TRUST & METHOD
Why you should (and shouldn’t) work with us.
We are a small risk & protection lab. Our work sits between open-source intelligence, field experience and manufacturing.
That creates power – and also obvious risks if we are not brutally clear about how we operate.
This page is our attempt to make that explicit.
1. What we actually do
We focus on three things:
- Frontline risk briefs – concise, decision-grade briefs for specific theatres (currently Ukraine) that help you decide where you will and will not send people, who you send into which band of risk, and what minimum protection they must have.
- Protection posture frameworks – simple Level 1–3 (or 0–3) scales that link risk level → who you send → minimum kit standard (including when ballistic vests and helmets are non-negotiable).
- Optional frontline kits – in some cases we also help define or supply ballistic / CBRN-aware kits that meet those minimum standards. In many cases we don’t – and that is by design.
2. Our core commitments
2.1 Risk first, gear second
We design our work so that risk judgements cannot be quietly bent to sell more equipment.
- Our briefs and protection matrices are written to be useful even if you never buy a single piece of gear from us, only use them to audit your existing suppliers, or decide to pause deployments entirely.
- We are happy to help you define and audit your minimum kit standards,
whether you buy gear from us, from existing suppliers, or from local partners.
If you ever feel we are pushing equipment harder than the risk justifies, you should stop working with us.
2.2 Separation of roles
To reduce conflicts of interest:
- Risk work and manufacturing sit on different layers.
The WakeUp / ShieldX Risk Lab is responsible for briefs and protection frameworks; ShieldX manufacturing is a separate line that can supply kit where legal and appropriate.
- You can contract only the risk side. Many clients only use us for briefs and standards and then buy kit through their own channels.
- We are open to third-party scrutiny. If you want an external advisor to review our briefs, matrices or kit standards, we welcome that.
2.3 Conservative by design
We do not try to guess the future. We try to constrain wishful thinking.
- Low-probability / high-impact scenarios – especially around nuclear and hazardous industrial sites – are explicitly considered, not shrugged off.
- We would rather be accused of being slightly too cautious than of selling optimism that gets people hurt.
- If we are not sure, we say “we are not sure”, and we tell you what we would do in our own shoes.
2.4 Data, confidentiality and limits
We treat your footprint information as sensitive by default.
- We do not need your intelligence sources. We work primarily from open sources, patterns of damage and public reporting, plus whatever operational context you choose to share.
- Anything you share about locations, movements, roles, internal policies or incidents stays inside the engagement and is not reused as marketing.
- We do not claim to replace your legal, medical or in-country security advisors. Our briefs are one input into your duty-of-care system, not the only one.
3. When you probably should work with us
- You send people into or near real risk. NGO teams, media crews, security / protective teams working within reach of artillery, drones or long-range strikes.
- You already feel the pressure of “normalisation”. “We’ve been doing this for years and nothing happened yet.” You want something more structured than gut feeling to push back with.
- You are willing to say “no” when the brief says so. If you only want a document that justifies what you planned to do anyway, we are not the right partner.
- You value plain language over jargon. Our briefs are written for security, editors/operations and leadership to read together, in one sitting.
4. When you probably should not work with us
- You do not actually carry duty-of-care. If your involvement is limited to comments, donations or social media, our work is overkill. You do not need us.
- You mainly want gear photos and marketing content. We are not a tactical lifestyle brand. If you want cool photos for social media, there are many cheaper options.
- You expect us to align with a fixed narrative. If you need the brief to support a specific political line or fundraising story regardless of the underlying risk, we will eventually disappoint you.
- You are not prepared to change deployments. If the answer will never be “we will not send people there” or “we will reduce our presence”, then a serious brief is a waste of your time and money.
- You want absolute certainty or guarantees. We cannot give those. No one can. If someone tells you they can guarantee safety in a war zone, you should not believe them.
5. How we get paid (and what that means)
We try to keep incentives as clean as possible:
- Risk briefs and frameworks – priced by scope (number of locations, roles, update frequency), not by how much kit you might eventually buy. Can be one-off or on a scheduled update cycle.
- Kit standards and audits – priced as consulting work: define minimum standards, audit current suppliers, document gaps. You can stop here and never buy gear from us.
- Optional kit supply – only where legal and appropriate, treated as a separate transaction. We are willing to put in writing that our risk levels and minimum standards do not depend on purchasing from us.
At this stage, most clients use a mix of traditional invoicing and card payments. If you want to explore on-chain or AI-native payment flows
(including x402-style per-use access for agents), we treat that as a separate, explicit design conversation – not something we sneak in by default.
If this structure ever feels unclear, ask us to put the incentives and boundaries in writing. If we are not willing to do that, you should not hire us.
6. What to do next
If, after reading this page, you still feel we might be the right kind of uncomfortable partner for you:
- Start with a sample brief and a short call about your footprint.
- Decide whether you want a one-off tailored brief, a quarterly update cycle, or just help to define your own internal risk scale and kit standards.
If, on the other hand, you realise that our way of thinking does not fit your organisation, that is also a good outcome.
The worst arrangement in our world is a polite, optimistic partnership that only pretends to manage risk.