Work4Equity

No budget?
Let's become partners.

Have a brilliant idea but no cash to ship it? We invest our engineering time — IoT, cloud, mobile, software — in exchange for equity, SAFE, revenue share, or a long-term partnership. Your vision, our build, shared upside.

Pitch your idea How it works
2–25%
Typical equity range
4–24 wks
Build window
100%
In-house senior team
NDA
Before first call
// the model

Skin in the game.

Work4Equity is our partnership model for founders, startups, and SMBs with a strong idea but limited cash. Instead of invoicing for development, we take a stake in your company — and become genuinely invested in your success. We bring engineering, you bring vision and traction.

EQUITY

Direct equity stake

We become a minority shareholder in your company. Standard arrangement for early-stage ventures with a clear path to fundraising or revenue.

  • 2%–25% equity depending on scope
  • Vesting tied to project milestones
  • Drag-along, tag-along, ROFR standard
SAFE

SAFE or convertible note

We accept a SAFE (Simple Agreement for Future Equity) or convertible note equal to the market value of our work. Converts on your next priced round.

  • Valuation cap + discount (20–35%)
  • Most-favored-nation clause available
  • Founder-friendly, no board seat required
REV-SHARE

Revenue share

Best for products with a clear monetization path — SaaS, e-commerce, marketplaces. We get a fixed percentage of net revenue for a defined period.

  • 5%–15% revenue, capped at 2–3× project value
  • Quarterly reporting and payouts
  • No dilution of your cap table
HYBRID

Hybrid (cash + equity)

You cover part of the cost in cash (often hardware BOM, cloud bills, external licenses) and we take equity or SAFE for the engineering effort.

  • Lower equity dilution
  • Custom split per project phase
  • Ideal for hardware-heavy products
// process

From pitch to production.

A clear, founder-friendly process. No 6-month diligence marathons — we move at startup speed because we have to ship to win.

STEP 01
Pitch & NDA
Send us your idea (deck or 1-pager). We sign mutual NDA before the first call so you can speak freely about the secret sauce.
STEP 02
Joint validation
Free 2-week feasibility sprint: technical scope, risk map, market sanity check, rough budget. Either side can walk away — no obligation.
STEP 03
Term sheet
We agree on the model (equity / SAFE / rev-share / hybrid), valuation, milestones, IP transfer, exit terms. Plain language, lawyer-friendly.
STEP 04
Build & scale
We ship in 2-week sprints. You see demos every Friday. After launch we stay on as a long-term tech partner — because we own a piece of this.
// fit

Is this the right fit?

Work4Equity isn't for every project. We have limited engineering capacity, so we pick partners carefully. Here's an honest map of who fits — and who doesn't.

Great fit

  • Founder with clear vision and domain expertise
  • Validated demand — early customers, LOIs, pre-orders
  • TAM that justifies VC-style upside (€10M+ ARR realistic)
  • IoT, SaaS, marketplaces, vertical software — our sweet spot
  • You're committed full-time (or close to it)
  • Cap table is clean — no exotic warrants or 10 silent partners

Not a fit

  • Lifestyle business with no exit / scale ambition
  • Idea-only stage with no validation or market signal
  • Side project — founder won't leave their day job
  • Crowded market with no real differentiation
  • Crypto/casino/MLM (we pass — sorry, not sorry)
  • Funded startup that just wants to save on engineering bills
// included

What's in the box.

Full FSS stack is on the table. Pick what your product needs — we estimate the effort, that's the basis for the equity / SAFE valuation.

IoT hardware + firmware

PCB, ESP32/STM32, Zephyr, BLE, LoRa, NB-IoT, OTA, secure boot.

Cloud & backend

Azure IoT Hub, AKS, .NET, Node.js, Python, PostgreSQL, Cosmos DB, Event Grid.

Mobile apps

Native iOS (Swift) and Android (Kotlin). BLE pairing, push, deep links, App Store / Play deploy.

Web app & dashboards

React/Next.js dashboards, multi-tenant SaaS, admin panels, telemetry visualization.

Product design & UX

User research, wireframes, design system, polished UI — from Figma to shipped product.

DevOps & security

CI/CD, IaC, observability, pen-testing, SOC2-ready architecture.

AI & data

LLM integrations, RAG, ML on telemetry, predictive maintenance, document AI.

Growth tech

Analytics pipeline, A/B testing, SEO foundations, performance marketing tooling.

Advisory & network

Intros to VCs, customers, ecosystem partners. Tech-CTO seat on advisory board.

// typical timeline

A realistic roadmap.

Approximate cadence for a typical IoT-or-SaaS product. Your timeline will vary, but the rhythm holds.

WEEK 0
Mutual NDA + intro call
60 minutes. You share the deck. We share past Work4Equity outcomes. No commitments.
WEEKS 1–2
Free validation sprint
Tech scope, risk register, BOM (if hardware), cloud cost projection, market sanity check. Output: a Go/No-Go report we both read.
WEEK 3
Term sheet & legal
Term sheet in plain language → SPA/SAFE/RevShare agreement at the notary. We use a tested founder-friendly template.
WEEKS 4–16
MVP build
Two-week sprints, Friday demos, written changelog. By week 12 you have something a beta user can touch.
WEEKS 16–24
Production launch + iteration
Hardening, security review, deploy. We stay on for ongoing maintenance, scaling, and feature work — that's the long game.
// faq

Honest answers, no spin.

The questions every founder asks us before signing. If yours isn't here — ask on the contact form, we'll answer in under 48h.

Between 2% and 25%, depending on project scope, stage of the company, and how much risk we absorb. For a 3-month MVP at pre-seed stage, expect 8–15%. For a smaller 4–6 week build with you already at seed, more like 2–5%.
You do, 100%. The company we co-own holds all intellectual property — code, designs, hardware files, trademarks. We get equity in the company, not licenses to the IP.
We lose our investment of time. That's the point — we share the risk with you. No clawback, no penalty payment, no awkward "you owe us X hours" letter. Failure is a possible outcome and we price it in.
Usually not — we prefer an observer seat or advisory role. We don't want to micromanage your strategy. If you want our CTO on your board, we can discuss, but it's never a hard requirement on our side.
Pre-revenue we use a SAFE with a valuation cap based on comparable rounds in your segment — typically €1–4M cap for Polish/CEE pre-seed deep-tech. The cap converts at your next priced round (usually with a 20–35% discount).
Often yes. VCs treat technical risk as a major haircut on valuation. A working MVP built by a credible engineering partner — with cap-table proof of skin in the game — meaningfully de-risks your raise. We've seen it lift seed-round valuations by 30–60% in past partnerships.
We include a clear buy-back clause in every term sheet. You can repurchase our equity at a multiple of our original work value (typically 2–4×) at any time during the first 36 months. After that, we follow standard exit mechanics — preferred shares are paid out at the next acquisition or IPO.
Yes, but usually as a hybrid model — you cover the physical BOM (components, certifications, tooling), we cover engineering for equity. Hardware is capital-intensive and we can't take stock risk on €50k of components, so the cash split is non-negotiable on that part.
Three things. (1) We take minority stakes — never majority. You stay in control. (2) We have a real engineering practice that pays its bills from cash clients; Work4Equity is selective, not our survival mode. (3) We commit to long-term tech partnership, not just MVP-and-ghost. We need your company to succeed because that's how we get paid.
Probably yes — most SHAs give existing investors consent rights for issuing new equity. Talk to them early. Our pitch to them: a working product without burning their cash, built by people who are also on the cap table. Usually they like it.
Two senior engineers and a product person spend ~30 hours total reviewing your idea. We deliver: a technical scope doc, risk register, BOM (for hardware), rough effort estimate, and an honest Go/No-Go recommendation. No invoice, no equity. If we say No-Go, you keep the document.
FSS is registered in Poland (EU). We sign Polish SP. z o.o. SPA agreements, Delaware C-corp SAFEs, German GmbH share agreements, and Estonian OÜ contracts. For other jurisdictions we can usually adapt — we work with a startup-focused legal partner network.
Pitch us

Got an idea worth
our skin in the game?

Send us a deck or a 1-pager. NDA before the first call. We respond within 5 working days — even if the answer is "not for us, but here's why".

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