Founders Pre-Build
You have an idea and a budget, and you want to know what the first version should actually contain.
A short, paid engagement that turns a vague brief into a fixed build quote. You finish with the scope, the wireframes, the data model, the roadmap — and a number that holds.
Discovery earns its keep before a single line of code is written.
Talk about your project →You have an idea and a budget, and you want to know what the first version should actually contain.
Everyone knows the spreadsheet is failing, but nobody agrees on what replaces it.
Three agencies, three wildly different prices, and no way to tell which scope is real.
What is being built, described precisely — and just as usefully, what is explicitly not included.
Split into launch, next phase, and later, so the first version can actually ship this quarter.
Who can see, edit and approve what — the requirement most projects discover far too late.
Your process as it runs today, and as it should run after, side by side.
Detailed enough for the primary screens to be estimated honestly, not guessed at.
The main entities and how they connect, plus which systems link up, how, and what could go wrong.
A price with its assumptions written in plain language, so the number means something.
A realistic order of work, with the dependencies and the decisions that unlock each phase.
The known unknowns, named early, while they are still cheap to design around.
Almost every painful software project has the same shape: the build started before the questions were answered, and the answers arrived as change requests.
Start with discovery →Estimate before the scope is pinned down and you are buying a guess with a signature on it.
Most first versions are too big. Discovery is where you find the two features that carry the business.
Build with us or not. You leave with something a contractor, an investor or a future CTO can read.
Fixed-fee, credited against the build if you continue. Ranges below are typical, not a quote — see pricing for how we structure the rest.
Goals, sitemap, content plan and page priorities. $500 – $1,500 · 3–5 days
The above plus CRM, booking, payment or marketing automation mapping. $1,500 – $2,500 · about 1 week
Users, roles, core workflow, data model and MVP scope frozen. $2,500 – $5,000 · 1–3 weeks
Full process mapping, permissions, integrations and a phased roadmap. $3,500 – $8,000 · 2–4 weeks
Multi-department workflow, migration plan and phased delivery across teams. $8,000+ · 4–8 weeks
Ninety minutes with the people who actually run the process. We record it and write it up.
One conversation per role, so the workflow is described by the people living inside it.
What exists, what is queryable, what has to be migrated, and what the API actually returns.
The primary screens drawn, the feature list ranked, the assumptions written down.
A fixed build price with its assumptions stated, and a phased plan you can take to a board.
Build with us, take the documents elsewhere, or wait. No obligation attached to the findings.
A working session, usually 60–90 minutes, where the people who run the process walk us through how it works today, who touches it, and where it breaks. It is the raw material for scope, wireframes and estimates. Complex operations need several sessions plus a review with anyone who could not attend.
A few days for a website, one to three weeks for a SaaS MVP, two to four weeks for custom business software. The usual delay is not analysis time — it is waiting for an internal decision about who approves what.
You can, and people do. What cannot be skipped is answering the questions discovery exists to answer — they just get answered during the build instead, at build prices, with change orders attached.
Yes, against the build cost when the project proceeds within an agreed window. You should not pay twice for the same thinking, and we should not work free to win a pitch.
One decision-maker who can approve scope and budget, plus one person per affected department. Most delays trace back to a rule nobody mentioned until week three.
Yes — scope, priorities, permissions matrix, diagrams, wireframes and data model. Build with us, hand them to another studio, or pause and revisit next quarter.