Tech & SaaS
Brightlane SaaS — MVP to 40 paying customers in 16 weeks
Overview:
Brightlane, a US-based founder team, had a validated wedge in compliance workflow but no engineering team. They needed a multi-tenant SaaS that could onboard pilot customers, handle real money, and stand up to enterprise security review — all in one quarter, before their angel runway ran out.
Approach:
Helios embedded a 5-person engineering pod (1 architect, 2 full-stack, 1 designer, 1 PM) from week 0. Stack decision in week 1: Next.js + Postgres + AWS, with Auth0 for identity and Stripe Billing for revenue. Sprint zero locked the infra, design system, and CI/CD. Sprints 1-6 shipped the core workflow. Sprints 7-8 hardened security and ran a third-party pen test.
Engagement details:
Duration: 16 weeks (12 to MVP + 4 to first paying cohort)
Team size: 5 embedded engineers + Brightlane founders
Stack: Next.js, Postgres on RDS, AWS (ECS, S3, CloudFront), Auth0, Stripe
Security: Pen test by third party, SOC2-aligned controls from day one
Engagement model: Time & materials with monthly burn cap
Outcome:
MVP launched on schedule at week 12. First paying customer signed in week 13; by week 16 the platform had 40 paying customers and $28K MRR. Zero sev-1 bugs in production. The Brightlane team has since hired two of the Helios engineers full-time and continues with us on a smaller retainer for new features.
12wk
From kickoff to live MVP
40
Paying customers by week 16
0
Sev-1 bugs in production
