An Integrated Product and Growth Studio

Sunlab provides hardware, software, applied AI, and marketing services through one integrated team. This page explains our structure, in-house capabilities, delivery commitments, and commercial terms.

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Four Disciplines, One Accountable Team

Diagram: four separately contracted vendors leave three interfaces between them. A single accountable team, drawn as one unbroken block, leaves none.HARDWARESOFTWAREAIMARKETINGthree interfaces · unowned · unquotedONE PROJECTone team · one schedule · one invoice

Connected products often require separate hardware, software, AI, and marketing suppliers. Each supplier may be responsible for its own deliverables while relying on requirements and decisions made by the other teams.

This structure creates coordination risk at the interfaces between disciplines. Mechanical changes can affect firmware and PCB layout; protocol changes can affect applications; camera placement can affect model performance; and product changes can make launch material inaccurate.

The resulting cost usually appears as schedule delay, duplicated work, change orders, additional design revisions, and client time spent coordinating suppliers.

Sunlab coordinates these disciplines through one team, schedule, requirements set, and decision process. Technical and marketing specialists work from the same product information and review cross-disciplinary changes together.

We run a limited number of large programs at a time. Requirements outside our in-house capabilities are identified during scoping. Fabrication, assembly, and accredited compliance testing are handled by qualified specialist facilities; Sunlab retains responsibility for engineering, design, software, AI, and marketing deliverables.

The following sections list our operating model, delivery commitments, in-house capabilities, location, and commercial terms.

How the Studio Operates

These operating details explain who performs the work, where project assets are held, how outside specialists are used, and who owns the final deliverables.

Based in
St. Petersburg, Florida
We work with teams anywhere. Most programs run on scheduled calls and a shared repository, with bench time here when hardware has to be handled in person.
Disciplines
Four, in-house
Hardware, software, AI, and marketing under one team, one schedule, and one invoice.
Subcontractors
None
Fabrication, assembly, and accredited compliance testing go to specialist facilities, as they have to. The engineering doesn't.
Source code
Client owned from commit one
Your repository, your organization, your cloud accounts. Design files and mechanical CAD transfer on payment.
Smallest engagement
A one-week review
Fixed fee, ending in a ranked list of findings you're free to act on without us.
Retainers
Cancellable monthly
A retainer that ends because your own team has it covered is a good outcome, not a lost account. Growth retainers are the one exception, with a three-month minimum, because that's how long it takes to know whether marketing is working.

Six Commitments You Can Check

Each one passes a single test: you could catch us not doing it. “We care about quality” fails that test, because there’s nothing to catch. These six fail visibly, which is the only reason they’re worth writing down.

  1. A Single Accountable TeamHardware, software, AI, design, and marketing are delivered by one in-house team. When a requirement falls outside our capabilities, we identify it during scoping and recommend an appropriate specialist.
  2. Client Ownership of SourceWe work in repositories and cloud accounts owned by your organization. Editable sources include schematics, mechanical CAD, firmware, software, and infrastructure definitions in standard professional formats.
  3. Assessment Before EngagementWe review each inquiry against our in-house capabilities before preparing a proposal. If the work requires a manufacturer, specialist facility, staffing provider, or another type of agency, we identify that during the initial assessment.
  4. Production Readiness in ScopeTest procedures, panelization, runbooks, second-source planning, and deployment documentation are included in the scope and schedule when required for production readiness.
  5. Hardware, Software, and Marketing, Plus AI, as One SystemOur hardware, software, AI, and marketing teams coordinate system requirements, interfaces, product claims, and launch dependencies within one delivery program.
  6. Engineered for HandoverEvery engagement includes documentation and a supervised handover in which your team deploys the system, brings up the hardware, or operates the delivered workflow. Ongoing support is scoped separately.

Capability Held In-House

Everything below is available without us hiring anyone. A single program routinely pulls from four of these rows at once, which is why we keep them on one board rather than in four contracts.

Electrical6

  • Schematic capture and two to twelve layer board layout
  • Mixed signal design, controlled impedance, and power integrity
  • Power trees, budgets, and thermal margin
  • Analog front ends, filtering, and calibration
  • Pre-compliance measurement before you pay for an accredited lab
  • Bills of materials checked against live stock and real lead times

Embedded6

  • Bare metal, FreeRTOS, Zephyr, and embedded Linux
  • STM32, ESP32, nRF52, and Raspberry Pi compute modules
  • Bootloaders, signed field update, and rollback
  • Bluetooth Low Energy, Wi-Fi, LoRa, cellular, and wired industrial buses
  • Device provisioning, certificate management, and sensible offline behavior
  • Bring-up fixtures and test procedures somebody else can follow

Mechanical5

  • Enclosure CAD and tolerance analysis
  • Thermal, impact, and ingress behavior
  • SLA and FDM printing in-house
  • Manufacturing drawings a shop can quote from without calling you
  • CNC machining and injection molding chosen against your volume

Software6

  • TypeScript, React, Astro, Node, and Python
  • PostgreSQL and schema design built to survive a migration
  • Versioned APIs, and integration with the systems that resist it
  • Native iOS and Android, plus desktop apps for macOS and Windows
  • Interface and experience design, from the flow through to a component library
  • AWS, Cloudflare, Docker, Terraform, and tests that fail the build when they should

Data & AI6

  • Machine learning and deep learning models trained on your data, not a benchmark set
  • Vision models trained on operational footage, including the light and weather that break everything else
  • Detection and tracking on Jetson-class hardware at the edge
  • Natural language processing: search, classification, summarization, and assistants that answer from your documents
  • AI integrated into the systems you already run, with validation, persistence, and an audit trail
  • Telemetry ingestion, repeatable evaluation, and monitoring that catches drift before your users do

Growth Marketing6

  • Paid search and paid social managed against cost per acquisition
  • Social campaigns and a content calendar that still sounds like you
  • Analytics and conversion tracking that ties spend to revenue
  • Review generation and response on the platforms your buyers actually check
  • Technical search visibility: crawl health, performance, structured data, and architecture
  • Landing pages and sites designed, written, and built by one team

35 capabilities across 6 disciplines.Every line is work this team has already delivered, not a tool we’re evaluating. If what you need falls outside the list, you’ll hear that at scoping rather than a month into delivery.

St. Petersburg, Florida

St. Petersburg, Florida27.7676° N, 82.6403° WEastern time

We work a few streets back from the water on the Tampa Bay side of the peninsula. Most of our clients are somewhere else, and where we are isn’t why anyone hires us. It does change a few things about delivery, and those are worth saying.

Eastern time is the useful one. A London afternoon and a Pacific morning both land inside one working day here, so a distributed program runs on a single thread instead of two that reconcile badly on Friday. Tampa International is about thirty minutes away, which is the difference between shipping you a board and standing at your bench.

A mid-size city also pays for permanent bench space. A stocked lab, old revisions kept around for comparison, and a soldering station that stays set up between programs are all practical here and all get cut first where rent is metropolitan. Hardware needs somewhere to live between spins.

Hurricane season we treat as a scheduling problem rather than a surprise. From June to November the forecast is a program risk we plan around, and we don’t put a milestone in the second week of September. Your source, your CAD, and your cloud accounts are in your name throughout, so nothing about your program depends on the weather over this coast.

Illustration of the St. Pete Pier reaching out over Tampa Bay
St. Pete Pier, ten minutes from the bench

Working With the Studio

The answers we’d give you on a first call, written down ahead of it. Anything not covered here, email us and you’ll get the same answer.

How does an engagement begin?

An engagement begins with a no-cost introductory call and a written scope. The first paid stage is usually a fixed-fee assessment that documents requirements, exclusions, risks, recommended actions, schedule, and proposed deliverables. The assessment belongs to the client and can be used with Sunlab or another qualified team.

How is work priced?

We use fixed fees for defined assessments and projects, milestone pricing for product development, and monthly pricing for retainers and team extension. Work without a sufficiently defined scope begins with a paid assessment before a fixed project price is proposed.

How are schedule and scope problems handled?

Every program hits them. What we commit to is telling you in the week it happens, with the options and what each one costs, rather than saving it for a milestone review. If the delay is ours, we absorb it. If the requirement moved, we re-quote it instead of quietly taking it out of the finishing work, which is how most delivery dates actually slip.

Are non-disclosure agreements accepted?

Yes, routinely, and before the first detailed technical conversation if you'd rather. Two kinds of clause get a request to amend: anything claiming ownership of methods and tooling we had before we met you, and non-compete terms broad enough to shut us out of an entire industry. Neither one protects what the agreement is actually there to protect.

Is remote engagement supported?

Yes. We're based in St. Petersburg, Florida, and most programs run on scheduled calls, a shared repository, and a written weekly update. Hardware is the exception, since a board needs a bench at some point. Scoping settles whether that means a visit, a unit shipped to us, or dedicated bench time here. See Contact.

Is there a minimum engagement?

Our smallest engagement is a one-week fixed-fee review. Growth marketing retainers have a three-month minimum to establish a useful performance trend. Other engagements are scoped according to the work required.

The Rest of the Site

  1. Delivery MethodThe four phases every program runs through, what you get at the end of each one, and what it costs you to skip one.See how we work
  2. Selected WorkProject write-ups: the constraint we were working against, what we did about it, and what came out the other end.See the work
  3. Open Roles4 open positions with responsibilities, first-month expectations, qualifications, and details of the paid working session.See the roles

Discuss Your Project Requirements

Send a short description of the requirements, current status, constraints, expected deliverables, and target schedule. We will assess the fit before preparing a proposal.

hello@sunlabdigital.comSend Us the Details

St. Petersburg, Florida · we work with teams anywhere