$4.25M
Raised by Parallel across pre-seed and seed rounds, on a prototype we designed and built
$10M ARR
Reached by Seis within 16 months of launch, on the banking app we built for them
500k+
Customers the Seis app reached before Seis closed in early 2026
5.0★
App Store rating for VillageFor, a postpartum health startup whose app we designed
What we bring
Product and engineering on one team
We help you figure out what to build before you spend the budget building it. That usually means a roadmap for the next milestone and some hard calls about what makes the first release.
Product design your users can get through on the first try and investors take seriously. We designed the prototype that helped Parallel raise $4.25M, and the VillageFor app that holds a 5.0-star App Store rating.
Full-stack development from day one. The people designing your product sit in the same sprints as the people building it, so nothing gets lost between a wireframe and a working screen.
iOS and Android without hiring two separate teams. We built the Seis banking app for both platforms, and it reached 500k+ customers and 97k+ App Store reviews.
If an AI feature makes your product stronger, we design it into the product from the start. For Identifyd that meant an AI prospect search that takes a role description and returns ranked candidates.
Investors will look you up before the meeting. We build marketing sites for startups heading into a raise or a launch, including the Seis site, which ran in Spanish with English alongside it.
Case study
Parallel: a prototype that helped raise $4.25M
Parallel needed to show investors a working product before it had one. We designed and built the prototype for their workforce planning platform, which puts headcount and budget on one live dashboard. Investors included Peak Capital and Night Capital, plus founders of Spiff, Weave and Divvy.
The prototype helped Parallel raise $4.25M across pre-seed and seed rounds. The founding team also put it in front of early users to check whether the core workflows solved the problem.
See the case study
More startup work
From idea to ARR
Seis
$10M ARR in 16 months
Mobile banking for Spanish speakers on iOS and Android. It reached 500k+ customers and $500M+ in annual card spend, with a 4.9★ rating across 97k+ App Store reviews.
Read the case study →
Identifyd
An AI recruiting platform, end to end
Recruiters describe a role and get ranked candidates with enriched profiles. From there they build prospect lists and run SMS outreach sequences. We designed and built it from product strategy through development.
Read the case study →
VillageFor
5.0★ on the App Store
A postpartum health app we designed across 60+ screens in 55 hours. In May 2025 VillageFor launched a research study with Virginia Commonwealth University using that prototype.
Read the case study →Why HQ for startups
Closer to hiring a team than managing a vendor
We've been here before. Parallel raised on a prototype we built, and Seis hit $10M ARR within 16 months of launch. We know how fast the first year of a startup moves.
One team from roadmap to release. Your designers and engineers work in the same sprints with the same product manager, so there's no handoff between agencies to lose things in.
Senior from day one. We're a 25-person team with a 5-year average tenure. The people on your first call are the people who work on your product.
We'll tell you what we think. If the plan is wrong or the direction is off, we'll say so before you've spent the budget building the wrong thing.
Every early hire wears several hats
At a startup everyone wears several hats, and the ideal hire wears all of them well. You might need product management, frontend, backend and mobile development in the same quarter. Honestly, finding one person who does all four at a high level is rare.
We cover the roles you can't hire for yet, so you don't need a full-time person for each one before the product has proven itself. If you already have a strong engineer, we'll fill in around them.
Explore by industry
We've done this work across these verticals
Healthcare
Patient apps and provider search for healthcare networks
See the work →EdTech
Learning platforms, content tools, education websites
See the work →HR & Workforce Tech
AI recruiting, workforce planning, HR software
See the work →Insurance & Fintech
Agent portals, quoting tools, fintech prototypes
See the work →Media & Streaming
Livestream SDKs, fan platforms, OTT products
See the work →Funeral & Death Care
White-label marketplaces, ordering tools, memorial platforms
See the work →
Our work
RISExp
Messenger & My Designer Lab
Revere Health
Show&Tell
Messenger Memorial Maker
Nomi Health
“The way you've handled this is such a testament to why HQ is so damn good.”
Elizabeth Waite
CMO, Collegewise
“This team is insanely reliable.”
Randall Bennett
“These are my favorite vendors.”
Hayden Hill
CMO, Christensen Institute
“As a way to get to a phenomenal product, hiring this team is the best way to go. Overall we're 1000% pleased.”
Austen Allred
CEO, GauntletAI
“There's no doubt in my mind that we picked the right partner in HQ to help us with this.”
Shobin Uralil
CMO, Lively
“If I'm not your happiest customer, I'm willing to fight whoever thinks they are for that title.”
Jeff Allen
CEO, BlueCar
“We feel like HQ has been our secret weapon.”
Jerome Paul
CEO, Spiff (acq. by Salesforce)
Building software for startups
Startups have a different kind of pressure. Speed matters, but the product still has to be good enough that investors believe in it and users come back.
Parallel is a clear example. They needed to show investors a working product before they had one. We designed and built the prototype for their workforce planning platform, and it helped them raise $4.25M across pre-seed and seed rounds from investors including Peak Capital, Night Capital, and founders of Spiff, Weave and Divvy.
Seis is another. Their mobile banking app for Spanish speakers reached $10M ARR within 16 months of launch and 500k+ customers, with a 4.9★ rating across 97k+ App Store reviews. We designed and built the app, the brand and the marketing site.
What makes working with startups different is the need for a team that moves as one. Product, design and engineering work together from the first sprint, so nothing gets lost between what was designed and what gets built. We're a 25-person team with a 5-year average tenure, and that's how we work by default.
Ready to build your first version?
We've designed prototypes for a raise and shipped v1 apps to the App Store. Tell us where you are, and we'll tell you whether we're the right fit.
Tell us about your project