HOW WE WORK

rent an engineer

You can rent one or two of our senior engineers by the month, split however you like. What that turns into depends on what you haven't got the people for, and there are four versions of that.

It might be automating something still done by hand, an internal tool nobody has had time to build, a small application, or extra hands on something your team already started. We're a small team. 12 developer days a week between us, 8 of them still available.

what it costs

Pick the line that describes your situation. The prices and the first step are different for each, and offering you the wrong one wastes your time.

They also differ in how much of the technical leading we do. It runs from four out of four, where we hold the technical decisions the way a cofounder would, down to one, where your team decides and we build what you've already decided.

FIRST CALL

free

Thirty minutes, no charge.

PLANNING

EUR 500 to 2,000

One to three weeks. Paid before the build starts.

EMBEDDED

from EUR 2,000 / month

Two or three days a week, three or six months.

CARE

EUR 100 / month

After it's live. Two hours for fixes, as needed.

WHAT YOU'RE RENTING

A product owner and an engineering team, together

Most solo founders need more than code. They need someone to decide what gets built first, what can wait, and what shouldn't be built at all. That's product owner work, and it's usually missing without a technical cofounder.

You rent both halves at once. One of us owns the product decisions, writes the briefs, and keeps the build pointed at the business. The other owns the technical ones. We work as a single unit, so you don't have to coordinate them.

You still own the company, the product, and every decision that matters. The product owner time is included in the monthly rate, not extra.

START HERE · 30 MINUTES

free · no charge

The first call

Thirty minutes with Carsten. Tell us what you're trying to put in front of customers and where you're stuck. You'll get a straight answer on whether it's worth building, what size of job it is, whether we're the right people for it, and what the planning would cost.

Afterwards we write it up: what we heard, what kind of build suits it, and the first sketch of how the product owner work splits from the engineering work. Short enough to forward to whoever is funding you.

THE ROLE · WHAT A TECH COFOUNDER DOES, RENTED

The technical half, without giving away equity

A first-time founder without a technical cofounder usually has two bad options. Give away equity to somebody you barely know, or hire an agency that builds what you asked for rather than what you needed.

This is the third. Two engineers on fixed days a week, plus a rented product owner who keeps the backlog in order and makes sure this week's build matches what you learned last week. We make the calls a technical cofounder would: what goes in version one, what to buy instead of build, which stack you can hire against later, and what to stop building because nobody used it.

You keep the code, the accounts, and the equity. When you're ready to hire your own engineer, we help you interview them and hand over.

No equity, no founder title, no seat in your decisions. You own the company and the product. We're the technical half you rent until you don't need to.

BEFORE ANYTHING GETS BUILT · 1 TO 3 WEEKS

Tech stack, project plan, and a working prototype

The first call write-up tells you what kind of build you need. We sit with the people doing the work and count the hours the process costs. Then we settle the decisions that cause trouble later: which tools, what talks to what, what fails when, and what goes in version one.

You get a brief you can disagree with, a sequenced feature list, and a working prototype. For an automation, that's a walkthrough of the whole path. For an app, it's clickable. You see it before production code is written, while changes still cost nothing.

The stack is decided, the features agreed, and the build price fixed. Nothing gets built until you've agreed it.

Which of the three it is, we'll tell you on the first call, and the price is fixed before we start. You pay it as a separate piece of work. If you go ahead with the build, the build price is what we quoted, with the planning already paid for.

If you don't, you keep all of it, the prototype included, and you're welcome to take it to somebody else.

WHEN THE SCOPE IS SMALLER

Apps and tools that don't need three months

If the build is small enough to ship in weeks, we'll propose a shorter engagement. On an exceptional basis we also agree to a one-month minimum plus planning.

The product owner work is still included. We still write the brief, decide the sequence, and make sure what gets built does what you need.

THE WORK · 3 OR 6 MONTHS

An embedded engineer and product owner, by the day

One named engineer, fixed days on your calendar, for three or six months. What gets built each month we plan together in the last week of the month before, against what we know by then.

The product owner work continues through the build. We keep the backlog clear, write the acceptance for each piece, and make sure new information doesn't get lost. When you learn something from a customer or an investor, it turns into a decision and a place in the plan, not a Slack message you have to chase.

We're not going to promise you a fixed scope for six months. Anyone who does that is guessing, and you'd be the one paying for the guess. What we will commit to is the days, the Monday report, the response time, and a number at the end you can check against the number at the start.

This is our introductory rate while we build our first references, and it's held for the whole term of your agreement. In return we ask for two things, and only if the work goes well: your numbers, anonymised, and one introduction to somebody with the same problem.

AFTER IT'S LIVE

EUR 100 / month · two hours of fixes per month, as needed

Care

For a solo founder's first product, Care is small. You get up to two hours a month to fix a bug, adjust a workflow, or sort out something that stopped working. It's watched, and you have a named person to escalate to.

If you want to keep developing the product, we agree a one- to six-month project and treat it like a fresh build. The two-hour Care block isn't for new features; it's for the things that break while you're not looking.

We don't take on anything touching SAP or complex enterprise integrations at this level. If that's where you end up, we'll move you to the right lane.

IF YOU NEED ONE NUMBER FOR A DEFINED PIECE OF WORK

A project, quoted

Most of what we do is days. But some decisions need a single figure, because that's what goes in front of a board, a bank or a partner, and a monthly rate doesn't survive that meeting. So we'll quote a project.

Tell us what you want built. We'll quote it after we've agreed a plan, never before, because a number invented on a first call is a guess you'd end up paying for. Once we've given you a figure we don't reopen it.

Quoted work is priced higher per day than an embedded engineer, because on a fixed price we're carrying the risk of having guessed wrong instead of you.

If we build it, we stay on it. A project ends with a system running in your business, so Care starts when the build ends, on the same terms as everything else here: twelve months, and you can stop any month after the third. That's part of the quote from the beginning, not a conversation at handover.

We won't do this through a tender or a procurement process. If it goes that way we'll take ourselves out, and we'd rather say so now.

ON EVERY ENGAGEMENT

The Operating Promise

Six things we put in writing and don't negotiate. They apply to all four of the paths above, whatever you've hired us for. They're the whole reason to hire a small team instead of one freelancer.

Where we're the technical lead, which is the first two paths, there's also a weekly and monthly rhythm on top: a thirty minute call each week, and one hour a month where we read the goal back out and go through the parking lot. If you're renting hands for a window, that part doesn't apply to you and we won't bill you for it.

every mondayA written report, in your language. What got done against what we planned, what's stuck, and what we need from you. Including the weeks where the answer is no progress and here's why.
four hoursFirst reply from a person within four business hours. One hour if production is down, with a named person to escalate to.
two peopleTwo engineers understand every system we touch. Never only one. Nobody here is a single point of failure, including mid-build.
before go-liveNothing goes live without a runbook: how to tell it's broken, what to check first, who to call. Written as each section ships.
no lock-inA standard, boring, proven stack, named up front. You own the code, the documentation and every account, and you can take it to anyone.
bad news firstIf something's late you hear it the day we know, with a new date and the reason. Not at the deadline.

Costs we pass through are billed at cost with no markup. Quotes in EUR, 14 day terms, 50 percent up front on builds.

Read the full Operating Promise →

SO YOU DON'T WASTE A CALL

what we turn down

Tenders and formal RFPs. If it goes to procurement we'll take ourselves out, and we'd rather say that now.
Anything in a regulated high-risk class until your own counsel has scoped it. The rules there are still moving and we're not the right people to interpret them for you.
Building you something new and then walking away from it. If we build it, we stay on it. That's different from working inside a system your own team owns and keeps running, which is fine.
"Can you add AI to it." Tell us which process, and roughly what it costs you in hours a week, and then there's something to talk about.
More than three days a week from one engineer. Three days is one person's entire allocation and we won't oversell it.
Work we can't take on without dropping something we already promised. We take two clients at a time.

Book a first call

Thirty minutes, no preparation needed. Tell us which of the four situations above fits and we'll put the right person on the call. If we're full we'll tell you a date and hold you a slot.

Book 30 minutes →