I remember a colleague of mine, now a friend, coming up to my desk one day to ask me a question. Let’s call her Kate. It’s not her real name, but it’ll do.
She sat beside me and asked, “Mind if I run something by you?” She opened her laptop and started to show me the problem.
Kate had been copying and pasting bending moments for each floor from her analysis program into Excel so she could design the columns on her current project.
On a smaller building, copying the results might take an afternoon. On a taller building like this one, the work would normally be split between a few engineers, with each person taking a range of floors.
This time, two of the engineers were off sick, and Kate needed to design all the columns alone while managing three other projects. What she needed was a way to speed the entire process up without taking up so much of her time.
We immediately got to work. I searched for ways to automate the workflow while she explored what the analysis program could do. There was no API, but with the right settings, it could produce a file with a consistent format, which meant a custom script could read that file and transfer the data into Excel.
So, we tried it.
Sitting side by side, we tested a few program settings and versions of the script. Sometimes the file didn’t have enough information and Kate had to dig through the settings to get it right. Other times, the script failed because there was a bug. We spent about two or three hours going back and forth before we had something that worked.
But that effort paid off. By the end of the project, Kate had probably used the script ten to twenty times, even after meeting the first deadline. The project conditions kept changing and the columns needed to be redesigned, but she no longer had to copy the results over by hand.
The friction being the external person
Now that I run my own consultancy, it isn’t as easy for people to come to me with their problems anymore. I knew I would lose some of that seamlessness, but I didn’t know how hard it would be to recreate that experience.
The work itself doesn’t change. Someone comes to me with a problem, we explore it a little, then decide whether to build something. But that conversation is different when we work for different companies.
People can’t walk up to my desk anymore. They can’t sit with me through a problem. In fact, before I can even see the problem, I might need to sign an NDA. They might be worried that I am too expensive. Heck, they might even think AI can do it, so why talk to someone like me?
All of that makes sense. We no longer work for the same company. Their projects and client information need protecting, and both of us need to know what we are agreeing to. But this creates a lot of friction before we even get to the problem.
When Kate and I worked for the same company, it was easy not to worry about trust and money. As someone external, I needed a way to make the work feel safe for someone who had never worked with me before.
When I started CodedConstructs, I thought fixed pricing would do that. I would do so much for free because I wanted people to be clear on exactly what we were solving. I would have several meetings, do analysis work and even prototype some stuff, all to be sure before we ever agreed to work together.
It felt honest because everyone was clear on the work, and a fixed price meant the client wouldn’t get a larger bill if I took longer than expected.
It felt like the safest way to work, and it had worked well for my past clients.
Kate only had to sit beside me and open her laptop. A new client had to sign an NDA, send me their files, explain the workflow and then decide whether to spend thousands of dollars with me before we had solved one thing together. It was still too much friction. They faced a large upfront commitment, while I could spend a week on discovery work and still hear no.
It also killed any opportunity for smaller automations. The script I made with Kate would never have made sense between two companies. I could have built it in the time it took to hold the meetings and write the proposal, while the cost of all that admin could exceed the cost of the tool itself.
Those smaller jobs were also our chance to solve something real together before either of us committed to something larger.
Trying to bring some of it back
I had overcorrected. I knew working between companies needed more paperwork and clearer boundaries, so I made the whole engagement feel like a handover. The client describes the problem, I define the complete solution, they sign the contract, I build it and they pay for it.
That felt like how an official consultancy should work. But it created one large decision at the beginning, when we knew the least about the tool, the problem and each other.
The clarity still matters, though. Everyone still needs to understand the problem, the solution and whether the cost makes sense. But I had inflated all of that into an admin nightmare instead of just trying to solve the problem.
Sometimes a fixed price will still be the right choice. If the problem and outcome are understood, it gives everyone certainty about what will be delivered and what it will cost. But if an idea is still unclear or if someone is unsure about it, a smaller first commitment gives us room to learn and explore before we agree to the complete build. It also gives us a chance to find out whether the thing we think is valuable actually is.
So, I have started offering hourly work again.
Hourly pricing alone doesn’t make the work safer. A complex solution will take as long as it has to take. I still estimate the effort, agree on a limit and stop for a conversation if the direction changes. But starting with a few hours reduces the friction of committing to a large build when you don’t even know if it’s valuable or if you trust me yet.
It also creates room for scripts and rougher automations that a fixed build might not justify. Someone can bring me one awkward script or one part of a workflow. We can work through it using their real files, see whether it helps and learn how we work together before committing to something bigger and more polished.
A smaller place to start
Hourly work won’t suit every project. Some problems are clear enough for a fixed price from the beginning. When the problem or solution is still uncertain, starting with a few hours gives us a lower-friction way to work on something real before either of us commits serious time and money.
The point is to choose how we work based on the trust between us and how much we understand about the problem. Fixed pricing can make a well-understood build predictable. Hourly work can give a muddier idea room to develop, provided we agree on the limits and keep checking whether the work is still useful.
I can’t recreate Kate walking over to my desk and opening her laptop. But I can create a smaller place to start with a new client. We can open their files, work through one real problem and decide together whether we should keep going.
Thanks for reading
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Resources on Computational Design: https://www.codedshapes.com/p/scripository