We build and ship the page engine startup founders need
A fixed-scope programmatic SEO build for startup founders: we design the data contract against WordPress, ship 180 reviewed URLs in the first tranche, and hand you the templates, gates and runbook. Modelled at 217 indexed URLs earning roughly 42 signups a month at startup founders' typical rates.
- Pilot
- from $3,600
- Build
- from $9,400
- Scale
- from $19,400
63–180 URLs
350 URLs
1,400+ URLs
The build, not the theory
Early-stage teams are told content is a long game and take it as licence to avoid measurement. It is a long game to compound, not a long game to test. A minimum viable content strategy targets the narrowest slice of demand your product genuinely serves, ships enough URLs to read a signal, and defines in advance what result would justify a bigger bet — and what result would mean stopping. That is the strategy. This page is the service: what we actually do, in what order, at what price, and the conditions under which we tell you not to buy it. Every engagement starts by pointing at one real system you already run — usually WordPress, sometimes PostHog — and asking whether its rows can answer a query shape better than a human writing prose. If the answer is no, the engagement stops at the audit and you keep the findings. If the answer is yes, we write the data contract, design one template family against real rows, publish a gated first tranche, and only widen the axis after Search Console proves the pattern indexes. Nothing about this is a retainer: the engine installs on your WordPress, and the signup path is wired into your funnel, not ours.
- WordPress
- PostHog
- Google Search Console
- Ahrefs
- Slack
- Linear
- Vercel / Cloudflare
Validation tranches at pre-seed and seed, where conversion is trial signup rather than revenue.
Four phases, each with something shipped at the end
Hypothesis
Which specific query family should convert for this product, why, and what result would falsify that? If we cannot state a falsifiable hypothesis, we do not start.
Written hypothesis with pass/fail thresholds.
- A written data contract mapping WordPress fields to every rendered block, with null-handling rules per field.
- One production template family with 10 blocks, of which 3 vary per row beyond string substitution.
- 180 published URLs with schema, internal links, sitemap entries and IndexNow pings.
- An index-eligibility gate that refuses to publish rows below your evidence threshold.
- Search Console cohort reporting split by template family, not by page.
- A refresh job that rewrites stale rows on a 42-day cycle.
- A startup founders-specific runbook: how to add an axis, how to kill one, how to roll back a bad batch.
- Handover session with PostHog and Google Search Console wired into the reporting loop.
- WordPress export or API accessRequired
The rows are the product. Without them there is no page family, only prose.
- One named approverRequired
A single person who can sign off a template without a committee round.
- WordPress admin or stagingRequired
We generate into your environment; we do not host your pages.
- A working signup pathPreferred
Each page hands the visitor to a real signup flow — form, checkout, booking or trial.
- Search Console property accessPreferred
Cohort-level indexation data is how we decide what widens and what gets cut.
- Review capacity: one page per family, per batchPreferred
A human signs the sample before the batch publishes. That is the scaled-content defence.
Quote and payback estimator
Defaults are this seat's modelled economics. Move them to your own numbers — the build estimate and payback window recalculate live. It is a model, not a quote; the fixed proposal comes after the scoping call.
- Indexed URLs (62% gate)
- 87
- Clicks / month
- 696
- signups / month
- 17
- Pipeline value / month
- $5,270
- Indicative build
- $2,400
- Payback
- <1 month
The 62% index rate is the conservative figure we plan against, not a promise. Batches that gate harder index higher.
Three ways to buy this build
Pilot
from $3,600
63–180 URLs
Proving the validation test axis exists before you fund a build.
- Data audit + contract
- One template family
- Gated first tranche
- Indexation read at day 30
Build
Most boughtfrom $9,400
350 URLs
Startup Founders with a proven dataset and a live signup funnel.
- Everything in Pilot
- 2 template families
- Schema + internal link graph
- Refresh job + rollback
- Runbook handover
Scale
from $19,400
1,400+ URLs
Multi-axis surfaces where one bad batch would be expensive to unwind.
- Everything in Build
- Multi-axis expansion plan
- Release drip + quota control
- Quarterly axis pruning
- Named delivery lead
The shape of the surface before a single page is written
/startup-founders/Hub. Human-written, links every axis, never generated.
/startup-founders/{validation}/Primary axis — one page per WordPress row that clears the gate.
/startup-founders/{validation}/{modifier}/Second axis. Only published where the pair has its own evidence.
/startup-founders/compare/{a}-vs-{b}/Comparison family. Capped at pairs with real query volume.
/startup-founders/updates/Change log for the dataset — freshness signal, not filler.
Rules that decide whether a row earns a URL
| Gate | Test | If it fails |
|---|---|---|
| Row completeness | ≥ 75% of contract fields present | Below threshold the row renders as a directory entry, not a URL. |
| Evidence density | ≥ 2 unique data points not shared with a sibling row | Fails → folded into the parent page as a section. |
| Demand | A measurable query shape in Search Console, Semrush or paid data | No demand → the axis is dropped before templates are written. |
| signup path | A working signup destination for the row | Missing → the page publishes noindex until the path exists. |
| Human sample | One page per family per batch reviewed and signed | Unsigned batches do not leave staging. |
What the first weeks look like
- Week 1
Scoping call and data review
We look at what startup founders already hold — systems, exports, APIs — and score each axis for demand and defensibility.
- Week 2
Contract and template design
The data contract is written and the first template is designed against real rows, not placeholders.
- Weeks 3–5
First tranche live
53–122 URLs published with schema, internal links, sitemap entries and IndexNow.
- Weeks 6–9
Read, widen, hand over
Indexation and impression data decides what widens and what gets cut. Templates, gates and runbook transfer to you.
A test that said stop — and saved two quarters
- Setup
- A dev-tools startup convinced that integration pages would drive signups.
- Mechanism
- A 300-URL tranche with pre-agreed thresholds: 50% indexation and 40 relevant-query impressions per week by week eight.
- Result
- Indexation hit 71% but relevant impressions stalled at nine per week — the demand was not there. The team redirected two quarters of planned spend into partnerships instead.
Cases where we will not take the build
- Your WordPress data has fewer than 280 usable rows — a hand-written hub will outperform a thin page family.
- The query shape is dominated by one brand's own properties and no third party ranks on page one.
- There is no signup destination, so the pages would earn traffic you cannot bank.
- You want volume as the goal. We size to evidence, and evidence usually caps the count lower than you hoped.
Buy the whole build, or one piece of it
Minimum viable content strategy
The smallest content surface that can prove or disprove search as a channel for your product.
Scope this workstreamContent-led growth
What expansion looks like after a validation tranche passes — and the order of operations that keeps it compounding.
Scope this workstreamContent in the funding story
How to present an organic channel to investors without overstating it — and what diligence will actually check.
Scope this workstreamBuying questions startup founders ask us
Pilot engagements start at $3,600 and cover the audit, contract, one template family and a gated first tranche. A full build for the 350-URL surface starts at $9,400. Pricing is fixed at proposal — we do not bill by page or by hour.
Other seats we scope builds for
Want the startup founders surface scoped before you build it?
We'll audit the data source, size the first batch, set the performance budget and tell you honestly if programmatic is the wrong tool for your category.
