i called seven agencies when i was pre-seed.
six of them sent me a proposal for more than $100,000.
the seventh didn't return my email. i had $18,000 in savings and an idea i'd been working on for eight months. i wasn't a bad prospect — i was just at a stage most agencies aren't built for.
if you're pre-seed and trying to find a development agency that understands your actual constraints — budget, timeline, uncertainty, the real possibility you might pivot — this list is for that.
what "pre-seed" means for a development engagement
pre-seed isn't just a funding stage. it's a set of constraints that changes what a good development engagement looks like.
budget is real. you probably have less than $50,000 to spend on your first product, and spending most of it on development is a risk you need to think hard about. timeline is real. you need to ship, learn, and potentially pivot faster than a company with 18 months of runway. scope uncertainty is real — what you think you're building at week one often isn't exactly what you need at week six, and a rigid engagement structure punishes that.
a good agency for pre-seed understands all three of these things without you having to explain them. a bad fit agency will give you a $150,000 proposal and a 6-month timeline and call it "exactly what you need."
DreamLaunch
DreamLaunch is built specifically for the pre-seed and early-stage constraint set. the launch sprint is fixed-scope, fixed-price — starting at $6,500 — and ships in 4–6 weeks. that price point and timeline exist because we've designed the engagement around what founders at this stage actually need: a production-ready v1 they can put in front of users fast, not a comprehensive platform they'll spend months spec'ing out.
the ai-native workflow (cursor, claude, and similar tools used by the engineering team) is how we make the economics work. we ship faster than traditional development without generating throwaway code. the output is maintainable and extensible — not a prototype you'll rebuild in six months.
DreamLaunch works best for non-technical founders who need a team to own the product execution from design to launch. full pricing and what's included here.
Lemon.io
lemon.io places vetted developers with early-stage startups, typically at lower cost than traditional agencies. they understand the startup context — urgency, lean budgets, need to move fast — and their matching process is faster than most talent networks.
the tradeoff: you're hiring a developer, not a team with a product process. if you know what you're building and can manage the engagement yourself, lemon.io is a strong option. if you need someone to own scope decisions, design, and product thinking alongside development — it's not a fit.
Brainvire
brainvire is a US-based agency with offshore delivery teams. they work at multiple price points including early-stage and have experience across mobile, web, and ai integration projects. the cost-efficiency of their delivery model makes them accessible at pre-seed budgets for certain types of projects.
the honest caveat: quality and communication consistency can vary in offshore agency models. asking for references from pre-seed founders specifically — not their full client list — is worth doing before you sign.
specialist AI integration studios
a growing number of smaller studios (often 3–8 person teams) specialise specifically in ai-native product development — building products with openai, claude, or custom model integrations at the core. for founders building ai-first products, these studios often have more relevant experience than larger generalist agencies.
they're harder to find through standard searches — look in founder communities, YC forums, and referrals from other ai-first founders. the portfolio review is the most reliable filter: have they shipped ai products that non-technical users actually use, or just demos that work in ideal conditions?
the pre-seed agency red flags
a few things that should send you elsewhere, regardless of the agency's reputation.
any proposal over $80,000 for a v1 mvp without a clear explanation of why the scope requires that. hourly billing with no fixed ceiling — at pre-seed, open-ended timelines are genuinely dangerous. proposals that don't show you comparable products they've shipped. and any agency that doesn't ask hard questions about what you actually need in a v1 — the ones who listen before they propose are worth more than the ones who write a proposal before they've understood your product.
how to evaluate quickly
the fastest filter for pre-seed: ask for the last two or three products they shipped in 6–8 weeks at under $30,000. if they don't have examples that fit, they probably aren't optimised for your stage — even if they say they work with early-stage companies.
the second filter: how do they handle scope changes? at pre-seed, you will need to adjust scope. how an agency responds to that question tells you a lot about whether the engagement will be collaborative or contentious when things change (and they will).
if you want to talk through whether we're the right fit for your stage and product — we're direct about that. sometimes we refer founders elsewhere when we're not the right match. it's more useful to both parties than trying to make every engagement work.
what's the one thing your v1 needs to do to prove the idea?
