Your company,
your mix.

Because production-grade takes five times as long, and you don't yet know whether you want it. A prototype's job is to make the decision cheap. Once the decision is made, the build-out is a different job with different people, and you'll have a plan for it.

You own everything specific to your idea: the concept, the product, the code that makes it yours. Assigned outright, no strings. I keep my own toolkit, the scaffolding and components I bring to every project, and you get a perpetual, free, irrevocable license to use it inside your deliverable, forever. Investors and procurement see a clean asset.

I have a master's in library and information science, which sounds like an odd credential for a prototype shop until you read a feasibility report. Every read ships with sources: prior art, patents, papers, and postmortems from the people who tried it before you. AI tools can summarize. Knowing where to look and what to trust is a trade, and it's one I trained in.

Every sprint front-loads its riskiest assumption and ends stage one at a checkpoint, with that part working in front of you. If it isn't right, you stop there and pay a fixed kill fee, a fraction of the sprint price that's agreed in the spec. You see the hard part before most of the money moves.

Weeks, not quarters. Every spec includes a delivery date and I hit it. But you're paying for the decision the prototype unlocks, not for my hours, so the price is the price no matter what it takes to get there. The reason it's fast: I experiment with this stuff relentlessly on my own dime, and you're buying the shortcuts that came out of it. Your team doesn't have room for that kind of exploration. I've built my practice around it.

No, and that's on purpose. I'll hand your team the plan, or introduce you to a shop that does build-out well. Keeping those jobs separate is what keeps me fast and keeps you unencumbered.

The spec is agreed before we start. If the idea changes mid-sprint, we stop, re-spec, and re-price. No surprise invoices, in either direction.

Once we ship, I write up the project (what we built, what we learned) and your logo goes on this site. In exchange you take 10 % off the tier price. You review the draft for confidential details and factual accuracy, and I keep the byline. In stealth? Publication waits for a milestone you pick. Rather stay confidential? That's the list price. Confidentiality is the default, not an upcharge.

All the time, and it gets better each round. The second proof of concept with the same team goes faster because I already know your stack, your constraints, and what died last time. If you have a pipeline of ideas, ask about running these on a cadence. Some teams treat me as the lab their roadmap never leaves room for.

Yes, and it's cheapest while the work is fresh. Within 30 days, a proof of concept becomes a full sprint for the $5,000 difference, and any sprint can add a build-out plan (an integration plan for your systems plus a handoff brief your team or a build shop can execute from) for $10,000. After 30 days, it gets scoped fresh, because the plan is cheap to write while your prototype is still in my head and a lot more expensive three months later.

The verb. Outside brain reacts: you already have something (a doc, a plan, a half-built prototype) and I tell you what I see. The environmental scan surveys: you name a territory and I map what's out there, no verdict required. The feasibility read investigates: you have a specific idea, and I come back with a call on whether and how to build it. Not sure which you need? Send what you've got and I'll tell you.

Some clients do, usually when the reusable parts sit close to their own product. That's available as a buyout, priced at two to three times the sprint, because you're buying a piece of my future business as well as your prototype. Most people don't need it.