The problem with theater
Most vendor relationships fail the same way: a polished pitch, a rotating cast of account managers, and a codebase nobody wants to inherit.
We built TriAlpha the other way. Three founders. Weekly contact with the people writing the code. No handoffs.
What "founder-led" actually means
It means the person estimating the work is also shipping the pull request. Tradeoffs are honest. Timelines are real. When something breaks, you talk to someone who can fix it.
Shipping over ceremony
We still do design, architecture, and reviews. We just refuse to confuse those with progress. Progress is production.