Funded teams
MVP Development for Series A Companies
At Series A you have an engineering team, so hiring an outside build is rarely about capacity you lack. It is about not derailing a roadmap. Pulling your senior engineers onto a speculative second product costs more than the build does.
The work I do here looks different from a pre-seed MVP. There is an existing system, existing conventions, and an existing team who will inherit whatever I write. It has to arrive looking like their code, not like a contractor passed through.
How the build runs
What is different about building for a funded team
Your core team stays on the roadmap
The usual reason a funded company brings me in. A new product line is validated in parallel without your senior engineers context-switching away from the thing that is currently paying the bills. That protected focus is generally worth more than the cost of the build.
I match your conventions rather than importing mine
Your stack, your linting, your CI, your review process, your patterns. I read the codebase during the scoping week and write code that looks like it belongs. A new product line that arrives in an unfamiliar framework becomes a maintenance burden the moment I leave.
The integration boundary is defined before any code
Whether this shares your auth, your database, and your deploy pipeline, or stands alone with a clean seam. Getting this wrong in either direction is expensive: too coupled and it slows your core product, too separate and you maintain two of everything. It is a scoping-week decision made explicitly.
Handover is planned from the start, not at the end
A named engineer on your side, documentation written as we go, and a walkthrough before I am done. I have seen enough contractor handovers to know that leaving it until the last week produces a team that inherits something they do not understand.
Scope discipline still applies, and it is harder here
Funded teams scope larger because the money is there. The discipline that makes a pre-seed MVP good makes a Series A one good too. I will still push to cut the screens that answer no question, even when you can comfortably afford them.
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.
10 to 20 screens
Typical new product line for a funded team, scoped in the first week
Goes in v1
- The new product line built end to end in your existing stack
- An explicitly chosen integration boundary with the core product
- Tests and CI matching whatever your team already runs
- Documentation written during the build, not after it
- A structured handover to a named engineer on your side
Deliberately deferred
- Migrating or refactoring the core product; that is a different engagement
- Internal tooling your team is better placed to build
- Anything requiring context only your existing engineers have
- Scale work before the new line has users
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 Series A specifically, been wrong about it, and had to fix it with their own name on the commit. Here's what I'm bringing.
- 10+ years full-stack, so I read an unfamiliar codebase quickly
- Six ventures built 0 to 1 across US, UAE, and India markets
- M.Tech in Cybersecurity, NIT Kurukshetra, with 30+ academic citations
- Experienced at handing work to an in-house team that has to own it
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
Questions
Series A, specifically
Why hire out when we have engineers?
Usually to protect their focus. A speculative second product pulls senior people off the roadmap that is currently generating revenue, and the switching cost is larger than it looks. Bringing in an outside build keeps both moving.
Will your code fit our standards?
That is the requirement, not a hope. I read your codebase in the scoping week and adopt your conventions, linting, CI, and review process. If your team would not merge it, I have not finished.
Can our engineers work alongside you?
Yes, and it usually improves the handover. Some teams assign one engineer part-time to stay close to the work. Others prefer a clean separation and a structured handover at the end. Both work, and we decide which during scoping.
What if we want ongoing help after launch?
The build is a defined one-time engagement. Some funded teams then bring me on fractionally for technical leadership on the new line, but that is a separate conversation and nothing about the build depends on it.
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?
Bridge engagement
Fractional CTO for Series A Startups
For Series A teams that already have a product and need ongoing technical leadership, not a single per-screen build.
See the Fractional CTO page for Series A →
Building at Series A? Let's scope it.
Thirty minutes. Tell me what you're building, and I'll give you a straight read on the screen count and the total before anything gets built.
Book a 30-min callSend me a message