Questions founders ask
before hiring us.

About ROT8 STUDIO

1. Q01

   What is ROT8 STUDIO?

   ROT8 STUDIO is a distributed collective of senior engineers and designers who build MVPs, custom software, and native apps for startups. We work across time zones, async by default, with a daily overlap window for your region. We assemble the exact team your project needs, build it right the first time, and you own everything from day one. Three projects per quarter.

2. Q02

   Who is ROT8 STUDIO for? Who is it not for?

   We're for funded founders (pre-seed through Series B), non-technical operators with a product to build, and existing product teams that need senior leverage now. We are not for pre-funding ideation, brand campaigns, marketing-only sites, pure offshore body-shopping, or projects we can't deliver on with our own team. We say no often.

3. Q03

   How is this different from hiring freelancers?

   Freelancers are individuals working in parallel, usually without a designer-engineer pairing or shared codebase ownership. We're one senior team that designs, engineers, and ships together — same Linear, same code review, same accountability. You don't manage the integration; we do. For very small projects a freelancer is often the right call, and we'll tell you when that's the case.

4. Q04

   How is this different from a 200-person studio?

   Larger studios optimize for scale — bench depth, capability tag count, multi-region offices. We optimize for senior depth at a small scale: three projects per quarter, no juniors on your team. We're not the right call when you need 15 engineers staffed in 30 days. We are the right call when you need a senior team that ships.

Engagements & pricing

1. Q05

   How is this different from hiring my first engineers in-house?

   Hiring your first five engineers takes 9–15 months of sourcing, interviewing, and onboarding before a single line of production code. We give you a senior team by Monday — shipping in week two, and you own everything from day one, so you can hand the codebase to in-house hires whenever you're ready. You buy velocity now and headcount later, when the product justifies the team. See engineering studio vs in-house hiring.

2. Q06

   What kind of projects do we take on?

   We take on MVPs from sketch to production, custom software builds, native mobile applications (Swift and Kotlin), architecture spikes, migrations, and technical rescues. Common sectors: fintech, marketplace, consumer, health. We don't do brand campaigns, marketing-only sites, ad creative, or pure offshore augmentation.

3. Q07

   How is a project priced?

   We don't quote numbers on the site, because scope and cost are honest only once we understand the work. After you fill out the form at /start, we talk through what you're building on a call. If it's a fit, we start with a short paid discovery step that produces a written audit, a week-by-week timeline, and a named team — and you own everything it produces from day one. Cost and structure for the build are agreed on that call, in writing, before any work starts.

4. Q08

   How long does an MVP build take?

   Most MVPs ship in 8–16 weeks from kickoff. The shorter end is a single-platform product with a small integration surface. The longer end adds native mobile, complex domain models, or multi-tenant architecture. We commit to the timeline at the end of discovery and protect it with weekly demos, async updates between them, and production deploys from week three. You own the codebase the entire time.

5. Q09

   What technologies do we work in?

   We default to boring, scalable, well-documented tools — typed languages, modern web frameworks, relational databases, mainstream cloud — and pick the specific stack to fit the problem and your team. Native mobile is Swift and Kotlin. We've shipped across most mainstream language, framework, and cloud combinations — we assemble the right experts for your stack.

Operations & trust

1. Q10

   Where is the team based? What time zones do you cover?

   We're a distributed collective, not a single office — senior people working across time zones. We don't anchor to one region's working hours; we set a daily overlap window with you and run async by default the rest of the day. That means a live sync call when you need one and written updates you can read on your schedule. Wherever you are, we arrange overlap that works for your team.

2. Q11

   Are you GDPR-compliant? Where is data stored?

   Yes. We work GDPR-compliant by default. Client data and code live on infrastructure agreed in the engagement contract — typically your own AWS/GCP/Vercel account, which you own, with ROT8 STUDIO access scoped to engineering necessity and revocable by you at any time. We sign DPAs (data processing agreements) by default for engagements where we touch personal data, and you can specify the data region. We do not move client data onto our own infrastructure.

3. Q12

   Will we sign an NDA before sharing details?

   Yes. Standard mutual NDA, your template or ours. We sign before any real technical or financial disclosure — typically before the first scoping call, sometimes before the first email exchange if your industry demands it. We don't sign NDAs to receive a sales pitch (that's a misuse), but for any genuine product disclosure, NDA first, conversation after.

4. Q13

   What happens if I'm unhappy mid-project?

   You raise it in the weekly demo or directly with the named lead — or in an async update, then an immediate sync call. You don't wait for a monthly review. We adjust scope, team composition, or cadence within the engagement, in writing. And because you own everything from day one, there's no lock-in: if the fit is wrong and can't be salvaged, we end it cleanly with a 2-week wind-down and hand off everything we've built — it was always yours.

5. Q14

   Do you take equity in lieu of cash?

   No. We take cash because it's the only honest way to price engineering work — equity introduces incentive mismatches at exactly the moment we should be cutting scope to ship. We've made zero exceptions in three years. We like our clients but we're not co-founders. If equity is the only path your stage allows, we're not the right partner.

6. Q15

   Who will actually build this? Can we see who you are?

   We keep the collective private on the site by design — no public roster, no LinkedIn parade. That keeps the work, not personalities, at the center, and protects the senior people who'd otherwise be poached mid-build. It is not anonymity to hide behind: once a conversation is serious, before you commit to anything, we introduce the real people who'd be on your team and put you in touch with references who've shipped with us. You meet the humans and check the receipts before you sign — just not before you start the conversation.

7. Q16

   How do I start? What's the response time?

   Fill out the form at /start — about five minutes. That's the front door; everything starts there. We reply to every submission within 48 hours, every time, with a real message from a real person. The answer is yes, no, or “let's talk.” If yes, the next step is a 30-minute scoping call where we walk through scope, fit, and cost together. We take three projects per quarter, so reach out early. One email reaches us: contact@rot8studio.com.