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Why we picked it This is the clearest walkthrough of turning a build into payment-linked milestones (prototype, then beta, then launch), where cash only moves after a deliverable passes acceptance. It is written for founders, not lawyers, and includes a real case where breaking a project into five milestones let the founder prune features at each gate and cut actual spend by about a quarter. It also compares milestone-based against fixed-price and time-and-materials so you can tell when each one actually fits.
Software & Mobile App Development Contract for Startup Founders
From Ptolemay by Olga Gubanova ~20 min read
- Tie each payment to a concrete deliverable that passes acceptance, not to a calendar date, so you never pay ahead of working software.
- Milestones double as decision gates: you can re-scope or drop low-value features between them instead of being locked into the original plan.
- Milestone-based is not always right. Fixed-price suits a frozen spec, and time-and-materials suits an MVP that is still shifting.
