Engage the Studio
We publish the number. You arrive knowing what you are buying.
Most firms make you sit through discovery before they will tell you what anything costs. There is one way into Studio work and it is priced, and the plan it leads to is priced. Published scope, published price, published exclusions.
The front door
Ninety minutes with Michael, a written assessment of what you actually have and what it would take to make it real, then half an hour walking through it together.
It is paid because unpaid diagnostics get treated as free consulting, and because the memo is worth more than most people pay for a month of advice. The entire fee is credited against any plan booked within 30 days of delivery.
If the honest answer is that you should not build this, the memo says so. That is a finished deliverable, not a failed sale.
What you bring
- Whatever exists — a document, a repository, a prototype URL, a deck, or nothing but the problem.
- Read access to the code and data, if there is code and data.
- The person who can actually decide. One call, not a committee tour.
- An honest account of what has already been tried and what it cost.
What you leave with
- Findings & Path — a written memo, inside five business days.
- An unsentimental read of what you have, including the parts that only look finished.
- The three or four things most likely to kill it, ranked.
- Which plan fits, why the other two do not, and an indicative cost and elapsed time.
- What we would do in your position if you never hired us.
- A 30-minute walkthrough with Michael — findings discussed, not emailed and abandoned.
Plan A · Run by Bailiwick Venture Studio
Blueprint.
The first three phases of the Studio's six-phase process, plus a build specification. Blueprint answers the question that stops most founders before they start: what exactly am I building, and is it worth building? You end the month with a venture designed as a whole system and a specification precise enough that a competent engineer — or a competent engineer paired with AI — can begin on the Monday.
No code is written. That is deliberate. Building before this work is done is how people spend forty thousand dollars discovering that the thing they built was not the business.
Eight named deliverables
Working software, visual design, and anything investor-facing.
No code, no design comps, no prototype, no pitch deck, no incorporation, no fundraising. Blueprint produces the decision and the specification. Building it is Plan B; funding it is Plan C.
60% at signature, 40% on delivery. Fixed at signature for the named scope. Blueprint credits in full against Plan B or Plan C started within ninety days — the specification is the input to both, so you never pay for the same discovery twice.
After the Blueprint
Two plans carry it further. Neither one is run by the Studio alone.
Both involve BailiwickVibe, our sister division — the same company, the same discipline, a later stage. The Studio stops at the proof; Vibe begins at the prototype.
Plan B · Buildout
Run by BailiwickVibe — phases 01 through 04 of its eight-phase method, carried through to a deployed system. A prototype that demos is not a product; Buildout is the finish carpentry.
Plan C · Venture
Run by the Studio and BailiwickVibe together — everything above, plus the entity, the economics, the launch, and an investor package built to survive diligence. Bailiwick materially inside the business rather than adjacent to it.
Standing positions
Four things that are settled before we ever talk about your venture.
- Compensation is never contingent on a financing. Cash is a fixed fee, payable whether or not a raise happens. Equity, where it applies, is negotiated and fixed in writing before the engagement begins, with time-based vesting and no acceleration. There is never a success fee, a percentage of proceeds, or a finder's fee.
- We are not fractional executives, and we are not recruiters. Introductions and help, yes. Staffing and operating roles, no. Founders build their own teams — and we strongly encourage building them from people you have known a while, because a newly assembled team is a negative in diligence.
- Nothing is free. Scoping calls, prototype reviews, architecture opinions and “can I pick your brain” all resolve to the same place: the Triage. One fee, one memo, credited if you proceed.
- There is a floor. We do not open a plan below $25,000. Below that number there is no version of this work that is honest about what it can deliver, so we do not sell one. If your budget is under the floor, take the Triage anyway and use the memo yourself — that is a legitimate outcome and we will write it that way.
Start a conversation
Tell us the situation.
The more specific you are about the problem — and about what has already been tried — the more useful the first reply will be. If the Studio is the wrong door, we will say which one is right.
Prefer email? info@bailiwickventures.com