Questions agencies actually ask

Yes. AgencyRelay is a brand of Salt Technologies, Inc. — a Delaware C-Corp founded in 2012. AgencyRelay is the partner-facing brand; Salt is the legal counterparty on every MSA, NDA, SOW, and invoice. The full company background lives on the Powered by Salt page.

No — there is one operating entity. AgencyRelay is the brand built specifically around US agency partners. Salt Technologies, Inc. remains the legal entity. The same delivery managers, named technical leads, security posture, and signing structure apply whether the engagement is contracted under the AgencyRelay or Salt brand.

Salt Technologies, Inc. — a Delaware C-Corp. The MSA, NDAs, SOWs, and invoices are all issued under Salt's name. Governing law is Delaware by default, adjustable on request for partners with strict procurement requirements.

Nilesh B Gadekar, founder of Salt Technologies, Inc., leads the agency-facing side as the AgencyRelay partner brand. He is typically in the first scoping conversation with new partners. Day-to-day delivery is run by the same Salt delivery managers and named technical leads the operation has worked with for years.

The buyer is different. Agency owners want a partner brand built around partner-first commercial mechanics — public starting prices, white-label safety in writing, no-poach commitments, US-aligned hours, and a clean four-solution offer. Trying to surface that inside a generic services site dilutes both audiences.

Yes — and we recommend it. A mutual NDA is available before any client name, brief, or commercial detail is shared. It covers both directions: your information and any AgencyRelay/Salt commercial information shared in scoping.

The MSA and NDA both extend confidentiality obligations to your end clients' information. Access is granted per project and per person on a need-to-know basis. We do not log client information into systems outside the engagement perimeter, and we do not surface client work in case studies, decks, or LinkedIn without explicit written approval.

We can be asked to operate a named exclusion list inside the SOW for a defined window. That is the cleanest way to handle competitive sensitivity, because a blanket non-compete across all of AgencyRelay's partners is not realistic to promise and not honest to claim. The exclusion approach is partner-tested and honoured in writing.

Once invoices are paid, the deliverables produced inside the engagement are work-made-for-hire and assigned to your agency (and through you, to your end client) under standard MSA terms. AgencyRelay retains ownership of pre-existing tooling, libraries, and internal know-how — we license what is needed for you to use the deliverables freely.

We do not run paid media buying, performance ads, PR, or influencer relations. We are not a creative ad agency, a brand strategy boutique, or a content production studio. If your client needs those, we'll happily deliver the technical and product layer behind the campaigns — but we won't pretend to own the discipline.

Design and branding agencies, SEO and performance agencies, Shopify and HubSpot agencies, AI consultancies, software and engineering agencies, fractional CTOs, product consultants, and boutique IT consultancies. The unifying pattern: established client relationships, an active pipeline, and a need to win and deliver more without scaling fixed payroll first.

We don't sell single-individual seats. Engagements run as pods because pods carry continuity, peer review, and a delivery lead — which is what makes the work safe to put in front of your top accounts. The smallest unit is a 1-Week Burst pod, not a freelancer.

We do scoped research and discovery work as part of larger engagements and as a standalone Proposal Rescue Desk cycle. We are not a research-only firm — the research is in service of delivery decisions you can act on inside the same engagement.

First response inside US business hours — typically same business day for messages received before noon ET, next business day otherwise. The first response is from a human on the partner side, not a generic auto-reply.

A 30-minute Partner Call covers the shape of the opportunity, the most likely solution fit (Proposal Rescue Desk, Invisible Delivery Team, Overflow Pods, or Capability Expansion), commercial defaults (white-label posture, no-poach, US-overlap window), and the next concrete step — usually a written scoping note within a few business days.

Proposal Rescue Desk cycles can typically start within the same business week. Overflow Pod 1-Week Bursts can usually start within 5 business days of a signed SOW. Invisible Delivery Team and Capability Expansion engagements typically start in 7–10 business days, depending on stack onboarding and access provisioning.

For scoping: a brief, the deal context, and any relevant proposal/RFP material. For delivery: access to your project tool, code repo (where applicable), design system (where applicable), and the relevant Slack/comms channel as a named collaborator. We can run from a clean repo — but we work faster if you can share existing context.

Every active pod commits to a defined overlap window — typically a 4 to 5 hour daily window aligned to your East Coast or West Coast working hours. The exact window is named in the SOW. Outside the overlap window, work continues asynchronously and we respond to written messages on the next overlap day.

Delaware, USA — by default, since Salt Technologies, Inc. is a Delaware C-Corp. Adjustable on request for partners with strict procurement requirements. Disputes default to good-faith negotiation between named principals before any formal process.

We use the access controls of your tools (your repo, your project system, your design tools), with per-person SSO/2FA enforcement on our side. We do not export your data outside the engagement perimeter. Sensitive credentials are stored in a password manager dedicated to the engagement. Production access is granted only when explicitly required and is removed at the end of the engagement.

AgencyRelay is built around the US agency buyer. We do work with UK, EU, Canadian, and Australian agencies that operate the same shape of business — established client relationships, project-based delivery, similar commercial mechanics. The MSA, NDA, and SOW templates are adjusted for the partner's operating jurisdiction on request.