MVP design and development for non-technical founders

MVP design and development is priced per screen, starting from $80 a screen, across mobile, web, desktop, and Linux. It's not hourly and there's no discovery call built to find your budget — the scoping week counts every screen your MVP needs and gives you a total before anything gets built. If a screen gets added mid-build, it's priced at the same rate, never renegotiated after the fact. For comparison, a Fractional CTO retainer runs $1,500–$8,000 a month if you need ongoing technical leadership instead of, or after, a single build.

It depends on the screen count, which is exactly why scoping happens first. Most MVPs run 8 to 12 weeks once the count is set; more screens or more platforms (mobile, web, desktop, Linux) extend that, fewer shorten it. Week 0 is scoping: every screen counted and priced. The build follows, with you seeing working software every week instead of a burndown chart. The last stretch is launch, deployment, monitoring, and handover, plus two weeks of me still answering the phone after real users show up.

Yes — that's who this is built for. You don't need to evaluate engineers you have no way to evaluate, or give up equity to get technical ownership before you know if the product works. I own the architecture and technical decisions on the build; you focus on customers and whether the thing you're testing is actually true. If you later decide you do want an equity technical co-founder or an ongoing Fractional CTO, we can talk about that once there's something real to co-found.

My Panicle Tech design and engineering team builds it. I own the architecture, review the code, and make the calls that are expensive to reverse later — security posture, the AI/ML layer if there is one, and anything that decides how the system scales. You're not getting a junior contractor with no accountable senior technical person; you're getting a small team with a senior engineer directly responsible for the outcome.

Design and full-stack development for that screen, on whichever platform it needs — mobile, web, desktop, or Linux — plus its share of the scoping week, deployment, monitoring, and handover documentation. Two weeks of post-launch support are included across the whole build, not billed per screen. If a screen's scope changes mid-build, it's re-quoted at the same rate, never nickel-and-dimed.

Two weeks of support are built in while your first real users find the things a scoping doc never catches. After that, most founders either run with what shipped, or move into a Fractional CTO retainer with me if there's now enough surface area — architecture, hiring, roadmap — to need ongoing senior technical leadership instead of a single build.

You get one accountable senior technical person, not a project manager between you and whoever's actually writing the code. Pricing is per screen and published — the same $80 whether it's your first screen or your fiftieth — not quoted after a discovery call designed to find your budget. And the two weeks after launch are for fixing what real users break, not a support contract you have to negotiate separately.