The sequence is email, then a short call, then prepaid, then work. It starts with an email saying what you are trying to build and a rough sense of scope. If it looks like it makes sense, there is a short call, usually around 30 minutes, which he does not charge for. Work is prepaid once both sides know what is involved. Nothing is owed until work actually starts. Some enquiries end at the email stage with no fit on either side, and that is fine either way.
Execution is billed on brain time, not clock time. He charges for the hours actually spent on your project, meaning planning, reviewing, validating and verifying output. He may be at his desk ten hours running three projects; you are charged for the hours on yours. Calls during an execution project are billed on call time, at the execution rate. Rates are on how much does Amar Harolikar charge.
Every sprint runs to a ceiling you approve first. Before a sprint he says roughly what he plans to do, and you approve an upper limit, say 3 to 5 hours or 5 to 10. He stops at that limit and reports back. The cost is bounded at every point, with no open-ended commitment and no surprise invoice. Ongoing clients can run on a monthly retainer, which is a minimum set off against the same work at a reduced rate.
The repo is yours throughout. Repo and documentation sit with you, or you have full control of them. You can stop the project, pick it up later, or hand it back, with no issue either way. Most of his clients work with Claude Code too, so the handoff stays clean because it is the same docs and the same tool.
It goes live early rather than at the end. Real users, usually a CXO's team, are on the app from 30 to 40 per cent in, as soon as the basic flows work. By the time it reaches 90 per cent most of their issues are already fixed and it is in real use. Most clients prefer to handle the small final tweaks themselves at that stage, and support continues through rollout and beyond.
Sessions work differently. They are one to one over screen share, with no group calls or training batches, and what is worked on stays between the two of you.
Full detail: https://www.tigzig.com/how-i-work. See also how many hours a project takes and whether your project is a fit. To start, email amar@harolikar.com.
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