A senior engineer for the three months you cannot hire one
Applications Standard at $3,499 a month. 2-4 day delivery cycles, cancel anytime, 14-day money-back. The velocity that closes the round before the prototype goes stale.
Who this is for
Founder with angel checks trickling in, needs a working product in the hands of the next three investors.
The pain today
- A senior full-time engineer costs $200,000 a year and I have $400,000 in the bank.
- Agencies scope the project at 12 weeks when I have 6.
- Every week the prototype stays frozen, another investor loses interest.
- I need ownership of everything, not a black-box agency deliverable.
The outcome you get
- Weekly shippable progress I can show every Monday in a VC call.
- A product narrow enough to ship in 6-8 weeks.
- Full code ownership (Work Made for Hire) from day one.
- Month-to-month pricing so I can cancel when the round closes and I hire.
The 3-feature rule for pre-seed apps
Pre-seed apps live or die by scope discipline. The rule I hold with every pre-seed founder: three features. Auth is not a feature, it is infrastructure. The three features are the ones a design partner would pay for today. Everything else is roadmap. This sounds obvious and almost no pre-seed founder follows it without a senior voice pushing back. The GigEasy MVP shipped in three weeks because we held the line at three features. The same discipline saves pre-seed founders six months of calendar time.
Monthly vs fixed pricing math
A fixed-price pre-seed build sounds safe until scope creeps and the agency renegotiates. Monthly retainers at $3,499 a month give the founder a predictable cash line, a senior engineer who cannot hide behind a 12-week black box, and the option to cancel without penalty. Over 6-8 weeks of build, the monthly math usually lands at $7,000-$10,000, less than most fixed quotes for the same scope. The difference is the founder sees progress every 2-4 days, not at the end of week 12.
Showing work-in-progress to angels
Angels and pre-seed investors want to see velocity, not a finished product. Every week I ship to a staging URL the founder shares with the next three investor calls. The build evolves in front of the investor's eyes, which is a much stronger signal than a pretty pitch of a vaporware feature. I coach founders on how to narrate the demo: show the user problem, walk through the loop, name the next milestone. This closes rounds.
Cancellation and ownership
Pre-seed founders worry about being locked in. The retainer is month-to-month with 14-day money-back in the first two weeks. The code is yours under Work Made for Hire the moment the invoice is paid. I hand over a GitHub repo, AWS or Vercel access, documentation, and a transition call. Most founders keep me on for 3-6 months post-round while they hire. Some cancel the week the first senior engineer lands. Either outcome is fine.
Recent proof
A comparable engagement, delivered and documented.
Built and shipped an investor-ready MVP from scratch
Built the entire technological base and delivered MVP in just 3 weeks, enabling a successful rapid launch and investor demo.
Frequently asked questions
The questions prospects ask before they book.
- Can I start before my first check clears?
- Yes. I invoice monthly. Many pre-seed founders start on Applications Standard with runway from angel checks and expand after the lead closes.
- How do I pitch a work-in-progress to a VC?
- I coach you on the demo and join the call if useful. Staging URLs, real flows, real data. VCs reward founders who ship weekly.
- What if I want to bring in a technical cofounder mid-build?
- Great outcome. I hand over cleanly: repo walkthrough, architecture docs, a week of pair-work. The retainer ends on a friendly note.
- Do you work with US LLCs or Delaware C-corps?
- Yes. I invoice through my US LLC. Works for Delaware C-corps, US LLCs, UK Ltds, EU entities. IRS and IR35 safe.
- What stack do you use for pre-seed builds?
- Next.js or React frontend, Laravel or NestJS backend, PostgreSQL, Redis, AWS or Vercel. The same stack that shipped GigEasy in three weeks.
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