About
A small team that does the work it quotes for
So we built the opposite: no sales layer, no account managers, and no bench of juniors learning on your budget. You talk to the engineer doing the work, you see the code as it is written, and the price on the scope document is the price on the invoice.
Our story
Why we are cheaper without being worse
Trellis started because hiring good technical help should not cost a seed round. We had all worked at agencies where a project was sold by one person, designed by a second, built by a third, and deployed by whoever was free that week. Clients paid for all four and usually met only the first.
We are deliberately small and deliberately remote. That is what lets us charge startup rates without cutting corners - and it is why we turn work down when a project is not a good fit.
- Founded
- 2021
- Team size
- Small, on purpose
- Clients served
- 60+
- Projects shipped
- 140+
- 5-10 days
- Median time to first deploy
- 100%
- Code and cloud ownership
- 1 day
- Support response time
For a marketing site with content ready to go.
Your repo, your AWS account, your domain. Always.
On every plan, including the cheapest one.
How we work
Four rules we do not bend
Quote the small number
If a $900 landing page solves your problem, we will not sell you a $9,000 platform. Recommending less work is the whole point of a cheap technical partner.
Write it down
Decisions, architecture, runbooks, and why we did not do it the other way. You should never depend on us remembering something.
No lock-in, ever
Your repository, your cloud account, your domain, your data. Leaving should be an administrative task, not a negotiation.
Boring where it counts
Postgres, containers, and a managed database. We reach for interesting technology when it buys you something real, not to pad a portfolio.
Who we help
If any of these sound like you, we will get along
Non-technical founders
You have a clear idea and no engineer. We build it, explain every decision in plain language, and leave you able to talk about your own product.
Technical founders with too much to do
You can build it, but not in the time you have. We take the work you keep deferring - infrastructure, integrations, that migration - so you stay on the critical path.
Teams between hires
Your senior engineer left, or you are three months from a hire. We keep delivery moving and help you interview the people who come next.
Students and side projects
You are building something real on a student budget. We will help you scope it down to something shippable and price it to what you can afford.
The process
From first call to handover
This is the same process whether you are buying a $900 landing page or a $50,000 platform build.
- 30 minutes
Free intro call
You describe the problem. We ask the questions a good engineer would ask. No slide deck, no pitch, no obligation to continue.
- We tell you honestly whether you need us
- We flag anything you could solve cheaper
- You leave with a rough shape and a rough number
- 2-4 days
Written scope and fixed price
You get a short document: what we will build, what it costs, how long it takes, and what is explicitly not included. No hourly surprises.
- Fixed price for fixed scope
- Clear list of assumptions and dependencies
- A start date you can plan around
- Ongoing
Build in the open
Work happens in a repo you can watch from day one. You get a staging link that updates with every change, so there is never a big reveal at the end.
- Shared board with current status
- Staging URL from the first week
- Weekly demo or written update, your choice
- 1-2 days
Ship and hand over
We deploy to your cloud account, set up monitoring and backups, and write down how everything works. Then we walk you through it.
- Infrastructure as code, not manual clicking
- Runbook for the things that break
- Credentials and access in your name
- Monthly or hourly
Support and iterate
Stay on a retainer for continuous delivery, or drop to hourly and call us when you need us. Either is fine, and you can switch at any time.
- One day response time on every plan
- No lock-in and no notice period after the first month
- We hand over cleanly if you hire in-house
Tell us what you are building.
A free 30-minute call, no slide deck and no obligation. If we are not the right fit, we will tell you who is.
or email startups@theaimax.com