Why founders burned by developers choose us.
Here is the promise in one sentence: we remove the technical and ROI uncertainty, and you keep the business responsibility. If a developer has already burned you, you do not need another pitch. You need a partner whose protection is built in, not promised. You own the repository, source code, and IP from day one. You get a fixed price and a fixed date before work starts. And two written guarantees back it: 10x-or-free on the audit, free remediation on the build. No lock-in. This is the honest case for the fifth option.
01 / The fifth option
If you are a non-technical founder, the usual choices have all let you down. There is a fifth.
You have probably tried some of the four. A freelancer who ghosted halfway. An offshore shop that turned into subcontract roulette, with hidden juniors doing the real work. A local agency that came in over budget and over timeline, with change orders for things you thought were included. Or hiring an in-house developer you cannot evaluate because you cannot read code. Each one leaves the same scar: you paid, and you still do not control or trust what you got. Some founders end up saying they didn't even get the source code.
The fifth option is a build partner that takes the technical and ROI uncertainty off your plate and hands you ownership and certainty in return. Not by asking you to trust harder, but by changing the structure so trust is not the thing holding it together. That is what the rest of this page lays out: how founders get burned, the safeguard for each one, the two guarantees in writing, the honest limits of those guarantees, and why we turn some founders away.
Want the longer checklist for any vendor? Read how to vet a software development agency.
02 / How founders get burned, and the safeguard
Every row below is a real way founders without a tech team get burned. Each has a specific safeguard built into how we work.
The point is not to scare you. It is to show that each failure has a named cause, and each cause has a structural fix. None of these rely on us being more honest than the last shop. They rely on the setup making the failure impossible in the first place.
| How founders get burned | The Ego Eimi safeguard |
|---|---|
| They held my code hostage and I had to recode everything to leave | You own the repo, source code, and IP from day one, in your accounts |
| Over budget, over timeline, with surprise change orders | Fixed scope, fixed price, fixed deadline. No change orders, no hidden fees, no surprises |
| Hidden juniors and subcontract roulette doing the real work | One accountable team and an AI-native process you can see, not a chain of strangers |
| Ghosted halfway, left guessing what I actually got | Reply within a day, a price and a date up front, work owned by you as it ships |
| I paid and still cannot tell if it works or was worth it | Acceptance criteria and evals you sign before code, plus a 10x value check on the audit |
| No source code, no docs, nothing I could hand to someone else | Repo, docs, prompts, evals, and deployment handed over and audit-ready from the start |
See exactly what you keep in our guarantees, or scope a build with the fixed-price build.
03 / The two guarantees, in writing
We back the work with two written guarantees, one for each stage. They are not marketing lines. They are terms.
A guarantee only matters if it is specific enough to enforce and honest enough to mean something. Both of ours are measured against things you sign off on, not against our opinion of our own work.
Value Guarantee
On the software audit, we find at least ten times the fee in value you agree is real, or the audit is free. The 10x is your sign-off, not our claim. The fee is credited in full toward the build if you go ahead.
10x or free · pre-screened fitsDelivery Guarantee
On the fixed-price build, we measure against acceptance criteria you sign before code is written, and remediate for free until the work meets them. AI behavior is judged against pre-agreed evals.
Free remediation · capped ~6 weeks| Value Guarantee (Audit) | Delivery Guarantee (Build) | |
|---|---|---|
| What it covers | The decision to spend is worth it | The work matches what we agreed |
| The promise | 10x the fee in value you agree is real, or free | Free remediation against signed criteria |
| Measured by | Value you confirm in your own context | Acceptance criteria and evals agreed up front |
| The cap | It is simply free if we cannot show 10x | Remediation time-capped at around six weeks |
| New scope | Defined into the build that follows | A change order, not a dispute |
Read the full terms on our guarantees page, or start with the software audit.
04 / What the guarantees do not cover
A guarantee you can trust is one that tells you its limits up front. Here are ours, plainly.
If a vendor promises to take all your risk, walk away. No honest partner can. We carry the technical and ROI uncertainty. You keep the business responsibility. These are the edges of what we will and will not stand behind.
- Not the market. We guarantee the work, not that your business will succeed. Whether customers want it, at the price you set, is yours to own. We can make the bet cheaper and faster to test. We cannot make the bet for you.
- Never breach-proof. We build secure-by-design and audit-ready, and we will never tell you that you cannot be breached. Anyone who promises that is selling you a fiction. We promise sound practices and a system that holds up to scrutiny.
- Third-party delays are excluded. When an outside vendor, API, or approval outside our control slips, that time sits outside the remediation cap. We flag dependencies early so they are visible, not used as an excuse later.
- New scope is a change order. Anything you ask for after you sign the acceptance criteria is new work with its own price and date. It is not a guarantee dispute. No change orders means none get slipped in, not that scope can never grow when you choose it to.
- The Value Guarantee is for pre-screened fits. We offer 10x-or-free where we have first confirmed the fit is real. That qualification is what lets the promise be honest. It is not a blind guarantee on any engagement that walks in.
This is the same standard across every build. Compare the stages under the fixed-price build and the software audit.
05 / Why we say no
The guarantees only hold because we turn down work that does not fit. Saying no is what makes every yes safe.
An agency that takes every project cannot stand behind any of them. Before we commit to a build we run a short qualification gate. It protects you as much as it protects us, because the worst outcome for a burned founder is to be burned again by a partner who should have said no.
- A problem worth solving. There has to be real value on the table. If we cannot see a path to value you would agree is real, the Value Guarantee cannot be honest, so we do not offer it.
- A founder who owns the business. You keep the decisions only a founder can make. We will not pretend to own your market or your strategy, and we will not work with anyone who wants us to.
- Enough clarity to commit. We need to understand the scope well enough to give you a fixed price and a date within a day. If it is too vague, the first step is a paid audit, not a guess dressed up as a quote.
- A fit we can guarantee. If any of the above is missing, we say so and point you somewhere better. That honesty is the whole reason a burned founder can trust the rest of this page.
Think it is a fit? Start a conversation and we reply within a day with a fixed price and a date.
06 / Common questions
I got burned once already. Why would this be different?
Because the protection is structural, not a promise to be nicer than the last agency. You own the repository, source code, infrastructure, documentation, prompts, evals, deployment, and IP from day one, in your own accounts, so nothing can ever be held hostage. You get a fixed price and a fixed date before work starts, so there is nothing to run over. And you get two written guarantees: 10x-or-free on the audit and free remediation on the build. None of that depends on trust. It is how the work is set up from the first day. If you want a checklist to test any vendor against, read how to vet a software development agency.
What exactly do the guarantees cover?
Two things. The Value Guarantee on the software audit says we find at least ten times the fee in value you agree is real, or the audit is free. The 10x is your sign-off, not our claim, and the fee is credited toward the build if you proceed. The Delivery Guarantee on the fixed-price build says we measure against acceptance criteria you sign before code is written, and remediate for free until the work meets them, with AI behavior judged against pre-agreed evals. The full detail is on our guarantees page.
What do the guarantees NOT cover?
We are honest about the edges. The guarantees do not cover the market, so they are not a promise your business will succeed. We never claim you will not be breached; we build secure-by-design and audit-ready, which is a different and more honest promise. Third-party delays outside our control are excluded from the delivery cap. New scope you ask for after sign-off is a change order, not a guarantee dispute. And the Value Guarantee applies to pre-screened fits, because we only offer it where we are confident it holds.
Does this mean you take all the risk?
No, and any agency that says it does is not being straight with you. We take on the technical and ROI uncertainty: whether the thing gets built, whether it works, whether it was worth the spend. You keep the business responsibility: the market, the pricing, the go-to-market, the decisions only a founder can make. That split is the point. You should never hand your business judgment to a vendor, and you should never carry the technical risk alone. We carry our half in writing.
What if I already started with someone else and it went wrong?
This is common and fixable. Start with a short paid software audit. We read what exists, confirm what you actually own, and hand you a clear salvage-or-rebuild call with a fixed price. If a prior developer left you without the source code or held your code hostage, the audit is also how you find out exactly where you stand and what it takes to get back in control. The sooner you check, the cheaper the fix.
Why do you say no to some founders?
Because the guarantees only work if the fit is real. Before we take a build we run a qualification gate: we need a problem worth solving, a founder who owns the business decisions, and enough clarity to scope a fixed price and date. If we cannot see how to deliver value you would agree is real, we say so and point you elsewhere. Saying no to the wrong fits is what lets us stand behind every yes. It is also why the Value Guarantee is offered on pre-screened fits, not blindly.
Last updated June 2026 · Talk with Felipe
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