A first product. Without a technical co-founder.
A fixed-price sprint for solo founders with a software idea and no one to build it. One workflow, built properly, in 5–10 days, when the idea fits. Run by one person, working directly with you.
£950
Blueprint, 24–48h
£9,950
10-day Sprint, all-in
5–10 days
From scope-lock to live
0% equity
Ever
Two Sprints per month. The £950 Blueprint counts toward the £9,950 Sprint price if you proceed within 30 days.
A note before you scroll further
I say no to most ideas that arrive here. The Sprint only works for a specific shape of problem and a specific kind of founder. The whole site is structured to help you find out, in five minutes, whether yours is one of them.
The shape, in three lines: one founder, one core workflow, one useful outcome.
The reason most first products take a year
Every other route is broken in a different way. The result is the same: months gone, money gone, idea still untested.
An agency takes a quarter and a five-figure cheque
And spends the first six weeks in discovery before anyone touches a keyboard. By the time they ship, the original idea has drifted and the budget has too.
A freelancer needs a brief you can't write
You haven't decided what's in v1, what gets cut, or which trade-offs are sane. The brief is the work, and it's the part you don't yet know how to do.
No-code can mock the screens, not run the workflow
Fine for a prototype. Fragile for anything you'd charge real money for. The ceiling shows up the moment you grow.
A technical co-founder costs equity and a year
Six months of dating, three months of trial work, and a permanent slice of the cap table. For a first product that may not survive contact with users.
The reframe
You don't need the whole product yet. You need the first useful workflow.
The work that breaks early founders isn't writing code, hiring developers, or picking a stack. It's the translation from messy idea to buildable scope. Most founders try to build the company instead of the first proof. The Sprint reverses that. I cut the idea down to one workflow that one user does once, build that properly, and put it in front of real people. Everything else can wait until you have evidence.
- One primary user. The person whose problem is most painful, not “everyone”.
- One core workflow. The thing they do that you'd charge for.
- One useful outcome. Something they would screenshot and send to a colleague.
Start here · £950
The Blueprint protects you from the wrong build.
Two days of senior judgement applied to your idea, in writing. Should this be built now? What's the smallest version worth building? What stack, what scope, what's explicitly out? You leave with the document and a fixed-price Sprint proposal, or with permission to walk.
A real Blueprint covers, in order:
- § 1 Target user and the problem they have today, in one sentence each.
- § 2 The single end-to-end sequence that user does, start to finish.
- § 3 What's in v1, what's on the next-step backlog, with reasoning for each call.
- § 4 The handful of data objects the system actually needs.
- § 5 Stack, hosting, integrations, and the trade-offs behind each choice.
- § 6 The build / no-build call: proceed, validate first, or not a fit, with reasoning.
The speed isn't magic
I'm not building from scratch each time.
The Sprint runs on a small library of reusable architectures and patterns I've assembled over years of doing this work. Authentication, billing, admin, common workflows, AWS deployment, observability: none of those start from a blank page. The novel part of your product is the workflow that makes it yours. Everything around it is well-trodden ground.
Reusing the well-trodden ground is what creates the speed, and what removes the risk of v1 surprises. The patterns have been tested in real products before yours; you don't pay for me to learn them on your sprint.
What's reusable, what's bespoke
Reused
- AWS infrastructure (compute, database, storage, CDN)
- Auth and account management
- Billing via Stripe
- Admin scaffolding
- Transactional email
- CI/CD and observability
- Backup and rollback patterns
Bespoke
- Your core workflow
- Your data model
- Your one major integration (if included)
- Your domain rules and copy
- Your branding choices applied to a restrained design system
Hosted on AWS. Code in a repository you own. No proprietary glue you can't take elsewhere.
The kind of idea this works for
Narrow ideas with one user, one workflow, and an obvious first version. If yours sounds like one of these, or a sibling of one, it probably fits.
Paid membership platform
Sign up, pay, access content. A clean v1.
Booking or scheduling tool
Calendar in, confirmed slot out. Niche enough to outrun the giants.
Client portal
Login, files, status, comments. Bread-and-butter SaaS.
Assessment / report generator
Inputs go in, structured PDF or page comes out. Productised consulting.
Niche SaaS dashboard
One audience, one job, one screen they live on.
Document generation workflow
Templates, variables, branded output. Boring; lucrative when the niche is right.
The honest comparison
The Sprint isn't the cheapest option. It's the one with the smallest gap between price and outcome for a non-technical founder.
| Feature | ibuildmvps Sprint Recommended | Agency MVP | Freelancer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Will say “don't build yet” | |||
| Scope-cutting included | |||
| Fixed price (not estimate) | |||
| Live in 5–10 days | |||
| Real source code you own | |||
| Typical price for v1 | £5,950–£14,950 | £25k–£60k+ | Variable |
Three ways to start
Most founders begin with the Blueprint. If the idea fits, the Sprint follows.
MVP Blueprint
Decide whether to build. 24–48 hours.
- Fit, scope, stack, fixed-price proposal
- One of three answers: build, validate, walk
- Credited to the Sprint if you proceed
10-Day Sprint
Live in 5–10 working days. Blueprint price counted toward total.
- Blueprint included; scope locked before code
- Core workflow, auth, basic admin
- Payments or one major integration
- Deploy, handover, code you own
Founder MVP Plus
Same model, more depth.
- Everything in the 10-Day Sprint
- Roles, richer admin, expanded testing
- One significant integration
After launch
£3,950
Iteration Sprint, 5 days
The first version is the start, not the finish.
Real users will tell you something the Blueprint couldn't. Most founders book an Iteration Sprint within sixty days of going live: tweaks driven by user feedback, the next obvious workflow, the small section that turned out to matter. Same model. Fixed price. Five days.
See how the Iteration fits the modelHonest note
No testimonials. Yet.
This is a new service. I could fabricate quotes from “Marcus, indie founder” and slot in stock photos. Most sites at this stage do. Instead, the trust signal I offer is the Blueprint itself: £950 for two days of senior technical and product judgement, in writing, before any build money is on the table. If the document doesn't earn the rest of your trust, walk. The whole offer is built around that being a fair test.
Read about the BlueprintWhat founders ask first
The honest answers, before you fill in any form.
Is this just a fast agency?
No. An agency sells process: discovery, design, build, scaling. The Sprint sells judgement and constraint. I turn down ideas that don't fit the model. I don't pad scope. I don't run a six-week discovery before anyone writes code. If your idea fits, the first useful version is live in days. If it doesn't, the Blueprint will say so before you spend the build money.
What if my idea isn't a fit?
Then you keep the Blueprint, you don't pay for a build, and you walk away with a clearer picture of what to do next: more validation, a smaller test, or a different provider. Saying “don't build yet” is part of the service, not a failure of it.
Why a sprint and not a longer project?
Because the work that wastes founder money happens in the first two weeks of a long project, not the last two. A focused sprint forces the conversation everyone usually avoids: what is the smallest useful version that produces evidence? Once that is built and in front of users, you have something real to react to. Building anything bigger before that is a guess.
Do you take equity?
No. The whole point is fixed-price work that doesn't put your cap table at risk. If you want a co-founder, find one. If you want the first build done now, this is what I do.
What does “working first product” actually mean?
Deployed. Database-backed where it needs to be. Usable end-to-end by an early user. Limited enough to ship in days, structured enough to keep building on. The smallest version of your idea that produces evidence; not a polished SaaS, not a throwaway prototype.
Who does the work?
Me. One senior technical operator with a long career behind a co-founder-shaped role, working alongside a tightly-supervised AI coding stack. No team, no junior staff, no offshore relay. You'll meet me during the Blueprint, and I'll do the build. The site is intentionally low-key on personal branding because the offer is the offer; I'd rather you judge me on the Blueprint than on a LinkedIn headline.
See whether your idea fits the Sprint.
Five-minute Fit Check. Written answer back within two working days. No call, no pitch, no obligation. Only a yes, a no, or a useful nudge.
Start the Fit Check