johnnylabs est. 2010 Start an experiment

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, and you pay for it a week at a time: a demo every Friday, and you can stop any week. Every line still gets read by someone who's been doing this for sixteen years.

Bring us a problem See how it works
lab notebook · example entry
EXP-0417 human-approved
Illustrative. Your experiment goes here.

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.

  • 01

    New products

    From a napkin to a launched v1: web, mobile, the backend nobody sees and everybody needs.

  • 02

    AI inside your product

    Search that understands, assistants that know your data, features your users actually use. With evals, not vibes.

  • 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.

  • 04

    Internal tools

    The admin panel, the dashboard, the spreadsheet that became critical infrastructure. Made boring and reliable.

  • 05

    Rescues and rewrites

    The codebase everyone's afraid of. We map it, test it, and move it forward without stopping the business.

  • 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 there's working software to show you every Friday, not a status report.

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

  4. 04 · every Friday

    Demo, reprioritize, repeat

    Working software on staging every Friday, in your repo and your cloud. You see what the week bought, reorder the backlog, and decide whether to keep going. When you stop: 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. A fixed bid for the whole project pretends nobody learns anything halfway through. So we sell weeks: a flat price, your backlog, and working software every Friday.

Start here

Lab Week

One week. One hard question. A working prototype and a plan for what to build first.

  • Clickable, real-data prototype
  • Written spec and architecture
  • A first backlog, in priority order

Fixed fee, credited to your first Build weeks

Most popular

Build

A senior engineer and the agent bench take your backlog from spec to production, one week at a time.

  • One flat weekly price, agent compute included
  • Your backlog, in your priority order
  • A demo on staging every Friday
  • Your repo, your cloud, your IP

By the week. Stop any week.

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.

  • A human approves every merge.

    Machine-written, human-signed. A named senior engineer owns every line that reaches you.

  • Your repo from the first commit.

    Code, infrastructure and IP are yours from day one. No proprietary platform, no hostage situation.

  • Tests ship with the code.

    If it isn't tested, it isn't done. You get the test suite, not just the features.

  • 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.

  • You can watch the agents work.

    The agents post their own standup where your team chats: what each one did, what's blocked, what it cost. The humans' part is in there too. 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, and a demo every Friday.
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 the week, not by the hour. Lab Week is a fixed fee. After that, a Build is one flat weekly price for a senior engineer and the agent bench working your backlog. Agent compute is included up to a fair-use cap; past that it's billed at cost, and you can see the meter. Stop any week and keep everything we've built.

Why not one fixed price for the whole project?

Because nobody knows enough on day one to price a whole project honestly, including us. A big fixed bid either hides a fat buffer you pay for, or ends in an argument about scope. A week is small enough to get right: every Friday you see what it bought, and if it wasn't worth it, you stop.

What if we change our minds halfway?

You will, and that's the point. Reorder the backlog any Friday and next week builds the new top of the list. No change orders, no renegotiating. 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

or write to hello@johnnylabs.com