Software development for funded startups by EltexSoft. Not an MVP factory. HeyTutor (Forbes 30u30), Arcade.ai ($42M), Ripe (acquired). $50-99/hr.
EltexSoft builds software for funded startups. Not an MVP factory. We provide engineering teams that stay for years. HeyTutor came to us with a product spec on one page of A4 paper. 9 years later: Forbes 30 Under 30 founders, LAUSD contract, 10,000+ tutors. Ripe came as a catering business running on spreadsheets. 5 years later: acquired by Hungry. Greek House came with a stalled engineering team. 4 years later: Inc. 5000, acquired 2024. $50-99/hr.
What we ship
HeyTutor arrived with a one-page spec. We extended it to 40 pages, designed the prototype, built the platform, and served as de facto CTO for 9 years. That is how we work with startups.
Architecture decisions, stack selection, infrastructure, hiring plan, investor-facing technical documentation. Our co-founder has served as CTO for HeyTutor, Greek House, and Ripe. You get senior technical leadership without the full-time C-suite cost.
Automated deployments, testing pipelines, staging environments before the first feature is built. Greek House went from releases every few months (previous team) to same-day deploys (us). Infrastructure is not optional for startups. It is the foundation.
Start with 2-3 engineers for MVP. Scale to 7-10 for growth. Scale down after acquisition. Greek House ranged from 3 to 7 engineers over 4 years. Snapwire had 10 of our engineers for 2.5 years. The team flexes with the business.
6 of our startup clients have been acquired. Nautical Commerce, Greek House, Ripe, Snapwire: every codebase passed acquirer due diligence. Clean architecture, test coverage, documentation. Build for the exit even if you're not planning one.
We don't take equity. We charge $50-99/hr on retainer. You keep full ownership of your code, your company, and your cap table. When you exit, 100% of the value is yours.
HeyTutor came to us with a product spec written on one page of A4 paper. Two non-technical founders. No code. No CTO.
We extended the spec to 40 pages. Designed the prototype. Built the platform from scratch. Our co-founder became their de facto CTO and stayed for 9 years. The founders made the Forbes 30 Under 30 list. The platform grew to 10,000+ tutors. LAUSD, the largest school district in the United States, became a client.
Ripe came as a functioning catering business running on Excel spreadsheets. DigitalOcean, MongoDB, and Kickstarter were already paying customers. We built the entire platform from scratch. Supported it for 5 years. Hungry acquired Ripe after passing technical due diligence on our codebase.
Greek House came with a stalled engineering team. The previous team shipped releases every few months. We set up CI/CD, started shipping same-day, and supported the platform for 4 years through Inc. 5000 recognition and acquisition in 2024. The founder is now building his next company with us.
These are not MVP stories. They are partnership stories. The MVP is the first chapter. The product is the book.
Most early-stage startups cannot afford a full-time CTO. They need someone to make architecture decisions, select the stack, set up infrastructure, manage the engineering team, evaluate vendors, and prepare technical documentation for investors.
Our co-founder has served in that role for HeyTutor (9 years), Greek House (4 years), and Ripe (5 years). Not as a consultant who writes a report and leaves. As a hands-on technical leader who sets up CI/CD on day one, reviews every pull request, and is on call when production breaks at midnight.
See our CTO as a service page for the full model.
Start with 2-3 engineers for MVP. Add QA when you have users. Add frontend specialists when the product needs a redesign. Scale to 7-10 for growth mode. Scale down after acquisition.
Greek House: 3-7 engineers over 4 years, flexing with seasonality and business needs. Snapwire: 10 engineers (one-third of the 30-person team) for 2.5 years. HeyTutor: Team composition changed 5+ times over 9 years as the product evolved.
You do not hire a team once and keep it fixed. You scale the team with the business. We handle that scaling.
If your startup raises a Series A, investors will look at the code. If your startup gets acquired, the acquirer will look harder. 6 of our startup clients have been acquired. Every codebase passed due diligence.
What due diligence looks for: test coverage, CI/CD pipelines, clean git history, documented architecture, no hardcoded secrets, proper database migrations, and code that a new engineer can understand without the original team explaining every file.
We build to that standard from day one. Not because we expect every startup to exit. Because code that passes due diligence is code that is easy to maintain, easy to onboard new engineers to, and easy to scale.
We do not take equity. We charge $50-99/hr on monthly retainer. You keep 100% of your cap table.
When Greek House was acquired in 2024, the founder kept the full exit value. When Ripe was acquired by Hungry, same. When Snapwire was acquired by StudioNow, same.
Our business model is engineering services, not venture capital. Your success is not diluted by our share.
V1 from scratch. Product spec to working software. Laravel, React, Django, Vue, iOS, Android. CI/CD, staging environments, and monitoring from day one.
Marketplace platforms. Two-sided matching, payments with Stripe Connect, messaging, search, reviews. Four marketplace clients acquired.
SaaS products. Multi-tenant, subscription billing, admin dashboards, API integrations. RiseMD.
Mobile apps. Free Stuff Finder (2M+ installs), MOTTIV (10K+ athletes), Unfold (WWDC).
AI products. LLM integration, RAG pipelines, computer vision. Byron, RiseMD.
Senior engineer: $50-99/hr. No equity taken.
MVP (2-3 engineers, 3-6 months): $40K-$100K. V1 with mobile (3-5 engineers, 5-10 months): $80K-$200K. Growth phase retainer: $15K-$50K/month. Full team (5-10 engineers): $40K-$100K/month.
EltexSoft is a boutique startup software development company. 35-50 senior engineers. Headquartered in Los Angeles, with offices in New York, Lisbon, and Kyiv. Engineering team in Ukraine. Founded in 2015.
Startup clients: HeyTutor (9yr), Nautical Commerce ($30M), Greek House (acquired), Ripe (acquired), Snapwire (acquired), MOTTIV (10K+ athletes), Arcade.ai ($42M funded). 5.0 Clutch. 200+ Upwork reviews. Top Rated Plus and Expert-Vetted.
30-minute technical call. Bring your product idea, your one-page spec, or your Series A architecture challenge. We’ll tell you what we’d build and what we wouldn’t.
Field notes
MVP development cost runs $40K–$100K with a senior team, driven by user roles, money flows and platforms, and cutting scope is the cheapest way to lower it.
Kseniia Cherepakhina 7 min read FAQ
One business day reply. From an engineer, not a sales rep.