For funded startups
Three to six months to hire is not a plan. It is a delay dressed up as one.
After a round closes, the window between funding and the first real product milestone is narrow, and every sprint run understaffed is a sprint you do not get back. Here is what the alternative actually costs — on the market’s numbers, not ours.
Your number, not a case study
What is that open seat costing you?
Time to hire and empty-seat cost: Cadence, How long does it take to hire a software engineer, 2026. Cost per hire: Riem.ai, Cost per hire: software engineer, 2026. Empty-seat cost is lost shipping velocity, not the recruiter’s fee. Median search for this role is 60–90 days to a signed offer; notice adds 2–4 weeks after that.
These are the market’s numbers, not ours, and none of them is a quote. What we charge depends on the role and the engagement, and we put it in writing before anything starts.
Why this is the number that matters
A hiring decision is a runway decision.
Engineering is 40–50% of a startup’s burn, so a hiring decision is a runway decision. The part founders usually under-count is not the salary or the recruiter’s fee — it is the weeks the seat stays empty while the process runs, and the notice period that lands on top of a signed offer.
Source: CB Insights, via Second Talent remote engineering cost comparison, 2026.
If the need is the MVP, not the headcount
Scope clarity buys more weeks than any framework.
A well-scoped MVP runs 6–8 weeks for a single-flow product, 10–16 for a standard SaaS build, and 16–24 for a marketplace or anything regulated. The single biggest lever on that timeline is scope clarity at kickoff — it buys more calendar weeks than any framework choice ever will, which is why we scope before we quote.
Source: YuSMP Group, How long does it take to build an MVP, 2026.
What we are not going to tell you
That we have built for companies we have not.
This site carries no client logos and no case studies, because no client has yet agreed to be named — and a borrowed logo is worth less than an honest page. Every figure above is third-party and cited, so you can check it rather than take our word for it. When there is real work to point at, it will appear here with the client’s permission and not before.
Tell us what you are building