Frequently Asked Questions
Diligence, modernisation, MVP development, and the technical decisions behind them.
Working with Concept to Cloud
What types of companies do you work with?
We work with three audiences: private-equity firms and their portfolio companies (technical read on a target, post-close modernisation, fractional CTO cover), enterprise teams modernising legacy or high-risk systems, and founder-led teams building MVPs on funding runway. Common thread: the buyer needs a decisive technical result on a fixed timeline, and the work has to survive scrutiny after we hand over.
Do you only work with technical founders?
No. About half our founder engagements are with non-technical operators. Our team of ex-NASA JPL and Princeton engineers is used to translating a commercial ask into an architecture. For non-technical founders we invest more time upfront on the market, users, and constraints so the technical choices actually serve the business, and we teach the CEO enough to read a diligence report from the buyer side later.
Read the concept-to-production process →What is your typical engagement model?
We work in named, fixed-outcome engagements rather than open-ended time-and-materials. The Technical Read is a 10-day pre-deal or post-close diligence. MVPs are typically 8, 12 weeks. Modernisation projects run 12, 20 weeks depending on scope. Fractional engineering leadership is a monthly retainer, usually 3, 6 months. Each engagement has a clear scope, price band, and deliverable set agreed before we start.
See engagement packages and prices →Should I hire a technical team, use an agency, or work with a consultancy like C2C?
Each approach fits different situations. Hiring in-house takes 3, 6 months to recruit plus the equity, benefits, and management overhead, which is time pre-revenue startups often do not have. General development agencies deliver features quickly but frequently miss operational and cost-to-serve considerations that only surface after launch. Specialist advisory-and-build firms like C2C build production-ready systems and train your team to maintain them, which is the right fit when you need the outcome now and the capability later.
Read the build vs outsource framework →How does C2C approach cloud-first development?
We deconstruct applications into components and map each to a managed cloud service where one exists: managed Postgres or DynamoDB instead of self-hosted databases, Cognito or Auth0 instead of custom auth, managed queues instead of your own Kafka cluster. That lets small teams (under 10 engineers) run scalable systems without a dedicated ops group, and it means the cost curve is proportional to usage rather than baseline headcount.
Read the cloud-first philosophy →What makes your team different?
Our engineers have shipped systems for NASA JPL (Mars rover data pipelines), DARPA-funded research, and a global financial-crime and compliance advisory (sanctions screening at bank scale). That mix matters because the work rewards two things at once: research-grade problem framing and production-grade delivery discipline. It is why our modernisation work holds up in audit and our MVPs survive their first paying customers.
More about the team →What happens after you build the system?
We design systems your team can maintain and we transfer knowledge throughout the engagement: architecture walkthroughs, runbooks, decision records, and a handover checklist. If you want ongoing cover we offer a fractional engineering leadership retainer; if you want us gone, we go. The goal is that on day one after handover, an internal engineer can find, understand, and change any component of the system.
Fractional engineering leadership →For Private Equity and Portfolio Companies
What does a Technical Read cover?
The Technical Read is a 10-day pre-deal or post-close diligence on a target or portfolio company. We assess architecture, code quality, cloud spend and unit economics, security posture, team capability, and dependency risk (single-vendor lock-in, key-person exposure, unmaintained libraries). Deliverable is a red/amber/green report a partner can put in front of an IC, with the specific findings that change deal price or 100-day plan. The pre-acquisition tech diligence checklist walks through the same seven-section audit as a free interactive tool you can run yourself in the browser.
Download the pre-acquisition tech diligence checklist →Do you work pre-deal or post-close?
Both. Pre-deal we sit alongside your commercial and financial diligence and answer the question "does the tech justify the price". Post-close we run the same diligence for the incoming CTO or operating partner so the 100-day plan starts from evidence rather than the seller pitch deck. Same team, same methodology, different audience.
Private-equity engagement models →What does a Technical Read cost?
The Technical Read is priced at $15,000, $25,000 depending on the size and complexity of the target, agreed upfront, and credited in full against the build if we go on to do the remediation. Modernisation projects typically run $120,000, $500,000. Fractional engineering leadership is $12,000, $25,000 per month. All engagement prices are fixed to scope, not billed hourly.
See engagement packages and prices →Can you cover portfolio company CTO gaps?
Yes. When a portco CTO leaves, is on parental leave, or the company is between hires, we cover the role on a fractional basis: technical roadmap ownership, hiring input, board reporting, and a handover to a permanent replacement. Typical engagement is 3, 6 months.
Fractional engineering leadership →For RegTech and Compliance Teams
Do you build for regulated environments?
Yes. We have built and modernised sanctions-screening, KYC, and financial-crime systems for a global compliance advisory, and the work sat between advisory (Deloitte, PwC) and off-the-shelf vendor products (Actimize, ComplyAdvantage). The build discipline covers audit trails, deterministic reruns, model-explainability where relevant, and the documentation regulators actually ask for.
RegTech and Compliance industry page →Build versus buy for compliance software?
For commodity capabilities (sanctions list ingestion, watchlist screening, basic KYC), buy. For anything that touches your firm’s specific risk methodology or workflow (bespoke risk scoring, custom review queues, adjudication tooling, cross-jurisdiction reporting), building it usually returns better economics and better audit outcomes than bending a vendor product to fit. We help clients draw that line explicitly during diligence.
Sanctions compliance case study →How do you handle sensitive data during engagements?
Data stays in your environment. For diligence and modernisation we work in your VPC or secure enclave, never move production data off-site, and honour your access-review process. For engagements requiring formal controls (SOC 2, ISO 27001, DORA) we align to your existing framework and produce the evidence your auditor will ask for.
Timelines and Process
How long does it take to build an MVP?
A simple web application with an existing spec can deploy in 3, 4 weeks. A production-ready MVP with auth, payments, and an admin surface typically runs 8, 12 weeks. A complex data platform (multi-source ingest, ML pipeline, admin tooling) is 16, 24 weeks including architecture, build, and production deployment. Timelines are fixed at kickoff and any change requires a written re-scope.
Read the timeline framework →What drives timeline overruns?
Three things: scope changes mid-project (each one costs 2, 3× more than getting the same feature in at the start), waiting on customer inputs (data samples, third-party API keys, SSO configuration), and compliance requirements that were not scoped upfront (SOC 2, HIPAA, DORA typically add 3, 6 weeks each). We flag these on day one and track them weekly.
Timeline drivers and accelerators →Can you go faster?
Yes, when the constraints are right. The fastest builds have three properties: clear written requirements at kickoff, ruthless prioritisation (we routinely help founders cut 40, 50 percent of scope to reach a paying customer sooner), and heavy use of managed services instead of custom implementations. The slowest builds have committee-driven scope and reinvent things AWS or Stripe already sell.
What migration strategy do you recommend for existing applications?
We recommend a phased "migrate then modernise" approach for most estates. Critical customer-facing systems get rearchitected to cloud-native for scale and cost. Internal tools get rehosted (lift-and-shift) for speed. Legacy systems that are cheap to run and slow to change often stay where they are until a real business trigger justifies moving them. We assess business criticality, technical complexity, and timeline upfront so the strategy is deliberate.
Legacy modernisation service →Pricing and Investment
How do you price engagements?
Fixed price per named engagement, agreed before we start. Technical Read is $15,000, $25,000, credited in full against the build if we do the remediation. MVPs are typically $60,000, $180,000 depending on complexity. Modernisation projects are $120,000, $500,000. Fractional engineering leadership is $12,000, $25,000 per month. We do not bill hourly for defined-scope work: you get a price and a deliverable date, not a running meter.
Engagement packages and prices →Is cloud hosting really cheaper than self-hosting?
Sticker price on a cloud bill often looks higher than a rack of hardware, but total cost of ownership tells a different story. Self-hosted needs 24/7 monitoring, patching, DR, and the institutional knowledge that leaves when the person who set it up moves on. For teams under about 20 engineers, managed services almost always win once you account for engineer time.
The TCO analysis →How should I budget for cloud infrastructure?
Budget four categories: baseline compute and storage (relatively stable and predictable), high-availability and resilience (multi-AZ or multi-region typically doubles the compute line), egress and data transfer (often the biggest surprise on a large-scale system), and human capacity for the migration itself. We produce a 12-month cost forecast at the end of every diligence and every modernisation project.
Cloud migration cost pitfalls →Technical Decisions
Should I use Kubernetes?
Most startups do not need Kubernetes. Managed containers (AWS ECS or Fargate, Google Cloud Run, Fly.io) or a modern PaaS (Railway, Render) will carry you a long way. Kubernetes earns its complexity when you have multi-cloud portability requirements, mixed workloads that need fine-grained scheduling, or a platform team big enough to own it. If none of those are true, the operational cost usually outweighs the benefit.
Kubernetes decision framework →Lift-and-shift or cloud-native?
Lift-and-shift moves your existing application to cloud VMs with minimal change: fastest to deploy, but you keep the operational overhead. Cloud-native rearchitects around managed services (RDS, Lambda, API Gateway, S3), which cuts ongoing operations but takes more upfront work. The right answer depends on how much longer you plan to run the system: short-lived legacy warrants lift-and-shift; anything you plan to invest in for the next 3, 5 years is worth rearchitecting.
Cloud-first principles →AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud?
Existing relationships, workload compatibility, and cost. AWS has the broadest managed-service catalogue and the most mature documentation. Azure integrates cleanly with Microsoft-heavy enterprise estates. GCP has the strongest data analytics and ML stack. For most startups the practical advice is to pick one, commit to it, and avoid hedging across two clouds until there is a real commercial reason to.
Cloud migration strategy guide →Build custom, or use managed services?
Strongly favour managed services unless the component is your competitive advantage. Custom auth takes 3, 4 weeks and needs ongoing security work; integrating Auth0 or Cognito takes 3, 4 days. Managed databases, auth, payments, and monitoring free small teams to spend engineering time on things that differentiate the product. Reserve custom builds for the pieces a customer would pay for.
Question not answered?
Book a 30-minute call and we will answer it directly. If your question is about a specific deal, portfolio company, or compliance build, come with the constraints and we will come with the shape of the answer.
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