You're being asked to
Fund modernization without breaking the plan.
Engineering wants a two-year rewrite.
You've seen this movie. The plan slips, the FTE count grows, and by year three you're writing down capitalized work that never shipped.
Every SaaS pitch adds a line item.
Per-seat coding tools scale with headcount, not value. And your CTO still has to staff and defend them.
The board wants efficiency, not heroics.
Adding engineers is the most expensive way to buy velocity and the hardest to reverse.
What Merven changes for you
A line item you can defend on a call.
How you pay
Fixed retainer or outcome-based SOW.
A known monthly line item, not headcount plus benefits plus overhead. No per-seat scaling as your team grows.
Cost per shipped feature
Countable.
You know what a pod costs per month and what it merged. Compare it to an FTE-loaded team on the same scope.
Rewrite write-down risk
Off your books.
The engagement is scoped in months, not years. If we slip, you cancel. Nothing to capitalize, nothing to write down.
Exit optionality
30 days' notice.
You own the code from the first commit. Cancel the engagement and keep a working codebase, ADRs, runbooks, and test coverage.
What you actually approve
An SOW. Not an org change.
One SOW
Fixed scope, fixed price, or a monthly retainer with 30-day notice. Standard MSA, standard work-for-hire IP terms.
No new headcount
Nothing to hire, no benefits load, no recruiter fees, no ramp cost. Contractor line item, not payroll.
No new subscription
No per-seat SaaS to procure, security-review, or renew. No agent platform your CTO has to defend on a QBR.
Reversible
Cutover is parallel. Cancellation leaves you with a working codebase, not a stranded rewrite.
What it's not
The three line items you're trying to avoid.
- Not capitalized software development that turns into a write-down when the plan slips.
- Not a per-seat SaaS that scales with headcount instead of value.
- Not a body-shop retainer with a fuzzy scope and hourly billing.
See your rewrite, costed and scheduled, before you commit to anything.
Free Audit. One week. You walk away with a Digital Twin of your product, a feature-triage proposal, a target architecture, and a real timeline with a real number. Whether you build with us, build internally, or don't build at all, the audit is yours to keep.