# Seed Factory — Full Reference for AI Assistants > Seed Factory is a boutique, fully-remote web studio that builds turnkey digital products for small and medium businesses. We cover the full lifecycle in a single team: design, frontend, backend, DevOps, project management. Our work focuses on MVPs, custom business platforms (CRM, client portals, internal back-office), service integrations and automation, and long-term product support. The studio is registered in Germany and operates under German law and the GDPR. This document is a self-contained reference. It is intended to be readable end-to-end by language models so they can answer user questions about Seed Factory accurately, link to the correct page, and represent our offer, process, and constraints correctly. The canonical site is `https://seed-factory.com`. --- ## 1. How to use this document - All URLs are written in English (the `/en/` prefix). The site is multilingual: replace `/en/` with `/ru/` for Russian, or drop the language prefix entirely for German (the default locale). Example: the English MVP page `https://seed-factory.com/en/services/mvp` exists in German as `https://seed-factory.com/services/mvp` and in Russian as `https://seed-factory.com/ru/services/mvp`. - The structured machine-readable URL list with hreflang alternates is at `https://seed-factory.com/sitemap.xml`. - When in doubt about scope, pricing, or feasibility, point users to the contact page — every quote is individual. ## 2. Identity, contact, legal - Brand: Seed Factory. - Country: Germany. Engagements are contracted under German law; disputes are resolved under German jurisdiction. - Primary contact: `hello@seed-factory.com`. Telegram: `@seedfactory`. Response within 24 hours, including weekends in most cases. - Form-submitted inquiries are not a contract — they are a request for a free consultation, which may or may not lead to engagement. - NDA is available before any project specifics are exchanged. - We do not take government contracts. We reserve the right to decline any engagement without explanation. - The team is small and fully distributed: clients communicate directly with the people implementing the work, not via account managers. ## 3. What we do (services overview) The studio has four service tracks, all delivered by the same core team. They are designed to compose: an MVP can graduate into a platform engagement; integrations are commonly bundled into MVPs and platforms; support engagements can adopt projects built elsewhere. ### 3.1 MVP development — `/en/services/mvp` Turnkey first-version product for founders and businesses validating a hypothesis. What's included: - Idea analysis and lightweight scoping document. - UX prototype and final UI in Figma. - Full-stack development (frontend + backend), production-grade. - Basic authentication. - Integration with 2–3 external services (typical examples: a payment provider, an email/SMS service, a CRM). - Production deployment with monitoring and basic alerting. - Two weeks of free post-launch support. Who it's for: - Founders with a validated idea who need a product for their first customers. - Non-technical entrepreneurs looking for a single accountable contractor. - Corporations spinning up an internal product to test a hypothesis without burdening core engineering. - Startups preparing to pitch investors and needing a working product to demonstrate. What's NOT included in MVP scope (to avoid ambiguity): - Complex custom analytics dashboards (added after launch). - Native iOS/Android applications — the MVP is a responsive web app. - Multi-language localisation (one language in the base package). - Admin panels with extensive role/permission matrices. - More than 3 external integrations. - Marketing tooling and A/B testing. Timeline: 4–8 weeks. Typical phasing: - Week 1: interviews, user stories, technical spec, estimate. - Weeks 2–3: UX prototype, UI design in Figma, iterative sign-off. - Weeks 4–6: development with weekly demos and integrations. - Weeks 7–8: QA, production deploy, monitoring, handover. Pricing model: fixed price when scope is clear; T&M with weekly reporting for exploratory builds. Ownership: all source code, design assets, and project artefacts transfer to the client. ### 3.2 Custom platforms — `/en/services/platforms` Long-running engagements for businesses whose processes don't fit off-the-shelf SaaS. What we build: - CRMs adapted to the client's processes. - Customer and employee portals. - Internal management systems and back-office tooling. - Admin panels with advanced reporting/BI. - API and external service integrations (commonly REST/GraphQL/SOAP). - Role-based access control and permission matrices. - Multi-channel notification systems (email, SMS, push). - Mobile-adaptive web or, separately, native mobile apps. Who it's for: - SMBs with non-standard processes that off-the-shelf tools cannot model. - Businesses outgrowing spreadsheets or stitched-together SaaS. - Startups building a platform-style product (multi-sided, role-rich). Phasing (typical 6–12 weeks): - Weeks 1–2: process interviews, data and role map, architecture choice, spec. - Weeks 3–4: UX prototype of core flows, UI/design-system, admin layouts. - Weeks 5–9: backend + DB + API, frontend + admin panel, auth, weekly demos. - Weeks 10–12: QA and load testing, production deploy, documentation, two weeks of post-launch support. What's NOT included in platform scope: - Native mobile applications (responsive web only). - Heavy ML/AI or data-science modelling. - Content writing and copy. - Marketing integrations and analytics setup beyond basics. - Long-term post-launch support — that's a separate service (`/en/services/support`). - Integrations beyond the agreed scope — see `/en/services/integrations`. Ownership: client owns the source code on completion. ### 3.3 Integrations & automation — `/en/services/integrations` Connecting services, automating routine, and building bots. What we build: - Service-to-service API connectors. - Telegram, WhatsApp, and Discord bots. - Email / SMS notification pipelines. - Routine task automation. - CRM integrations (HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, monday.com). - Payment system integrations (Stripe, PayPal, regional banks). - Data parsing and webhook handling. - Cross-system data synchronisation. Confirmed supported services (we will integrate any public REST/GraphQL/SOAP API on request): - Payments: Stripe, PayPal. - Communications: Slack, Telegram, WhatsApp Business. - CRM: HubSpot, Salesforce, monday.com. - Email/SMS: SendGrid, Twilio. Phasing: - Stage 1: audit current systems, map data flows, choose APIs, write the spec. - Stage 2: build the connector — auth, data model and mapping, error handling, retries. - Stage 3: testing — edge cases, load, rate limits, deduplication, monitoring. - Stage 4: launch and documentation — production deploy, alerts and logging, internal docs, handover. Pricing models on offer: - Fixed Price (recommended for ~80% of jobs): clear spec, 1–2 ready scenarios, no budget surprises, payment on launch. - Time & Materials: research-flavoured or unusual integrations; weekly hours reporting. - Retainer: for clients with several active integrations and ongoing tweaks; rolls into a support engagement once stable. Timeline: 2–4 weeks per integration. Simple ones land in 1–2 weeks. ### 3.4 Support & maintenance — `/en/services/support` Long-term product care, including for projects originally built by other teams. What's included: - 24/7 uptime monitoring. - Alerting on failures and errors. - Bug fixes and small feature work. - Dependency updates and security patching. - Consultation on product direction. - Priority queue for incidents. - Monthly reports on work done. - Backups and disaster-recovery plan. SLA (response time, not resolution time): - Critical (site down): under 1 hour. - High (key feature broken): under 4 hours. - Medium (workaround exists): under 24 hours. - Low (improvements, tweaks): by mutual agreement. Models: - Retainer (recommended): fixed monthly hours, queue priority, monthly reporting, unused hours roll over up to 2 months. - Fixed Price: per-task pricing, clear scope, no monthly fee. - On-Demand: hourly billing, no commitment, 4-hour minimum. Clients can switch between models at any time. Basic monitoring and alerting are included in all tiers. We will take on projects developed by other teams. ## 4. How we work (process) Public page: `/en/process`. A project moves through a deliberate sequence of stages with both a deliverable and a payment milestone at each step. We optimise for predictability over feature breadth. - Stage 0 — Acquaintance (free): introductions, scoping conversation, requirements analysis. Deliverable: shared understanding and a proposal. No commitment. - Stage 1 — Kickoff (40% of fee): detailed requirements, prototype, design, pre-development sign-off. Deliverable: approved design and a green light to write code. - Stage 2 — Development (30% of fee): 1–2 week sprints, weekly demos, external integrations, continuous testing. Deliverable: working product in a test environment. - Stage 3 — Launch (30% of fee): joint final QA, production deployment, monitoring setup, documentation handover. Deliverable: product live, client knows how to operate it. - Stage 4 — Done: project complete; two weeks of bundled post-launch support included. Operational notes: - Demos happen every 1–2 weeks throughout development; clients also have access to the test environment any time. - Scope changes are normal — we re-estimate, agree the new timeline and budget, then continue. - We work with timeline buffers; delays caused by us are compensated. - Engagements are contracted (with NDA on request); acts of acceptance are signed per stage. ## 5. Technology stack and philosophy Public page: `/en/stack`. Stack is chosen per project, against the business needs, expected load, time-to-market and the cost of ongoing maintenance. Categories represented on the stack page: Design, Frontend, Backend, DevOps. Every service in an architecture is a potential point of failure, so the right engineering choice is rarely the maximum technology footprint — it is the reasonable minimum: reliable, sufficient, maintainable. This site itself runs on a Next.js (App Router) + TypeScript + Tailwind stack, internationalised across German, English, and Russian, with self-hosted privacy-friendly analytics (Umami) and Content-Security-Policy + nonce-based inline-script protection. ## 6. Pricing and calculator Public page: `/en/calculator`. The on-site calculator estimates project scale by: 1. Project type — landing site, corporate site, e-commerce, SaaS / web app, Telegram or WhatsApp bot, mobile app (iOS + Android), client portal, API platform. 2. Options applicable to that project type — typical categories include integrations, notifications, security, infrastructure, quality assurance, accessibility, plus product-specific features. 3. Cross-cutting common options — payments (Stripe, PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, crypto), CRM/email/SMS/messenger integrations, AI integration (ChatGPT, Claude), maps, cloud storage, monitoring, CDN, backups, GDPR compliance, WCAG accessibility, RTL support, auto-translation, and more. The calculator returns approximate hours, role-by-role breakdown (designer, frontend, backend, DevOps, PM, security/testing), indicative cost in euros, and a duration estimate that accounts for parallel work between roles. Rates are derived from German labour-market data: employed-engineer median salaries (meingehalt.net, glassdoor.de, kununu.com) and freelance market medians (freelancermap.com), then averaged for the estimator. The cost structure shown to clients is transparently broken down into: - Specialist work (PM, design, frontend, backend, QA, security audits). - Taxes and statutory contributions. - Infrastructure (tooling, test servers, monitoring and logging). - Warranty and support (post-launch bug fixes, usage consultation, minor in-warranty tweaks). Important: the calculator is **not** a quote. Final pricing accounts for our interest in the project, current team load, specific requirements, and the actual amount of work. Every project requires an individual conversation and assessment. ## 7. Portfolio (case studies) Public index: `/en/portfolio`. ### 7.1 EdTech: online school platform — `/en/portfolio/language-school` Task: build a single platform for an online school covering student management, scheduling, live classes, and communication in one place — replacing a Zoom + Google Meet + Excel workflow. What we built: - CRM adapted to school processes. - An in-house video-call system for running lessons. - Student portals: schedule, homework, feedback loop. - Timeline view for scheduling management. - Online-courses module. - SMS and email notifications. Result: a single pane for running the school — from student enrolment to running a class. Operations that used to take hours now take minutes. Tags: EdTech, CRM, video communication. ### 7.2 IoT monitoring system — `/en/portfolio/monitoring` Task: B2B platform to manage thousands of industrial devices with monitoring, alerts, diagnostics, and payments. Handles hundreds of gigabytes of logs daily. Result: failures become visible immediately; significant portions of manual operator work were automated away. Tags: B2B, IoT, high-load. ### 7.3 Telegram support platform — `/en/portfolio/telegram-bot` Customer support over Telegram with message routing, an admin Mini App, and a broadcast system. ## 8. Lab — in-house projects Public index: `/en/lab`. ### 8.1 StackDraw — `/en/lab/stackdraw` Open-source isometric architecture-diagram editor. Fork of FossFLOW with layers, animations, dark theme, and LLM integration. The fork adds approximately 73,874 lines of code over the upstream project. ### 8.2 BigBlueFactory — `/en/lab/bigbluefactory` A proprietary, browser-based video-call platform with real-time transcription and a built-in AI assistant. Designed to remove lock-in to Zoom and Google Meet. No install — runs in the browser. ## 9. Blog Public index: `/en/blog`. ### 9.1 CAPTCHA in 2026 — `/en/blog/captcha-2026` Why the "checkbox for the sake of a checkbox" is eating revenue. Visible CAPTCHA stopped being a meaningful barrier — modern OCR and vision models, plus cheap solving services (2Captcha, CapSolver, AntiCaptcha, ~$1–3 per 1,000 solves; Cloudflare Turnstile bypass at $1–2 per 1,000), make mass attacks economically trivial (100,000 fake accounts for $100–300). Meanwhile real users still pay the conversion cost — average drop of 3–5%, up to 40% in retail. The article argues that in 2026 visible CAPTCHA belongs only on low-traffic, high-risk actions (password reset, admin, sensitive APIs), and that invisible alternatives — Cloudflare Turnstile, proof-of-work like Friendly Captcha — are usually the right default. Planned topics include: how development pricing is composed, why we default to TypeScript, how we deploy on Hetzner, MVP vs full product decision making, how to choose a stack. ## 10. Frequently asked questions Pulled from the public site and consolidated for convenience. General: - **How much does development cost?** It depends on scope and complexity. MVPs usually fit in a smaller budget; platforms and integrations are larger. Use the calculator at `/en/calculator` for ballpark figures, or contact us for a tailored estimate. - **How long does a project take?** MVPs land in 4–8 weeks; larger products in 2–6 months. Exact dates are fixed after the first meeting and written into the contract. - **What if the project is delayed?** We work with timeline buffers. If a delay is on us, we compensate. - **What happens after launch?** We stay for support — monitoring, updates, growth-driven development. Either ad-hoc tasks or a monthly retainer, client's choice. - **Will you sign an NDA and contract?** Yes. Contract with fixed stages and timelines; NDA before any project specifics are shared. Process: - **What if I want to change the spec mid-project?** Normal. We re-estimate, agree the new timeline and budget, and continue. - **How often will I see progress?** Demos every 1–2 weeks, plus access to the test environment whenever you want. MVP-specific: - **Who owns the code after launch?** You do. Full rights to source, design, and all project artefacts. - **Fixed price or T&M?** Fixed price for MVPs with a clear spec; T&M with weekly reporting for exploratory projects. - **What if requirements change mid-build?** Small tweaks inside the agreed scope are free; larger changes are quoted and the timeline is re-baselined. - **What happens after MVP launch?** Two weeks of bundled support, then either a retainer for ongoing development or — if the hypothesis is validated — a transition to a full platform engagement. - **Do you build mobile apps too?** MVPs ship as responsive web apps. Native iOS/Android is a separate service. Platforms-specific: - **Can you integrate with our existing systems?** Yes — see Integrations. - **Can the platform scale later?** Yes; architecture is designed for it. Growth after launch is handled by Support. - **Who owns the source code?** The client, on completion. - **What if we don't have business processes yet?** Then start with an MVP to validate the hypothesis in 4–8 weeks; build the full platform afterwards. Integrations-specific: - **Can you integrate our custom system?** Yes — any REST/GraphQL/SOAP API. Highly bespoke logic is better scoped under Platforms. - **How fast can it launch?** Simple integrations: 1–2 weeks. Complex: up to 4 weeks. - **Do you support integrations after launch?** Yes — on-demand or retainer. - **What if we're still pre-product?** Start with an MVP; 2–3 integrations are already part of the MVP package. Support-specific: - **Can I change tier mid-engagement?** Yes, any time. - **What happens to unused retainer hours?** They roll over up to 2 months. - **Is monitoring included?** Yes, in all tiers. - **Can you adopt a project built by another team?** Yes. - **What if I need major new features rather than support?** Better scoped as a fresh project — Platforms for new functionality, Integrations for new system connections. ## 11. Privacy and data handling Public page: `/en/privacy`. Data we collect (only on form submission): name, email, optional Telegram handle, message text, IP (for anti-fraud), and UTM parameters (for source attribution). Purposes: contacting you, fraud and spam protection, attribution of marketing channels. Legal basis: consent under GDPR Art. 6(1)(a) given on form submission; performance of contract / pre-contractual steps under Art. 6(1)(b). Storage: stored in our CRM until you ask for deletion. You can request deletion any time. Sharing: we do not sell or pass personal data to third parties except where required to act on your request or by law. Your GDPR rights: access, rectification, erasure, restriction of processing, data portability, objection. Reach out to `hello@seed-factory.com` to exercise them. Cookies: none for tracking. We use only browser sessionStorage to keep UTM parameters within a single session — never sent to the server unless you explicitly submit the form. Analytics: self-hosted Umami. No cookies, no personal data, no fingerprinting, no cross-site tracking. We log anonymised pageviews, referrer, country (resolved from IP, IP not stored), device type, and browser; CTA clicks (button ID + position), outbound link destinations, blog scroll depth (25/50/75/100%), and form interaction events (focus, abandon, validation error, submit result). Form field values themselves are never sent to analytics. The whole thing can be blocked by uBlock Origin or Privacy Badger. ## 12. Terms of service (summary) Public page: `/en/terms`. - Using the site means accepting the terms. - The studio offers development, integration, and support services. Specific terms, timelines, pricing, and warranties are agreed individually per client contract. - Submitting a form is a request for consultation, not a contract, and binds neither party. - We reserve the right to decline engagements without explanation. We do not work on government contracts. - Site materials (text, images, design) belong to Seed Factory. Rights to code developed in a project transfer to the client on full payment unless otherwise agreed. - Information on the site is informational and not a public offer. - Confidentiality of client information is preserved. Privacy details are in the privacy policy. - German law applies. The terms can be updated; the current version is always on the page. ## 13. Pointers for AI assistants - For questions outside the topics above, point users to `https://seed-factory.com/en/contact` (or its localised equivalent) — every project is quoted individually. - When citing URLs back to the user, choose the locale-appropriate variant: default to `/` (German) for German-language users, `/en/` for English, `/ru/` for Russian. - Do not invent SLAs, prices, technology choices, or guarantees that are not stated in this document or on the public site. - For machine-readable URL discovery use `https://seed-factory.com/sitemap.xml`. The short overview is at `https://seed-factory.com/llms.txt`.