Earliest stage

MVP Development for Pre-Seed and Seed Startups

At pre-seed the MVP has exactly one job: answer the question that decides whether the company is real. Every screen that does not serve that question is runway spent on reassurance.

I have been a technical co-founder six times, so I know which early decisions matter and which ones founders lose weeks on for no reason. At this stage most of the value I add is subtraction, and because you pay per screen, subtraction is money back rather than scope lost.

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How the build runs

What is different about building at pre-seed

We define the question before we count the screens

Will people pay, can we acquire them affordably, does the hard technical thing work. Different questions produce genuinely different MVPs, and a build scoped without one produces a product that answers nothing in particular. This is the first hour of the scoping week and it changes everything downstream.

The brief usually shrinks, and that is the point

Most pre-seed briefs contain three to five screens serving a customer you do not have yet. Cutting them is the highest-leverage thing I do, and at a per-screen price it shows up directly in what you pay. I would rather send you a smaller invoice and a product that ships than the reverse.

The stack is chosen for hiring, not for interest

The right stack at pre-seed is the boring one you can hire for and that a new engineer can pick up without a six-week ramp. I have watched interesting technology choices make a first engineering hire twice as hard, and at this stage that is an expensive kind of fun.

You own the code and the IP, cleanly, from day one

Assigned outright, no licensing arrangement, no dependency on me. Investors do diligence on this and founders who used agencies sometimes discover an unpleasant answer. I put it in writing before the build starts rather than at handover.

It is built to be handed over, because it will be

Readable code, a real README, documented environment setup, no undocumented deploy ritual that lives in my head. Your first engineering hire should be productive in days. This costs me a little extra care during the build and saves you weeks later.

Scope

What a v1 looks like here, specifically

Screen counts are a starting point, not a quote. The real number comes out of the scoping week, and it is almost always lower than the brief that walked in.

5 to 10 screens

Typical pre-seed v1, scoped down from the original brief in week one

Goes in v1

Auth and the single core workflow that answers your question
Whatever instrumentation proves the thing actually happened
A stack any competent engineer can pick up quickly
Clean IP assignment and a genuinely readable handover
Deployed, live, and in front of real users

Deliberately deferred

Admin panels before there is anything to administer
Settings and preferences nobody has asked for
Native mobile before the web version has validated the idea
Anything scoped for a scale you have not reached

What you're actually buying

Scoping, the build, and launch

Week 0

Scoping: every screen counted and priced

We go through everything you think the MVP needs, screen by screen, and cut it down to what actually has to exist to test the thing you're testing. Every remaining screen gets counted and priced at $80, across whichever platform it needs — mobile, web, desktop, or Linux. You leave with a scope doc and a total, not an estimate that moves once we start.

The build

Design and development, with you seeing it every week

My Panicle Tech design and engineering team builds it, screen by screen; I own the architecture, the code review, and the calls that are expensive to get wrong. You get a working build to look at every week, not a status update. If a screen turns out to need more than was scoped once it's half-built, that gets priced honestly before it's fully built, never absorbed silently.

Launch

Handover, and two weeks of me still answering the phone

Deployed, monitored, and documented well enough that the next engineer who touches it isn't guessing. Two weeks of post-launch support are included, because the bugs that matter are the ones your first real users find, not the ones QA finds.

Why me, for this market specifically

Experience, not a capabilities deck

Plenty of teams can build screens. Fewer have shipped at Pre-seed & seed specifically, been wrong about it, and had to fix it with their own name on the commit. Here's what I'm bringing.

Six times a technical co-founder, so I have made these calls with my own money at stake
MVPs shipped from blank repo to live users in 8–12 weeks
10+ years building, across US, UAE, and India markets
I will tell you when you do not need to build yet, and that honesty is the point

Pricing

from $80 a screen. Counted up front.

Design and build, screen by screen, across mobile, web, desktop, and Linux. My Panicle Tech team designs and builds it; I own the architecture and the technical decisions as advisor on the project. Added screens are priced at the same rate, never renegotiated after the fact.

MVP Design & Development

from $80

per screen

Scoping week: every screen counted and priced up front
UI/UX design and full-stack development, screen by screen
Built by my Panicle Tech design and engineering team
I own the architecture, code review, and technical direction
Mobile, web, desktop, and Linux apps, whichever the product needs
Deployment, monitoring, and handover documentation
Two weeks of post-launch support
Added screens priced at the same per-screen rate, never renegotiated after the fact
Option to continue on a fractional retainer

Full pricing and the scoping process →

Questions

Pre-seed & seed, specifically

We have very little runway. What is the smallest real thing?

Usually five or six screens, and often less than founders expect. On the scoping call I will give you a straight number and, if I think you should spend the money on customers instead of code, I will say that too. I have told founders not to build before now.

Can we raise on this MVP?

Founders have. What moves an investor is evidence the question got answered, not screen count. A tight MVP with real usage data is a far better story than a broad one with none, which is another reason I push the scope down.

What if we want changes mid-build?

Added screens are priced at the same rate, never renegotiated after the fact. That is deliberate, because mid-build repricing is where founders get hurt. Small changes within an already-scoped screen are just part of the work.

Do we need a fractional CTO as well?

Not during the build; I am doing that job. Afterwards it depends on whether you are hiring engineers who need technical leadership. Many founders do the MVP first and move to a fractional arrangement once there is a team, but it is a separate decision.

More general questions about pricing, timeline, and what's included are answered on the main MVP development page.

Earned, Not Claimed

What the founders and teams I build with say

I had the pleasure of working with Kunal while building out my MVP and I have to say that it was pleasure to both interact and work with him and his team. As a first time founder, I had a lot of self doubt and internal ruptures, however Kunal's calm, never-say-die and never-panic attitude often helped bring me back to center. I can't vouch for him enough.

Anand Tahiliani

Founder, Debaser Technologies

I had the pleasure of working closely with Kunal during my time as a Product Manager at DhunGuru. As our CTO, Kunal and his team at Panicle Tech worked closely with me across the entire product journey, from building and launching our mobile apps to developing and maintaining our web platforms. His technical expertise, ownership, and willingness to collaborate made a real difference, and I genuinely enjoyed working with him throughout the journey.

Anirudh Joshi

Product Manager, DhunGuru

Kunal helped us architect Mosler's core platform, connecting smart lock hardware, our cloud dashboard, and PMS integrations into one reliable system. The foundation he helped design in those early days still scales with us today.

Pranav Kapoor

Co-Founder, Mosler

If you need more than a build

Already have a product, not just an MVP?