You are not based here.
Correct, and we will not pretend otherwise. The office is in Palermo. What that costs you is the occasional flight for a workshop; what it saves you is an EU team at EU rates with the whole day in common.
What if you disappear halfway through?
The repository is yours from the first commit, in your own organisation, with the documentation written as we go. Another team can pick it up. That is deliberate: a supplier who can hold you hostage has no reason to stay good.
We have been burned by a development agency before.
Usually by a moving price and a vague scope. So the scope is written, the price is one number, changes are quoted before they are built, and you see working software every two weeks rather than at the end.
Our requirements are not fully defined yet.
That is normal and it is the first call, not a blocker. If the shape is still unclear we scope a short discovery with its own fixed price, and you own whatever comes out of it even if you stop there.
Can we start small?
Preferably. One sprint on the piece that hurts most tells you more about working with us than any proposal, and it costs a fraction of committing to the whole thing up front.
Where does our data live?
In the EU by default, because we are an Italian company and GDPR is our baseline rather than an add-on. If your contract requires another jurisdiction, we build for that and write the decision down.