How we work
We invest design into startups.
Equity up front. Retainer when it's earned. A fractional design partner embedded in your team.
Three pieces. One partnership.
Equity up front
We take a small equity stake instead of full cash fees. We win when you win — and we're on the cap table to prove it.
Retainer when it's earned
A monthly retainer is agreed on day one — and activates the moment you raise funding or start generating meaningful revenue.
Fractional design lead
Tayler embeds as your fractional Head of Design / Product for 3–12 months. One senior partner, not a pod of juniors.
Founders at the scrappiest stage of the journey.
Four steps from first email to handoff.
Pitch us
Send us your deck, your repo, your wireframes — whatever you've got. We read everything.
Two-week fit sprint
We run a paid, bounded sprint to prove the partnership works before anyone signs a long-term deal.
Embed
We work as the fractional design/product lead for 3–12 months — shipping product, brand, and fundraising materials alongside the founders.
Handoff or keep going
When you hit funding or revenue, the retainer activates. If you've outgrown us, we hand off to your first in-house design hire.
It depends on stage and scope. We aim for a fair stake that reflects the real value we're adding — typically less than what a full-time hire would cost in options, more than a one-off contract.
When you raise a funding round or start generating meaningful revenue. We keep the threshold deliberately flexible so we can agree what makes sense for your company.
Then we keep the equity and part as friends. The whole point of the model is that you don't have to pay us cash you don't have.
3–12 months typically. Long enough to ship something meaningful, short enough that we're not a permanent dependency.
Yes. If the equity model doesn't fit your cap table or stage, we can do a straight retainer. But most founders at this stage find the equity model more practical.