Primary market
MVP Development for US Startups
Most of the founders I build MVPs for are American, and I run the build from India with my Panicle Tech team. I would rather say that here than have you find it out on the scoping call: the logistics of a distributed build were solved a long time ago, and the price you are seeing ($80 a screen) is the same price whether the team is next door or twelve time zones away.
What follows is the practical version of the questions US founders ask before they scope a build: whose hours does the team keep, who owns the code, how does the money move, and what happens if the app needs to survive an enterprise security review a year from now.
How this actually works
What US founders ask before they scope
Standups happen in your morning, not at a compromise hour
I hold a standing overlap with Eastern and Pacific working hours for the weekly build reviews, so you are seeing working software and asking questions inside your own working day, not waiting overnight for an update.
IP assignment is explicit, from the first commit
Everything my team builds is yours the moment it is written, spelled out in the scoping agreement before a line of code exists. Founders who have been burned by an offshore shop holding code over a final invoice ask about this first, and they are right to.
Invoiced in USD, on a US-standard scope-of-work
W-8BEN on file, a document that lists every screen and its price, and no discovery-call theatre designed to find out what you can afford. The total is the screen count times $80, and that is the number on the invoice.
AI-heavy MVPs get priced for the AI, not bolted on after
If the product has a model in the loop, that gets scoped as its own screens and integration work at the same rate, not treated as a footnote. I have run inference-cost problems into the ground on my own venture, ColadAI; I am not guessing at what an LLM feature actually costs to run.
The build survives your first security questionnaire
US enterprise buyers eventually ask about auth, data handling, and access control. I do not build SOC 2 into an MVP (that is the wrong stage to spend on it), but I do not make decisions that need rearchitecting the day a real customer asks a hard question either.
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 for US specifically, been wrong about it, and had to fix it with their own name on the commit. Here's what I'm bringing.
- Most current MVP clients are US-based founders
- SYNCHFIT built and launched for the US market
- USD invoicing, US-standard scope-of-work agreements, W-8BEN on file
- AI/ML integration priced and scoped, not treated as an afterthought
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
US founders, specifically
Does the time difference slow the build down?
No, because the weekly review sits inside the overlap with US hours, which is where the decisions that need your input actually happen. The rest of the build runs on the offset, which if anything speeds things up: you get a working build waiting for you in the morning instead of a status email.
Who owns the code once it is built?
You do, completely, from the first commit. That is written into the scope-of-work before the build starts, not negotiated at the end. This should never be ambiguous, and I have heard enough stories from founders who got burned by an agency that treated the source code as leverage.
Can this survive due diligence if we raise a round?
It is built by a named senior engineer who owns the architecture, not an anonymous contractor pool, and every decision on the AI/ML layer and data handling gets made deliberately rather than defaulted into. That is a materially better starting position for diligence than most MVPs, though it is not a substitute for the hardening work that comes after the product is proven.
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?
Primary market
Fractional CTO for US Startups
For US teams that already have a product and need ongoing technical leadership, not a single per-screen build.
See the Fractional CTO page for US →Related
Other markets I build for
Building for US? 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