No revenue yet
Pre-revenue is not the same as having no money.
Most founders we meet have not made a pound yet. That tells us almost nothing on its own. What matters is which of four situations you are actually in — and one of them is the one where we tell you no.
Four situations
Which of these four is you?
| Where you are | Money | What we’d offer | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Funded | Yes — you have raised | Build + Run, or Partner | SEIS alone put £276m into 2,430 UK companies in 2024–25 — a mean of about £114,000 each. A build and a Run agreement fit inside that comfortably. |
| Bootstrapping with income | Monthly, not a lump sum | The ladder — discovery, then a prototype, then the build in phases | Salary or consultancy income sustains a monthly figure, not a single large invoice. We shrink the decision rather than discount the work. |
| Raising now | Not yet, but the raise is credible | Paid discovery now. The build contracted, conditional on the raise closing. | We do not start build work before the money lands. The quote lasts 90 days; the start date is tied to funds clearing. |
| No money, no raise, no income | No | We will say so — or sell you discovery only | No commercial structure fixes this. Pretending otherwise means funding your company rather than building it — and a discovery that tells you honestly what it would cost is still a real service. |
We publish the fourth row on purpose. A studio that takes anyone’s money is a studio with no opinion — and you would find that out in month four instead of on the first call.
The ladder
Three small decisions instead of one big one
01 · £2,500 · one week
Discovery
Written scope, technical approach, milestone plan, a costed estimate and the full ongoing cost picture. Credited in full against the build if you go ahead within 90 days, so for anyone who proceeds it costs nothing in the end.
The part that matters if you haven’t raised
It is also fundraising material. A costed technical plan and a delivery roadmap is something you can put in front of an investor. That reframes £2,500 from a cost into a step towards the raise.
02 · £7,500–£12,000 · 2–3 weeks
Prototype
A working thing you can show an investor or a first customer.
This is the step that unlocks everything for an unfunded founder. A founder with a working prototype raises on far better terms than one with a deck. We are not waiting for you to get funded — this is part of how you get funded.
03 · £30,000–£48,000 · 8–12 weeks
MVP build
The real product, billed on milestones. Our £10,000 minimum applies here, not to discovery or prototypes — so the first two rungs are open to you whatever your budget.
What we won’t do
Four things, and we would rather you heard them now
- We will not defer our fees against a raise that has not closed. That is lending, not investing, and we would have no security for it.
- We will not take equity instead of cash from a founder with no cash at all. Equity is a discount on cash, not a replacement for it — otherwise we carry 100% of the risk for a company that has not proved it can raise a penny.
- We will not start build work on a promise that money is coming. We will contract it, date it, and start when funds clear.
- We will not discount to fit a budget. We will shrink the scope instead. A smaller thing delivered properly beats a big thing delivered at a loss, and it leaves room for phase two.
Not sure which row you’re in?
Tell us where the money is coming from and when. We will tell you which of the four you are in and what that means, and it usually takes about twenty minutes.