For pre-seed startups
Building fast, with nobody deciding what not to build.
Pre-seed teams are rarely short on velocity. Two or three people are shipping constantly. What is usually missing is anyone whose job is to say what is out of scope, and so the product grows in every direction at once and the story you can tell an investor gets fuzzier each month rather than sharper.
There is also a clock. The seed round is a narrative built on evidence, and the evidence has to be gathered on purpose. Teams that reach seed comfortably tend to have picked one wedge, gone deep on it, and can say precisely what they learned. Teams that struggle have built five half-features and a demo that shows all of them.
Sound Familiar?
This is for you if
The Work
What changes.
One wedge, chosen on purpose
We pick the narrow entry point you can win outright, and write down what you are explicitly not doing yet. The list of nos is the part most teams skip and the part that makes the yes credible.
A build sequence tied to what you need to learn
Each block of work gets attached to a question it answers. That is what turns shipping into evidence, and evidence into the round.
A story that holds up in a partner meeting
Not a narrative laid over whatever you happened to build, but a direction chosen so the honest version of it is compelling.
Engagements
What usually fits at this stage
Lightest first. Starting small is a real option, not a lesser one.
1–2 Weeks, Fixed Scope
Product Teardown
A short, fixed-scope look at your idea or early product before you commit real money to building it.
Learn moreMonthly, A Few Hours
Product Advisor Retainer
A few hours a month of senior product input on a standing cadence, without a hire or a long contract.
Learn more8-Week Engagement
Product Strategy Sprint
A focused eight weeks that ends in a prioritized twelve-month roadmap your team can execute.
Learn moreWhen this is the wrong page
If you have twenty engineers and a VP of Product already, the fit here is different. The Series A and growth pages are the better read.
FAQ
Questions at this stage
Can we afford this pre-seed?
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The engagements sized for this stage are the Product Teardown, which is fixed-scope and measured in weeks, and the monthly advisor retainer, which is a few hours a month. Neither assumes a funded product org. The heavier engagements exist for later and there is no pressure to grow into them.
We have technical founders. Do we need product help?
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Strong technical founders build the thing right. The gap that shows up pre-seed is usually deciding which thing, and holding that decision when the next interesting idea arrives. That is a different muscle from engineering, and it is the one this work covers.
Will this help us raise?
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Indirectly, and that is the honest framing. Nobody can manufacture a round. What this work does is make sure the thing you spend the next six months building produces evidence worth talking about, which is what the round actually rests on.
How is this different from what our investors already give us?
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Investor advice is broad, occasional, and drawn from pattern-matching across a portfolio. This is hands-on and specific: someone in your product decisions weekly or monthly, who has shipped this kind of thing before and is accountable to the outcome rather than to the portfolio.
More on scoping, pricing, and how engagements run on the full FAQ.
Other Stages
Not quite where you are?
Get started
Start with a conversation.
Thirty minutes, no deck. You describe what is stuck and the call ends with a recommendation, including when that recommendation is to wait.