Tell us what the system has to do.
One message is enough to start. It is read by the senior engineers who would be on the work, and answered by whichever of them knows your problem best.
Sunningdale
Cape Town
What to put in the first message
None of this is required. It is just what saves us replying with a list of questions.
What the system does
Or what it needs to do. A paragraph is fine. We would rather read your description than a specification written for us.
Where it hurts
The deadline, the outage, the audit, the part nobody wants to touch. The pain is usually more diagnostic than the feature list.
What is already there
Languages, hosting, how it ships today, how many engineers you have. Old and awkward is normal and does not count against you.
What you cannot share yet
Say so and we will work around it. We sign NDAs, and plenty of our best work is under one.
Three steps, and none of them are a proposal deck
We reply within one business day
From a person who would be on the work, not from an inbox rule.
A call, about forty-five minutes
We ask what the system has to do and what it is doing instead. Budget comes later.
A written scope, or a straight no
If it is not our kind of work we will say so straight away rather than five emails later.
You do not have to decide before writing
Most first messages do not name an engagement model, and that is fine. It usually becomes obvious on the call.