Is Your Developer Holding Your Startup Hostage?
Don't double down on a bad bet. Use these 9 questions to verify if your "Senior Developer" is actually building a rock-solid product or just waiting for the next invoice.
1. The "Black Box" Test
"Can I see the live staging environment by Friday?"
If they say "it's not ready yet" for more than 2 weeks, they are hiding a lack of progress or a buggy mess.
We show you a working demo every Friday. No exceptions.
2. The Multi-Tasking Invoice
"Can you break down exactly how much I'm paying for User Auth vs. the Dashboard?"
Vague estimates like "Phase 1: $10,000." You have no way to verify the value of what's being built.
Task-level pricing. You know where every dollar goes.
3. The "Yes Man" Syndrome
"What if we add [Complex Feature X] tomorrow?"
If they say "Yes, no problem" without asking about ROI or business impact, they are a "code monkey," not a partner.
Strategic pushback. We prioritize business outcomes over billable hours.
4. The Sunday Silence
"Send a non-urgent message on a Thursday afternoon."
If it takes 48 hours for a reply during the work week, abandonment anxiety usually follows.
Proactive daily updates via Slack/Telegram.
5. The "Rewrite" Catch-22
"Who owns the code if we stop today?"
If they host it on their personal servers or refuse to grant GitHub access immediately.
Full ownership and Zero Lock-in from Day 1.
6. The Documentation Vacuum
"Ask for a README file."
If another developer can't get the project running in 15 minutes, you are trapped in a "technical debt" prison.
Clean, documented code that belongs to you.
7. The Post-Launch Ghost
"What happens if a bug appears 2 weeks after the final payment?"
"I'll be busy on another project, but we can talk then."
30 days of post-launch support included.
8. AI Readiness (RAG)
"Can we deploy a local LLM on our own data tomorrow?"
"Yes, just feed everything to the bot." Without data structure analysis and security guards—you get hallucinations and leaked data.
Data-First audit. We organize your "library" before we plug in the "brain."
9. AI Node Security
"How are our internal documents protected during AI queries?"
Direct requests to public APIs without a proxy or tunnel. Your secrets can become part of the global training set.
Using [VLESS+Reality](/blog/05-corporate-vpn-security) for hidden AI gateways.
Feeling a Red Flag or Planning RAG?
Stop stalling and start verifying. We perform both standard Technical Audits and **AI Readiness Assessments**. Get a real deliverable before committing to a full implementation.
Current lead time: Discovery call availability within 48 hours.