// build_startup_mode
Ship the MVP.Not a prototype.
AI-assisted MVPs for pre-funding founders. 4–6 week timelines. Real production code. Built to outlast the demo.
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You have an idea, $15K in savings, an investor demo in eight weeks, and exactly two paths in front of you. Hire a no-code shop and ship a demo your investors will see through. Or find a technical co-founder you can’t afford and don’t have time to vet. We’re the third path.
// your_three_options
Your three options
Pre-funding, every founder lands on the same shortlist. Here is the honest version of each, including ours.
Fast and cheap
A no-code shop
You get a clickable demo built in Webflow or Bubble. It looks fine in a pitch and breaks the moment real users arrive — and when you raise, you throw it away and rebuild from zero. You have paid to validate nothing you can keep.
If you can find one
A technical co-founder
The right co-founder is the best outcome and the hardest to get. You cannot really afford one yet, you do not have months to vet a stranger you will hand equity to, and the demo deadline does not move while you search. Most founders never find the right person in time.
Production code, fast
The third path — us
A real engineering team using AI tooling for speed. You get a production-grade MVP in 4–6 weeks, you own the code, and it becomes the actual product you scale on — not a throwaway. No equity, no nine-month hire, no demo that collapses under ten users.
// whats_in_the_box
What you actually get
Not a clickable Figma. Not a Webflow page with fake buttons. A deployed application running on real infrastructure, that ten — then a thousand — real users can actually use without it falling over.
Here is what most $10K “MVP” shops hand over: a no-code prototype, or a solo developer’s weekend build with auth in localStorage and data in a JSON file. Here is what ships from us instead:
mvp/
├─ app/ Next.js + TypeScript, deployed on Vercel
├─ auth/ Real sessions (NextAuth / Clerk) — not localStorage
├─ db/ Postgres (Supabase / Neon) — not JSON files
├─ payments/ Stripe / Razorpay — if you charge from day one
├─ repo/ Your GitHub. You own every line.
└─ deploy/ CI pipeline — ship updates without usYou also get documentation a future engineer can pick up, and a deploy pipeline that means you are never locked to us. The point of a real MVP is that it becomes your actual product — not a throwaway you rebuild the moment you raise.
// the_ai_assisted_advantage
Agency quality at hackathon speed
A traditional agency MVP costs $40–80K because senior engineers do everything by hand. A no-code shop is cheaper but ships something you will throw away. AI-assisted development with experienced engineers gets you agency-grade output at roughly 30–40% of the cost and half the timeline.
The engineering judgment is the part that does not come from a tool — knowing what to ask Claude Code or Cursor for, when to reject the suggestion, and where to add the guardrails the AI tools quietly miss (auth edges, race conditions, input validation, the things that break at user eleven).
AI alone makes mediocre code fast. Engineers alone make great code slow. The combination is what is actually different — and it is the whole reason this offer exists.
// how_a_build_runs
Four to six weeks, four phases
The timeline is short because the AI tooling collapses the mechanical work — not because we cut the parts that matter. Every phase has a real deliverable you can see.
Scope & architecture
We lock the flows, the data model, and a fixed scope — the hard calls made before any code ships.
Build
Engineering in tight loops with clickable previews. AI for speed, an engineer on every real decision.
Test & refine
Real-data testing, edge cases, auth and payments hardened — the week that separates demo from usable.
Deploy & handoff
Production deploy, your repo and pipeline, docs — so you own it and can ship without us.
The full phase-by-phase breakdown lives on the MVP development page.
// what_this_costs
What this costs
A standard MVP runs $5,000–$25,000. More complex builds — multi-user roles, real-time features, several deep integrations — run up to $40,000. No retainer to start; you pay for the build.
What moves the number:
- Feature scope — the number of distinct user flows.
- Integration count — every third-party API adds work.
- Auth complexity — single-tenant vs multi-tenant vs role-based.
- Real-time requirements — sockets and live data are their own workstream.
- Design — whether it exists already or has to be created.
What is not included: ongoing maintenance after launch (a separate retainer), heavy custom design — we use functional design that ships fast, not bespoke illustration work — and unlimited revisions. We scope fixed after a scoping call, so the number you see is the number you pay.
// who_this_works_for
Who this works for — and who it doesn’t
This is for a pre-seed, pre-funding founder with an idea (and maybe a Figma or a Notion doc) who needs a real product in front of real users or investors. It is not for everyone:
- Not for funded startups with an engineering team — you should hire engineers, not an agency.
- Not for someone who wants a no-code prototype — we don’t do throwaway work.
- Not for someone who needs a CTO co-founder — we’re a build partner, not a co-founder.
- Not for a founder who won’t show up — the work needs your decisions, fast, every week.
// the_proof
Our case study is our own product
We built B2BLeadFinder — a Google Maps lead-generation tool — using this exact approach. Pre-funding, AI-assisted, production-grade, live, and serving real customers. We ship for clients what we shipped for ourselves.
// common_questions
Common questions
How is this different from a no-code agency?
A no-code agency assembles your product in a tool like Webflow or Bubble — fast and cheap, but you get a prototype that hits a ceiling and that you rebuild from scratch the day you outgrow it. We write real code. The MVP is a genuine application you own, extend, and scale on; it does not get thrown away when it works.
Do I need to be technical to work with you?
No. Most founders we build for are not engineers. You bring the idea, the domain knowledge, and the decisions; we handle the architecture and the build, and we explain trade-offs in plain terms when a choice is yours to make. The handoff is documented so a future engineer — whenever you hire one — can pick it up cleanly.
What if I only have an idea and no designs?
That is a normal starting point. Scoping turns a rough idea — even a Notion doc or a sketch — into a defined set of flows and a buildable plan. We ship clean, functional design as part of the build; we do not need a finished Figma to start, though if you have one, it speeds things up.
Will the MVP scale if it takes off?
It is built to carry you through validation and your first thousands of users — real database, real auth, a stack chosen because it scales. It is not pre-built for millions of users on day one, because that would waste your budget proving demand you do not have yet. When you raise and need to scale hard, you have a real codebase a real engineer can take there.
More on the process and pricing on the MVP development page.
// start_here
Got eight weeks and an idea?
Bring the idea, the budget, and the deadline. We’ll tell you honestly what’s buildable in your window — and whether we’re the right partner for it. No deck, no hard sell.
Running an ecommerce brand instead?
See the Ecommerce studio