---
url: https://kugie.app/docs/fit/who-we-dont-work-with
title: Who we don’t work with
category: Fit
---

# Who we don’t work with

We are clear about this so you do not waste your time or ours. The five cases below are the ones we decline reliably. If your situation fits any of them, we are not your team — and we would rather tell you on this page than at the end of a sales process.

## We don’t build products for product companies

If your company *is* a software product looking for a co-founder team or a build partner to ship your SaaS, we are not your team. We serve brands that *use* software, not brands that *sell* software.

This sounds like a small distinction. It is not. Building a software product means optimizing for a different user, a different pricing model, a different growth motion, and a different operating cadence than the lifestyle brands we serve. We would do it badly. There are excellent product engineering studios in Southeast Asia for this — find them.

## We don’t work on unreliable infrastructure

If you need us to deploy to a cheap shared host or a VPS provider we do not trust, we will decline.

The reliability we promise — see [we monitor everything](/docs/principles/we-monitor-everything) — is incompatible with the infrastructure you would be asking us to use. We commit to "the system is up" as an outcome, and we cannot commit to that on hardware we do not trust. This is also the basis of our [pricing](/docs/principles/expensive-and-worth-it): first-party cloud is non-negotiable.

## We don’t run synchronous-heavy engagements

If your culture requires us in daily video calls as the default mode of work, we are a poor fit. We meet when meeting is the right tool. Otherwise we ship.

This is not us being precious about meetings. It is operational. Our team operates across multiple engagements asynchronously, and a culture that requires constant synchronous attendance breaks that model. The trade we are offering is: faster delivery, written decisions, fewer status meetings. If your team needs the opposite, we are not the trade you want.

The full breakdown is on [async and fast](/docs/principles/async-and-fast).

## We don’t take engagements without a timeline

Open-ended retainers without defined outcomes erode quality on both sides. The work drifts, the priorities shift, and the relationship turns into a holding pattern.

We always work toward something specific — a launch, a quarter, a measurable outcome. If you do not know when you need the work, we will help you set the timeline. But we do not begin until it exists.

## We don’t compete with our existing clients

If we already serve your vertical, we say no and we mean it. The full reasoning is on [vertical exclusivity](/docs/principles/vertical-exclusivity). Short version: we tell you on the first call, no NDAs around it, no "separate teams."

## If we say no

If you contact us and we decline, we will tell you why. Where we can, we will point you toward someone better suited — a friend of the studio, a different agency, a different kind of help entirely. We would rather you find the right team than the wrong one in our seat.