Smylyx / FAQ
Questions,
answered straight.
The things people usually want to know before they get in touch. If yours is not here, just ask — a direct question gets a direct answer.
Who will actually do the work?
Anton Joha, the founder and principal consultant, leads every engagement personally and does the substantive work himself. Where a project genuinely needs an extra pair of hands — a specialist developer, for example — we tell you before it happens, and Anton stays accountable for the outcome throughout.
How do you charge?
Fixed fee wherever the work can responsibly be fixed, because that puts the risk of a bad estimate on us rather than on you. Some engagements — ongoing advisory, or work whose shape genuinely cannot be known up front — are billed against an agreed day rate with a capped monthly ceiling. Either way the number is agreed in writing before anything starts, and we do not invoice for anything that was not in the proposal.
Do you work with small companies, or only large ones?
Both, but the common factor is that a senior person is the right person to talk to. A twelve-person company choosing its first real system, and a two-hundred-person company untangling fifteen years of accumulated tooling, both benefit from the same thing: someone who has seen it before and will say what they actually think.
What size of project do you take on?
From a single day of advice through to multi-month build and delivery programmes. The three fixed-price engagements on this site are deliberately small — they are designed to be a low-risk way to find out whether working together makes sense. Larger pieces of work are scoped individually and quoted in a written proposal.
Can you work alongside our existing team or supplier?
Yes, and that is often the most useful arrangement. We regularly act as the client-side technical voice — specifying the work, reviewing what a supplier delivers, and making sure what you are paying for is what you are getting. We have no interest in displacing a supplier who is doing a good job.
Are you independent of the vendors you recommend?
Completely. We hold no reseller agreements, referral arrangements or commission relationships with any software vendor or supplier, and we never accept payment from a third party in connection with advice given to a client. If that ever changed, it would be disclosed in writing before any recommendation was made.
Who owns the intellectual property in what you build?
You do. On full payment, all intellectual property rights in the bespoke deliverables created for you transfer to you, together with the source code and documentation. We retain rights only in our own pre-existing tools and generic know-how, which are licensed to you for use within the deliverables.
How quickly can you start?
Because the studio is deliberately small, availability is genuinely limited and honest — we will tell you the real start date rather than an optimistic one. Short advisory pieces can usually begin within a week or two. Larger engagements are typically booked three to six weeks ahead.
Do you sign NDAs?
Yes, routinely, and we are happy to sign yours before the first conversation if the subject matter needs it. Everything discussed in an initial call is treated as confidential whether an NDA is in place or not.
Where are you based, and do you work remotely?
SMYLYX LTD is registered in England & Wales with its registered office in Norwich. Work is delivered remotely by default, which keeps costs down and calendars sane, with on-site days arranged where a workshop or a floor-walk genuinely needs to happen in person. We work with clients across the UK.
Still deciding?
A 30-minute conversation costs nothing and will tell you more than another hour of reading.