most agencies treat sales like a funnel where any dollar is good. They sign whoever walks in and force engineers to meet impossible deadlines. We did that in our second year when we took on a legacy migration for a logistics company. It nearly broke our team and taught us that a bad client costs more in morale and quality than the invoice is worth.
We sell by showing our work, setting clear terms, and walking away when a prospect demands account managers to translate dev tasks. This handbook is our checklist for protecting our focus while keeping the business funded.