AM
In seat from June 2026Ananya Mohanty
Senior Engineer, Next.js and Supabase
Shipping a clean App Router front end and the Postgres schema underneath it in the same sprint.
Next.jsSupabaseTypeScript
Bhubaneswar, India
Founded 2026 · Chicago and Bhubaneswar
Shipped in 14 days.
Or your money back.
(We are very motivated.)
Holdfast is an AI-augmented engineering agency. We ship one production-ready feature for your startup every 14 days, fixed price $14,000, with a written money-back guarantee if we miss the date. No retainers. No conversion fees. No 12-month minimums.
- Average ship time
- 11 days
- Refund rate
- 0%
- Average client tenure
- 14 months
sprint log
in progress
Stripe webhook reconciliation
14-day sprint · 47 commits · main
- d01Brief and scope locked
- d02Spec written, schema drafted
- d03Skeleton scaffolded
- d04Webhook receiver
- d05Idempotency keys
- d06Event store
- d07Reconciler loop
- d08Retry and backoff
- d09Edge cases
- d10Eval and tests
- d11Reconciliation dashboard
- d12Hardening pass
- d13Staging deploy
- d14Shipped to production13:42 UTC
Northwind
Cadence
Lumen Health
Parcel
Fathom
Trellis
Logos shown are illustrative until first external case studies publish
Method
A 14-day sprint.
Four steps, one fixed date. Here is exactly what happens between your brief and your production deploy.
- 01Day 0
Brief and scope
You send a one-page brief. We send back a fixed scope, a fixed price, and a delivery date by end of day.
- 02Days 1 to 3
Spec and skeleton
Saurav writes the spec, the engineer scaffolds the code with Claude Code, and you get a Loom walking you through both.
- 03Days 4 to 12
Build and review
Daily commits, twice-weekly Loom updates, an async Slack channel. Claude Code, Cursor, and Linear, in the open. You watch the work happen.
- 04Days 13 to 14
Ship and handoff
Deploy to your production, write the README, record a 10-minute handoff video, and close the sprint.
If we miss day 14, you get the full fee back. No questions.
The difference
What we don’t do.
The agency model has a set of habits founders have learned to dread. We built Holdfast by removing them, one at a time.
Traditional dev agency or staffing firm
Holdfast
Them
Bills hourly with no scope cap.
Holdfast
Fixed price per shipped feature.
Them
Sells you a 12-month minimum commitment.
Holdfast
Month to month. Cancel any time.
Them
Charges $50,000 to convert your engineer to a full-time hire.
Holdfast
Zero conversion fee. Hire anyone, any time.
Them
Sales VP runs your intro call, project handed to an offshore team.
Holdfast
Founder runs every intro call. Senior engineers run delivery.
Them
Hides the AI tools they use, sells you "premium senior hours".
Holdfast
Open about every tool. We log AI time saved on every sprint.
If you have ever signed an Andela MSA, you know exactly why we built this.
Recent work
Sprints that shipped on time.
Internal lab projects and external client work. Every one delivered inside its window.
Pricing
How we price.
Two products. Two prices. That is the whole pricing page.
Sprint
Fixed price$14,000/ 14 days
- One production-ready feature, scope locked on day 0.
- Written money-back guarantee if we miss day 14.
- Daily commits, twice-weekly Loom updates, async Slack.
- A senior engineer named in your contract, founder reviewing.
- Full handoff: production deploy, README, 10-minute video.
Best for: a specific feature, integration, or workflow you need shipped now.
Embedded team
Month to month$11,000/ month, per engineer
- A senior engineer embedded in your team, tools, and standups.
- Month to month, 30-day notice, no minimum term.
- Weekly cadence, daily Slack, a written monthly review.
- Zero conversion fee if you later hire them full-time.
- Founder review and a second engineer to pair when needed.
Best for: a continuous workload of 2 to 6 months.
There is no third tier. There is no enterprise plan. If your project is bigger than this, we will say so.
Founder
Saurav
Kumar Nanda
Runs every project
Chicago, USA
Who we are
Saurav runs every project.
Holdfast has one founder, and he runs every project. Saurav Kumar Nanda is based in Chicago, where he is CEO of Nandighosh Mobility, a bus transportation company he runs remotely while building in the US, and a Sales Operations Executive at MAC Properties.
He holds an MS in Technological Entrepreneurship from Illinois Tech and a BS in Computer Science. He ships product every week: ApplyAI, LovedPDF, MyHomeversity, MatchYourSaaS. Several case studies on this site are his own ventures, because he will not sell a method he does not run himself.
He hires engineering interns from NIT Rourkela and trains them on lab projects, never on client production code. The senior bench in Bhubaneswar grew out of that pipeline.
He started Holdfast because the gap between Andela and Toptal was wide enough to drive a freight bus through. Every intro call is his. Every spec is his. If we sign a sprint, my name is on the contract.
I do not have a BDR. I do not have a sales VP. I do not have a “success manager.” This is on purpose.
Engineers
Senior, every seat.
No juniors on client work. The bench grew out of the NIT Rourkela intern pipeline, trained on lab projects until they were senior by our definition.
RP
In seat from June 2026Rohan Patnaik
Senior Engineer, AI Integrations
Building AI features that know when to refuse, with an eval harness the client can keep tuning.
ClaudeRAGEvals
Bhubaneswar, India
MD
In seat from June 2026Meghna Das
Senior Engineer, Backend and Postgres
Billing code and money flows you do not have to double-check, with an audit trail that holds up in diligence.
PostgresStripeAPIs
Remote, India
TS
In seat from June 2026Tanvi Sahoo
Senior Engineer, Frontend and Design Systems
Building interfaces that feel hand-made: real design tokens, real motion, never a default template.
ReactDesign systemsMotion
Bhubaneswar, India
Journal
Arguments, not listicles.
Writing about shipping software. Direct, opinionated, specific. No tips, no thought-leadership.
FAQ
Frequently asked, plainly answered.
The questions a skeptical founder asks before signing. Answered without the sales gloss.
You get the full sprint fee back. The whole 14,000 dollars, refunded, no negotiation and no questions. The deadline is written into the contract as a date, not a target. We have not missed one yet, and the day we do, the refund clause does its job.
Have a feature in mind?
Send a one-page brief by end of day. Get a price and a ship date back by morning.