// service · custom software development
Custom software development.
For founders who haven't built it yet.
Web, mobile, both — designed and engineered end-to-end by a senior team. From the first wireframe to the production deploy.
rot8 custom software development is end-to-end product engineering for startups, non-technical founders, and product teams in Europe. We design the product, build the architecture, ship the front-end and back-end, and stand up the infrastructure. One senior team across the whole journey — no agencies stitched together, no offshore sub-contractors, no design-to-dev hand-off failures.
- From €60k
- 8–28 weeks
- Senior team
- Europe-based
// the problem
Capacity isn’t the bottleneck. Ownership is.
You need software built. You don't have a CTO yet, or you have one but the roadmap is bigger than your team. You've talked to two agencies and a freelancer. The agencies want six weeks to “kick off.” The freelancer can do it but won't run the whole thing. You're losing weeks every week the product isn't shipped.
The actual problem isn't capacity. It's ownership. You need one team that owns design, engineering, and delivery — and ships software you'd be proud to show your investors.
// what we ship
A working product. Not deliverables. Not a “platform.”
- Product design — interaction design, visual system, prototypes that already feel like the real thing.
- Architecture — the technical decisions that determine whether you can scale or have to rebuild in 18 months. We make them on day one and document the why.
- Front-end — modern, type-safe web. Performant by default. Not “we'll optimize later.”
- Back-end — proven runtimes and relational databases. The boring tools that don't break. We resist hype-stack drift.
- Native or cross-platform mobile — when it makes sense. We won't ship a wrapper if you need an app.
- Infrastructure — mainstream cloud where it fits. CI/CD, monitoring, error tracking, the things that should already exist on day one.
- Handoff documentation — the runbook for the team that comes after us, even if that team is just you.
// how it works
Phases, not retainers.
| Phase | Duration | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Assessment | 48 hours | We read your application, dig into the problem, decide whether we’re the right team. |
| Discovery | 1 week | One-week paid engagement to scope, design the system, fix the price. |
| Build | 8–24 weeks | Sprint by sprint. Bi-weekly demos. Shared Linear. Production deploys early. |
| Ship | 1 week | Production launch with monitoring, alerts, runbook. We don’t wave goodbye at QA. |
| Handoff or Embed | Optional | Hand the keys to your team, or we stay on as your engineering team via Embed. |
Process detail: How we work.
// fit
Who this fits — and who it doesn’t.
Yes
- Funded founders (pre-seed through Series B) who need their first real product, properly built.
- Non-technical operators who’ve been quoted “12 months and $600k” and refuse to accept it.
- Existing product teams that need a critical product line built without slowing the rest of the org.
- Companies migrating off no-code, off a co-founder’s prototype, off legacy systems they can’t ship onto.
No
- Brand campaigns, marketing-only sites, ad creative.
- “Just a landing page.” Use a freelancer or Framer.
- Pure offshore augmentation. We’re not a body shop.
- Projects we don’t have the in-house skill for. We say no often. It’s how we keep delivery honest.
// proof
Boring numbers, by design.
- 47 products shipped across 12 countries.
- $120M+ raised by clients who built with us.
- 3 exits to date.
- 25 years of senior engineering across the team.
See selected work for case studies.
// quick answers
Custom software, common questions.
How much does custom software development cost with rot8?
Custom software builds start at €60,000 for an MVP-shaped engagement and scale with the size of the system. Typical six-month builds land between €120,000 and €350,000 depending on platform count, integration depth, and infrastructure complexity. We publish minimums on /pricing and quote a fixed price after a one-week paid discovery sprint.How long does a custom software project take?
A focused MVP ships in 8–16 weeks. A multi-platform product with a real back-end and native mobile typically lands at 16–28 weeks. We give you a fixed timeline at the end of the discovery sprint and protect it through bi-weekly demos. We don't run open-ended retainers disguised as projects.Do you take projects from non-technical founders?
Yes — about a third of our engagements come from non-technical founders. We translate product intent into technical decisions, document the why, and build the kind of product an engineering team can take over later. You don't need to know the database stack. You do need to know what your customer is paying for.Can rot8 take over an existing codebase?
Sometimes. We do clean takeovers when the existing code is recoverable and the prior team is fully gone. If the codebase needs surgical fixes inside an active team, Technical rescue is the right shape. If it needs a full rebuild, we'll say that on day one rather than charging you to discover it in month three.What technologies does rot8 work in?
We pick boring, scalable, well-documented tools by default — typed languages, modern frameworks, relational databases, mainstream cloud infrastructure — and resist hype-stack drift. The specific tools fit the problem. If your team already runs a stack, we run it: we adapt to your standards in Embed engagements, and stay flexible on greenfield builds where your future hires need to extend the codebase.
// next step
Three projects this quarter. Two remain.
Apply with the four-step form. We respond inside 48 hours, every time, with a real reply from a named founder.
// adjacent