Privacy policy

Who we are

Wickman Ventures LLC d.b.a. Small Launch, based in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, USA. This policy is for the Small Launch website. Mailing address: Wickman Ventures LLC d.b.a. Small Launch, 100 E 6th St, Sioux Falls, SD 57104.

To ask a privacy question, or to request access or deletion, email ross@smalllaunch.tech.

Information you give us

Newsletter and checklist. The homepage banner and the footer ask for an email address. The words next to the button are: “We’ll email you the checklist and add you to our newsletter. Unsubscribe anytime.” We store that address, the page you used (homepage or footer), the name of the checklist, those consent words, the time, and whether the newsletter signup succeeded. A hidden field that people are told to leave empty is rejected and is not stored.

The address is saved in Amazon DynamoDB and sent to beehiiv, which adds you to the newsletter and sends the welcome email that carries the checklist. beehiiv receives the email address, a note that the signup came from this website, and the campaign name for the checklist. You can unsubscribe from the beehiiv email. Asking again with the same address updates the existing newsletter subscription rather than creating a second one.

Assessment requests. The form at Request an assessment does not require an account. Before anything is stored you review the answers and check a box that says: “I consent to Small Launch reviewing the information I provide and contacting me about my request.” We then store:

• What you want help with (a security review, an AWS migration plan, both, or not sure).
• Whether you are starting from an idea or an existing solution.
• What you are trying to build, who it is for, what you already have, and what help you need.
• How you would like to work, and whether you are considering paid help.
• A services budget and a monthly AWS budget, if you enter them.
• Your name, email address, and company or project name if you enter one.
• The consent sentence and the time you confirmed it, plus a reference id.

Those records are stored in Amazon DynamoDB. Only site administrators can read them. You do not get an automatic confirmation email. Submitting the form does not book a time, agree a price, or grant anyone access to your Amazon Web Services account. The form is sent through AWS using a guest identity. That is not a Small Launch user account.

If owner email alerts are turned on, the same answers are emailed to the site owner through Amazon SES, with your email as the reply-to address. Alerts are off unless that setting is enabled. The site does not send your answers to an AI model.

Saved drafts. The saved-drafts page asks you to sign in with Amazon Cognito, using an email address and a verification code Cognito emails you. If Google sign-in is turned on for that environment, Google shares the email address and name on the Google account you choose. The site stores the draft you save (the same kinds of project details as the assessment form) in Amazon DynamoDB, readable only by that signed-in account. If you submit the draft for review, a copy is stored for administrators. The page offers sign-out. It does not offer a self-serve delete button; use the contact email below to ask us to delete a draft or the account.

Information collected automatically

Google Analytics. If you allow analytics on the cookie banner, the site loads Google Analytics 4 (measurement ID G-128083QP4E) from Google. Google then receives technical data about the visit, such as pages viewed, a coarse location derived from the connection, and the cookies described in the cookie policy. Analytics does not load until you allow it. If you decline, or if you have not chosen yet, the Google tag is not added to the page.

Rate limiting. The newsletter signup and the assessment form use the IP address AWS supplies for that request to count how many times that address has called the form in the current minute (five times a minute). The counter is stored in Amazon DynamoDB and expires after about two minutes. The IP address is not written onto the newsletter record or the assessment record.

The build-versus-buy calculator runs in your browser. The numbers you type are not sent to us and are not saved on the server. If you download a comparison, that file stays on your device unless you choose to share it. Reopening a file reads it locally.

Booking

“Book a discussion” opens https://meet.rosswickman.com/small-launch, a Cal.com scheduling page that is not part of this website’s forms. This site does not receive what you type there, and it does not store it in DynamoDB. The scheduling service collects that information under its own terms.

How we use information

• To send the checklist and the newsletter you asked for.
• To read an assessment request and contact you about it.
• To keep a private draft available to the account that saved it.
• To measure site traffic, only after you allow analytics.
• To limit automated submissions.
• To protect the site and investigate abuse of the forms.

We do not use this information to train an AI model, and we do not sell it.

Where it goes

• Amazon Web Services: the site is hosted on AWS Amplify. Amazon Cognito handles sign-in. Amazon DynamoDB stores newsletter signups, assessment requests, and private drafts. AWS Lambda runs the form handlers. If owner alerts are enabled, Amazon SES sends that email.
• beehiiv: newsletter subscriptions and the checklist welcome email.
• Google: Google Analytics, only after you allow it. Google sign-in, only if you use it and that option is enabled.
• Cal.com: only if you open the booking page linked above.

These providers may process information in the United States and in other countries where they operate.

Cookies and similar storage

Details, including how to refuse analytics, are in the cookie policy. The short version: analytics cookies are off until you allow them. A localStorage entry on your browser remembers that choice and is not sent to our server. Sign-in cookies are set only if you sign in to saved drafts.

How long we keep it

Newsletter records and assessment requests stay until you ask us to delete them or we no longer need them to handle the request. The code does not delete them on a timer. Rate-limit counters expire after about two minutes. A saved draft stays until you ask us to delete it or you delete the Cognito account with us. Analytics data is kept by Google under Google’s own retention settings for that property. Unsubscribing from beehiiv stops further newsletter email; beehiiv may keep its own record under its policy until you ask them, or us, to delete it.

We do not sell or share personal information

We do not sell personal information. We do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising. The site has no advertising pixels and no feature that sells or “shares” personal information in the sense of the California Consumer Privacy Act, as amended by the CPRA. Sending an address to beehiiv so we can email you the newsletter you asked for, storing a form in AWS, or loading Google Analytics after you allow it, is not a sale. You can still refuse analytics.

California privacy rights

If you are a California resident, you can ask us to:

• Tell you the categories and specific pieces of personal information we have collected about you, the categories of sources, the business purpose, and the categories of recipients.
• Delete personal information we hold about you, subject to exceptions the law allows (for example, a record we must keep to complete a transaction you asked for or to meet a legal duty).
• Correct inaccurate personal information.
• Not be discriminated against for exercising these rights.

Categories we collect, depending on what you use: identifiers (name, email, company or project name); commercial information (budget figures and whether you are considering paid help); professional or project information (what you are building and the help you want); internet activity (pages measured by Google Analytics, only if you allow it); and a network identifier (IP address, only in the short-lived rate-limit counter). We do not collect precise geolocation. The browser permission for location is turned off. We do not knowingly collect sensitive personal information such as government ids, precise health data, or account passwords for other services. The assessment form asks you not to include passwords, API keys, or private customer data.

We do not sell or share personal information, and we do not use or disclose sensitive personal information for purposes that require a “Limit the Use of My Sensitive Personal Information” link. An authorized agent may submit a request for you if they show authorization we can verify. We will need enough information to match the request to the email address or account we hold. Email ross@smalllaunch.tech. You may also mail Wickman Ventures LLC d.b.a. Small Launch, 100 E 6th St, Sioux Falls, SD 57104.

Visitors in the EEA, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere

The website is available worldwide. Consulting engagements are described in the terms of use. If data-protection law such as the GDPR or UK GDPR applies to you:

• The controller is Wickman Ventures LLC d.b.a. Small Launch, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, USA. We have not appointed an EU or UK representative on this site. Contact ross@smalllaunch.tech.
• Newsletter signup and analytics rely on your consent. You can unsubscribe from the newsletter and you can decline or withdraw analytics consent on the cookie policy page. Withdrawing consent does not affect processing that already happened.
• An assessment request is information you give us so we can respond to a request you made before any contract exists.
• Saved drafts are kept so we can provide the account you created.
• Rate limiting is used to protect the forms from abuse.
• You can ask for access, correction, deletion, or restriction, object to processing based on legitimate interests, and ask for a copy of the information you provided in a portable format. You can also lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority.
• Information is processed in the United States, which may not provide the same protections as your country. The providers listed above may process it in other countries as well.

Children

The site is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has given us personal information, email ross@smalllaunch.tech and we will delete it.

Changes

If we change this policy, we will update this page and the date below. Last updated October 31, 2026.