Journal

How we think about
shipping.

Long-form on real pricing, the workflows that make a one-engineer shop work, why we don't take equity, and the economics of building in 2026. Hosted on blog.startmatter.com.

2026-05-23·8 mins

MVP Cost in 2026: Real Numbers From $5K to $50K

Five tiers, what each one ships, where the price comes from, and the work we won't take at the bottom of the range.

2026-05-19·10 mins

From Idea to App Store in 21 Days: A Mobile Case

Three weeks, one engineer, both stores. The day-by-day timeline of a mobile MVP shipped this spring.

2026-05-13·7 mins

The $5K MVP Playbook: Stack, Scope, What We Cut

What ships, what doesn't, the stack we won't change at this price, and the kind of founder this is wrong for.

2026-05-09·11 mins

How We Use Claude Code in Production: Workflows, Costs, Anti-Patterns

30+ production builds with Claude Code as primary tool. What works, what gets people in trouble, exact prompt patterns, monthly bill.

2026-05-02·9 mins

Hire vs Engage: The 2026 Math With AI Agents

A senior engineer in 2026 costs more (year-1 outlay) and is harder to find (60–90 day pipelines). The decision math everyone uses for this is out of date.

2026-04-21·6 mins

Why We Don't Take Equity (And What We Take Instead)

About one in five founders ask. We always say no. The reasoning isn't about the cap table — it's about what equity does to incentives on a flat-price engagement.

2026-04-09·12 mins

RAG Done Right in 2026: Hybrid Search, Reranking, Evals

Most RAG implementations in 2026 still ship naive embedding-cosine retrieval. They work for the demo and break for users. Here's the current production bar.

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How we think aboutshipping.