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A remote software agency that lets startup founders fund MVP development with a mix of cash and future equity.
10 customers since launch · one customer left · break-even
Sell ongoing product development, not a disposable build: SeriesCode kept every contract recurring and used a 50/50 cash-equity structure to reach founders short on cash.
Fewer bars = easier, cheaper, or faster for an AI-assisted solo builder. Editorial judgments based on the case details.
John Steele launched the parent company Auxiliary Teams in 2016 and rolled SeriesCode out in 2019 as a focused offer for startups that needed software but could not comfortably fund a traditional agency. The company builds SaaS products for founders rather than selling a software product of its own. Its pricing makes the wedge clear: a published $84 hourly rate can become $42 in cash when the customer accepts a 50/50 cash-equity split. A basic Chrome application is roughly $25K, while a SaaS web-app MVP aimed at a first dollar can be about $50K over 90 days, with half payable in cash. By December 2019, the company had 28 people worldwide, 10 customers since launch, $85K in monthly recurring revenue, and operations around break-even. The unusual financing layer is a SAFE balance with a 20% discount and no cap or interest, giving founders a way to preserve cash while SeriesCode participates if a later financing or sale creates liquidity.
SeriesCode's first-customer channel was a concentrated startup network rather than broad advertising. Steele mentioned founder-heavy places such as Techstars, the Rockies Venture Club, and similar events where people openly discuss the cost of turning an idea into an MVP.
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Data credibility: Founder interview; the $85K MRR, customer count, team size, growth, and break-even claim are self-reported and unaudited. The agency's customer and financing examples were described by John Steele, not independently verified.
For SeriesCode, the first dollar should arrive when a startup pays to move a narrowly defined MVP from idea to usable product. The agency's own framing is practical: specify the smallest release that can produce revenue, price that release, and make the cash requirement survivable.
The SeriesCode flywheel came from making the initial build only the first chapter of an ongoing product relationship. Its contracts were recurring statements of work, so the same team could handle maintenance, bug fixes, and feature releases after the MVP shipped.
A blended cash-and-equity agency has to survive the period before any client raises a round or produces a liquidity event.
SeriesCode is a productized software-development service for founders who need a functioning SaaS product and ongoing engineering capacity. The delivery unit is a team leader, usually a front-end developer, and a back-end developer. The team captain combines architecture, project management, and client communication, which makes that role the scarce operating component. The company is remote-first, with 28 people spread around the world and a Denver base. It also handles products across very different domains, including hotel internet authentication and a dating app connecting people to nonprofit volunteer adventures. The useful product boundary is therefore not a particular codebase. It is a repeatable way to turn a founder's rough idea into a maintained product without forcing the founder to hire a complete internal engineering team.
The money model combines hourly software work, recurring maintenance, and a financing instrument. The published rate is $84 per hour. A standard 50/50 arrangement reduces the immediate cash portion to $42 per hour, with the remainder accumulating on a SAFE-like instrument. That balance carries a 20% discount and no interest or cap. The client keeps ownership of the company while SeriesCode earns a potential future participation if a financing round or sale occurs. The recurring contract is more important than the initial MVP invoice: all current contracts were described as ongoing work until the customer ends them, and December revenue was $85K MRR with no one-time revenue in the mix. The model rewards careful customer selection because equity can be worthless, while the cash side pays people now. The agency can also use a more equity-heavy bridge for a company it has vetted, but that is a judgment call, not the default price.
The delivery stack mentioned in the interview includes Amazon Web Services for operating the software and Upwork-style platforms as a recruiting and payment vehicle. SeriesCode did not post customer projects there; it posted a paid programming test, then brought successful applicants into its own systems. The team had about 20 engineers inside a 28-person worldwide workforce. A hiring funnel of 40 applicants to one person and a normal time of one or two weeks for developers gave the agency a repeatable supply process, although finding capable team captains remained slower. The company treated contractors like full-time employees and guaranteed a workload, which supports retention but creates a fixed delivery obligation. At $85K MRR and around break-even, the economics were disciplined rather than highly leveraged. An operator copying this model should model payroll, bench time, payment processing, client pauses, and the cost of a captain before promising equity terms. Revenue can grow quickly; capacity and people quality are the real margins constraint.
Copy the narrow promise, the recurring statement of work, and the transparent cash-versus-equity choice. Founders understand a team that owns delivery better than an abstract promise to build anything. Make the first release small enough to reach a real customer, then sell the ongoing engineering relationship before the launch date. Copy the applicant test as a quality filter, but keep it paid and job-relevant so the funnel respects candidates. Change the financing mechanics only with specialist legal advice; an uncapped SAFE, discount, and possible sale conversion create obligations that a small agency should understand precisely. Do not copy the 28-person structure at the beginning. Start with one captain and a small bench, prove that a narrow customer segment renews, and expand only when delivery quality is stable. The most portable insight is commercial: a service becomes more defensible when the client needs the same team after the first build.
The largest risk is the team-captain bottleneck. Every few new clients require another person who can architect the product, manage the project, and maintain founder trust; that role is harder to source than an engineer. Equity-heavy contracts add a second risk because a customer can keep operating without raising a round, leaving the agency with work that was underpaid in cash and may never convert. A startup customer can also pause payments or fail before the product reaches demand, while the agency still carries people costs. The model is labor-intensive, so it does not scale like SaaS revenue and can be squeezed by low-cost contractors or larger development firms. Keep the cash floor explicit, separate high-conviction equity bets from normal accounts, and cap how much monthly delivery can be financed with future upside. Break-even is a useful safety line; chasing growth before captains and cash controls are ready can turn a durable agency into a fragile payroll.
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