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Lab Week
One week. One hard question. A working prototype and a plan you can price.
- Clickable, real-data prototype
- Written spec and architecture
- Fixed quote for the full build
Fixed fee, credited to the build
AI-first product studio · shipping since 2010
Old enough to know better. AI enough to go faster.
Johnny Labs builds real software for companies that need it to work. Senior engineers run a bench of AI agents, so you get it in weeks, not quarters, at a price we quote up front. Every line still gets read by someone who's been doing this for sixteen years.
lab notebook · example entry
EXP-0417
human-approved
AI made the first 80% of software cheap. The last 20% is where projects go to die.
Anyone can get a demo out of a chatbot by Tuesday. Getting it to handle the weird invoice, pass the security review, survive real users and still make sense to the next engineer: that's the job. It always was.
We let the machines do what they're great at (typing, tests, boilerplate, the tenth variation) and keep humans on what they're great at: knowing what to build, smelling a bad idea early, and saying no.
What we build
Things that ship. Things that stay shipped.
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01
New products
From a napkin to a launched v1: web, mobile, the backend nobody sees and everybody needs.
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02
AI inside your product
Search that understands, assistants that know your data, features your users actually use. With evals, not vibes.
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03
Agents that do real work
The re-keying, triage and reconciling your team does by hand. Automated, audited, and with a human in the loop where it counts.
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04
Internal tools
The admin panel, the dashboard, the spreadsheet that became critical infrastructure. Made boring and reliable.
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05
Rescues and rewrites
The codebase everyone's afraid of. We map it, test it, and move it forward without stopping the business.
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06
Prototypes that end arguments
Two weeks of meetings, or one week and a working thing you can click? We prefer the second.
How it works
Spec it. Build it. Prove it.
We've built our own line for this: the agents, the checks, the review gates. It's why we can quote a fixed price and mean it.
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01 · days 1–3
Spec the outcome
We write down what "done" means: the behavior, the edge cases, the numbers. Then we turn it into acceptance tests before anyone writes a feature.
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02 · every day
Agents build, seniors steer
A bench of AI agents does the typing in parallel. Our engineers design the system, split the work, and throw out anything that isn't right.
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03 · every change
Prove it works
Tests, types, security scans and a human code review on every single merge. If it can't be verified, it doesn't ship.
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04 · weekly
Ship, then hand over
Working software on staging every week, in your repo and your cloud. At the end: docs, a walkthrough, and a team that can run it without us.
Engagements
Three ways in. No hourly meter.
Hourly billing made sense when typing was the slow part. It isn't anymore, so we sell outcomes: scoped, priced and dated before we start.
Most popular
Build
We take it from spec to production, milestone by milestone.
- Fixed price per milestone
- Staging deploy every week
- Your repo, your cloud, your IP
- Docs and handover included
Quoted up front. Late is on us.
For teams
Embedded
A senior Johnny Labs engineer plus the agent bench, inside your team.
- Ships alongside your engineers
- Sets up your team's AI workflow
- Leaves the playbook behind
Monthly, cancel any time
Our rules
Lights on. Always.
Some people are building "dark factories" where no human ever reads the code. Bold. We'd rather you could sleep at night.
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A human approves every merge.
Machine-written, human-signed. A named senior engineer owns every line that reaches you.
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Your repo from the first commit.
Code, infrastructure and IP are yours from day one. No proprietary platform, no hostage situation.
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Tests ship with the code.
If it isn't tested, it isn't done. You get the test suite, not just the features.
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Your data stays yours.
Models run under business terms that don't train on your code or data, and we'll use your cloud and your model accounts if you prefer.
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We tell you what's AI.
What the agents did, what the humans did, what it cost. No mystery boxes, no offshore wizard behind the curtain.
We were shipping software before "agentic" was a word.
Johnny Labs has built software for clients since 2010: web, mobile, cloud, data, and every hype cycle in between. That's the point. The robots are new. Knowing which of their ideas to throw away isn't.
- Then
- A team of engineers, a quarter, a statement of work.
- Now
- A few senior engineers, a bench of agents, a few weeks, a fixed price.
- Always
- Someone experienced who cares whether it works.
Questions
The awkward ones, answered.
Is it really AI, or a lot of people behind a curtain?
It's really AI, and it's really people, and we'll show you which is which. Agents write most of the code and tests; senior engineers design, review and approve everything. Every engagement gets a plain report of what the agents did and what we did.
Won't AI-written code be unmaintainable slop?
Unreviewed AI code often is. Ours isn't unreviewed. Everything passes tests, type checks and security scans, then a human code review against the same standards we've held since 2010. Your engineers should be able to read it on day one.
Who owns the code?
You do, from the first commit. It lives in your repository and deploys to your cloud. When we're done, you keep everything, including the tests, docs and infrastructure code.
What happens to our data and code with the AI models?
We use models under business terms that don't train on your data. If your policies require it, we work inside your cloud and your model accounts, and nothing leaves your walls.
How do you price?
By outcome, not by hour. Lab Week is a fixed fee. Builds are a fixed price per milestone, quoted before we start. If a milestone runs late because of us, the overrun is on us.
What if we change our minds halfway?
You will, and that's fine. Changes become a new milestone with its own price and date, agreed before we build it. Since building is fast, changing course is cheaper than you're used to.
Why not just give our own team Claude Code?
You should! Then call us when you want to know how to get production software out of it, not just demos. Embedded engagements exist exactly for that: we ship with your team and leave the workflow behind.
Bring us the thing you've been putting off.
Tell us the problem in a paragraph. We'll tell you, honestly, whether it's a Lab Week, a Build, or something you don't need us for.
Start an experiment