First-time founders on r/startups and HN repeatedly describe making their first hire — contractor, part-time dev, or full-time employee — without modeling the true cash impact: employer taxes, equity dilution on the cap table, the productivity ramp lag before the hire contributes, and the option to extend runway by staying solo. RunwayCalc is a focused simulator where founders input their current MRR, burn, cash balance, and proposed hire details and get a side-by-side comparison of three scenarios: hire now, hire in 3 months, and stay solo with tooling investment — each showing months of runway remaining and break-even revenue required.
Pre-seed founders with $50k-$500k in the bank facing their first hiring decision, typically between 6-18 months post-launch
Free core simulator; $7/mo for saved scenarios, PDF export, and cap table dilution modeling; one-time $29 'advisor review' where a vetted operator reviews the founder's scenario async
Hacker News: Post-2023 funding drought means more founders are bootstrapping longer and facing hiring decisions without the safety net of a 24-month runway, making the decision higher-stakes and the need for a model more acute.
Post-2023 funding drought means more founders are bootstrapping longer and facing hiring decisions without the safety net of a 24-month runway, making the decision higher-stakes and the need for a model more acute.
A single-page calculator with 8 inputs (MRR, burn, cash, hire salary, start date, ramp weeks, equity %, role type) that outputs a runway chart for three scenarios — no account required.
Optional AI layer benchmarks the founder's proposed hire compensation against anonymized data from similar-stage companies and flags if the offer is likely to fail to close, saving the modeling exercise from being moot.
Retention risk: this is a point-in-time decision tool used once or twice per company, so recurring revenue requires either a subscription for ongoing scenario tracking or a referral/affiliate angle with relevant services.
Likely buyers are people already trying to solve this problem with manual workarounds. Start with Pre-seed founders with $50k-$500k in the bank facing their first hiring decision, typically between 6-18 months post-launch and validate urgency before adding secondary features.
Find the first 10 users by searching for recent complaints around "finance SaaS" in Hacker News, developer communities, GitHub issues, and niche Slack or Discord groups. Offer a concierge version first: manually solve the workflow for a few users, then automate only the repeated steps.
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To build a RunwayCalc: Hiring Decision Simulator for Pre-Seed Founders app, start by validating the problem. Generate a full project spec above for a complete tech stack and build plan.
A easy difficulty app like this typically costs $0-$5,000 for an MVP. Monetization: Free core simulator; $7/mo for saved scenarios, PDF export, and cap table dilution modeling; one-time $29 'advisor review' where a vetted operator reviews the founder's scenario async.
Pre-seed founders with $50k-$500k in the bank facing their first hiring decision, typically between 6-18 months post-launch