I price the build at what an agency would genuinely charge — openly, and before I estimate my own time.
You don't pay that in cash. It's recovered from an agreed share of your revenue until it's square, and then that stops. If there's no revenue, you owe nothing.
After that I take a royalty — low single digits of topline. That's the part that lasts.
I don't take equity. You own it, you make every call, there's no board seat and no cap table. The only thing between us is a percentage.
Which is why I'll build it fast, build it properly, and hand you as much of what I've already built as I can — I only get paid out of what you earn.
I only win if the product does well and revenue actually lands. That makes a yes expensive for me to give, so I don't give many. Most conversations end with me saying I don't think this one works — and that's a normal outcome, not a failure.
I also take on two or three builds at a time. Not as a scarcity line — it's the actual capacity of a small team that was deliberately scaled back down from around twenty-five people.
And in most cases I'm betting on the person, not the idea. Ideas move. The person carrying it is the biggest single lever on whether any of this works, and it's the thing I'm actually assessing.
There's no discovery script and nothing held back for a second call. We work on the actual problem, openly, and see whether there's a way to build this thing that stands up.
Open brainstorming. We take the thing apart and try to work out how it could actually be built and sold. You'll get real opinions, including the unwelcome ones.
Usually some research, sometimes a small proof of concept. Real work, on my time, before anybody has committed to anything.
If — and only if — there's a genuinely sharp plan at the end of that, I'll put a number and a structure in front of you. Most of the time we never get here.
Payments, auth, hosting, data, email, billing, audit trails — built once, running in production, paid for. Your domain expertise is the part that doesn't exist yet, and it's the only part worth building from scratch. That's the whole reason this is economic for both of us.
Same chassis underneath all of them. Different 10% on top.
SEE THE WORK →How the build gets priced, how recovery works and when it ends, the royalty band and what it's benchmarked against, the terms that aren't negotiable, and one fully worked example. No form, no email gate — it's just the next page.
READ THE FULL METHOD →What it is, where it's stuck, and what you've already spent trying to get it built. I'll tell you honestly what I think — including if I think you shouldn't build it, or shouldn't build it with me.
Write to me if you'd rather think on paper first. Book a time if you'd rather just talk. Neither one commits you to anything.
[email protected] · PERTH, AUSTRALIA
