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Fixed-price MVP vs hiring a developer
Short answer
Hiring a developer or finding a technical co-founder is the right long-term structure for a software company, and no outsourced build replaces it. But hiring takes months, a salaried developer costs $100,000 to $180,000 a year in Australia, and a co-founder costs a large slice of the company — all committed before you know whether the idea works. A $3,500 AUD fixed-price build gets you a working product in a weekend so you can test the idea first, and walk into hiring conversations with something real. Choose hiring when you know the idea works and need continuous capacity. Choose fixed-price to find out first.
Side by side
| Factor | hiring a developer or finding a technical co-founder | Launch My MVP |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | $100k–$180k/year salaried, or 20–50% equity | $3,500 AUD once, no equity |
| Time before work starts | 2–4 months to hire | Next available build slot |
| Commitment | Employment or a co-founder agreement | One project |
| Ongoing capacity | Continuous | None after the support window, by design |
| Right when | The idea is proven and needs building out | The idea needs testing |
The case for hiring a developer or finding a technical co-founder
A permanent developer accumulates context and gets faster over time in a way no outsourced build can match.
A technical co-founder is invested in the outcome rather than the deliverable, and will care about decisions you have not thought to ask about.
Continuous capacity is what a real product needs. Software is never finished.
For a venture-scale company, in-house engineering is not optional, and investors will expect it.
Where hiring a developer or finding a technical co-founder tends to go wrong
- Hiring a good developer takes two to four months, and you cannot start until it is done.
- Salary plus superannuation, equipment and recruitment is a large fixed cost committed before any revenue.
- Assessing technical skill without being technical yourself is genuinely hard, and a bad first engineering hire is expensive in both money and time.
- Co-founder equity is close to irreversible. Giving away 30% to build version one of an idea that turns out to be wrong is the most expensive mistake on this page.
- Good developers increasingly want to see traction before joining, which makes this a chicken-and-egg problem.
The case for a fixed-price build
A working product in a weekend, for less than a fortnight of a developer's salary.
No equity, no employment commitment, no recruitment process.
A product with real users is the single best recruiting asset there is. It is much easier to attract a technical co-founder to something that already exists.
The codebase is in a mainstream stack with clean structure, so the developer you eventually hire can pick it up rather than rewrite it.
Choose hiring a developer or finding a technical co-founder if
- You already have customers, revenue or funding, and the constraint is capacity rather than validation.
- The product needs continuous development, not one delivery.
- You are building a venture-scale company where in-house engineering is expected.
- You have found someone genuinely good who wants to build this with you — take that opportunity.
Choose a fixed-price build if
- You have not proven the idea yet and hiring would be committing before you know.
- You would rather not give away equity to find out.
- You want something real to show the developer or co-founder you are trying to attract.