Resource · Product Development

A working MVP in three weeks, for a fixed price

You know the market. We know the code. Stop trying to manage freelance developers, and let us build your investor-ready MVP for a flat, fixed price, agreed before we start.

MVP Diagnostic

A clear, actionable roadmap to your MVP, without burning months on the wrong decisions.

Investment

$8,000

Timeline

10 business days

What you receive

+ A 10-15 page plan for what to build, what to leave out for now, and what it will cost. Plain English, no vendor pitch.
+ A three-sprint roadmap with dates and milestones, so you can hold us to them
+ A plain-English picture of how the pieces fit together, and what it costs to run each month
+ The things most likely to go wrong, and what we do about each one
+ What it costs to run for the first year, and what that looks like as your user numbers grow

Why it works

· Forces critical tradeoffs early, before runway burns
· Vendor-agnostic recommendations your team can trust
· Has helped founders cut MVP scope by 40-50% while preserving the demo

How we work

1. Days 1-2: Sessions with you: what you are trying to do, what you already have, what is in the way
2. Days 3-7: Designing the approach, weighing the risks, modelling the cost, building the roadmap
3. Days 8-9: Our own review and refinement of the deliverables
4. Day 10: Readout and handover of everything, with your team

Build Sprint

Launch a working vertical slice of your MVP, deployed, tested, ready for user feedback.

Investment

$40,000

Timeline

3 weeks

What you receive

+ A working product, live on the cloud of your choice, in your own name. Sign-up, sign-in and one or two core journeys working end to end, ready to put in front of real people.
+ Fixes go live in minutes, not days. When a beta tester reports a problem, we push the fix the same day rather than starting a new project.
+ Zero lock-in. We build it so any competent team, including one you hire next month, can take over on day one without reverse-engineering our work.
+ Confidence before scale. The journeys your business depends on are tested properly, so growth does not quietly break something you rely on.
+ Everything written down and handed over, not held hostage to keep working with us
+ A costed plan for what comes next, with the hard trade-offs already argued out

Why it works

· Tight scope, we ruthlessly prioritise to ship in 3 weeks
· Daily demos, you see progress every day, no surprises
· Proven, unglamorous tech (Postgres, Docker, managed cloud). Nobody has to learn a clever stack to run it.
· Systems that won’t need a $200K rewrite when you hit 10K users

How we work

1. Week 1: Cloud setup, automated deploys, sign-in, and the data your product runs on
2. Week 2: The core journeys, end to end, with a demo at the end of every day
3. Week 3: Testing, going live, documentation, handover

What this looks like in practice

Recent wins

Fintech startup (seed)

Cut MVP scope by 45% while preserving the investor demo. Started the build within two weeks of diagnostic completion. Launched to pilot customers in ten weeks.

Data platform (Series A)

Replaced a risky third-party integration with a simpler architecture pattern. Reduced incidents to zero during a six-month pilot. Scaled to 100× data volume without rewrites.

Frequently asked

Questions we get

Why fixed scope and fixed price instead of a retainer?

Because MVPs slip on scope creep, not on engineering. Locking the scope and the price up front forces the hard tradeoff conversations to happen before code is written, when they are still cheap. If we discover the scope was wrong, and sometimes we do, we change it deliberately and re-price. The default isn’t "let’s just keep going."

What if we don’t know what to build yet?

That’s what the MVP Diagnostic exists for. It is the right starting point when the product idea is still forming, when there are two competing visions on the team, or when you need a board-credible plan before committing engineering spend. The diagnostic is also the natural lead-in to the Build Sprint if you decide to proceed.

Does the $40K Build Sprint produce a full MVP?

No, it produces a working vertical slice: authentication plus one or two core user flows, deployed, tested, and ready for real user feedback. That’s usually two to four weeks ahead of where a small in-house team would be. Sprints two through four typically take a full MVP across the line.

Why "boring, proven tech"?

Because the cost of clever, niche infrastructure is hidden, it surfaces six months in, when you need to hire, when something breaks, or when you need to migrate. Postgres, Docker, managed cloud services. Excitement belongs in the product, not the stack.

Can we use our existing engineering team alongside you?

Yes, and we prefer it when possible. Knowledge transfer is built into the engagement, your team is in the demos, on the calls, and in the codebase. The goal is that when we leave, your team owns and can extend what we built.

Who owns the code and IP when you build our MVP?

You do, outright, from day one. The code, the IP, the repositories, and the deployment are yours, handed over with no lock-in. We build on boring, proven tech any team can pick up, exactly so you are never dependent on us to keep it running.

How much does it cost to develop an MVP?

Agency quotes typically run $15,000 to $150,000 or more, and the range is that wide because "MVP" means anything from a landing page to a small product. Ours are fixed: $8,000 for the 10-day diagnostic that produces the architecture and roadmap, and $40,000 for the 3-week build sprint that ships a working vertical slice. If a quote you are comparing has no scope attached to the number, the number is not real yet.

Ready to start your diagnostic?

Book a 15-minute fit call to confirm scope and hold your slot.

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