When you sign a contract to partner with Chisel, you own 100% of your Intellectual Property from the moment payment has been successfully processed. This means you own the code we write for you, any mutations or derivatives of that code, any and all designs, any work product created during the Planning and Analyzing stages of the process and any and all claims to Trademarks, Patents and Copyrights.

Start lean—but with intention. Your responsibilities during the Hybrid SDLC is what we call at Chisel, “Positioning”. You’re responsible for putting your company in its best possible position to stand out from among your competitors. We’ve got you covered on the development part. You will need to build your dream team and create tasks for them. We recommend finding a mentor or start-up coach to help you through this. As a general rule of thumb, most high performing software teams will have an attorney, developers, a financial analyst, a branding expert and a marketing guru.

The Hybrid Business and Software Development Life Cycle. We use the Hybrid model at Chisel because we believe that a software is only as valuable as its founders and users. We create your software with your business in mind.

You will receive an email notification after each completed stage of the software development life cycle. Software development updates are added to your Dashboard Documents once a week. This happens every Wednesday.

Revisions and modifications generally happen in the Planning, Analyzing and Design stages. After coding commences, additional changes can only occur after deployment into the marketplaces. Chisel specializes in minimal viable products—but we’re still coders. After Version 1 of your software enters the marketplaces, we will enter a new contract and make modifications to be deployed in as many later versions as you prefer

Members of the Microcredit Program that partner with Chisel are technically “leasing the ownership rights” of their Intellectual Property. While it’s still true that Chisel doesn’t own any of your Intellectual Property, your angel investor owns the percentage value of your intellectual property equal to the amount of debt owed. For example, if you owe $5,000 worth of convertible debt and the value of your intellectual property is worth $20,000, your investor owns 25% of your intellectual property until the total installments have been satisfied. Note: For additional information of the legal and tax implications of our program, consult a start-up attorney.

Chisel takes the security of your data and the privacy of your personal information very seriously. Because of that, Dashboard features are designed to keep your information safe, secure and available only to you unless you indicate otherwise. Privacy is a fundamental human right. Your software is important to so many parts of your life. What you share from those experiences, and who you share it with, should be up to you. We design products to protect your privacy and give you control over your information. It’s not always easy. But that’s the kind of innovation we believe in. Some services process documents in the cloud, which gives others access to your files. But we designed Documents to process your files right on your device. Every file is encrypted which means, Chisel can’t read your files while they’re being sent between you and the person you’re sharing your files with. Profile keeps your branding files under wraps. You control which information goes into Profile and who you share it with. Orders can help you hide what you buy if you ever share your login with someone else in the company. Your credit and debit card numbers are hidden from Chisel and any merchant partnered with Chisel. As far as your spending history—it’s generated right on your device, so only the bank has that history unless you opt to keep those files on the record.

For many—it’s important to understand the total costs of running a business before making the decision to jump in the driver’s seat. And that’s fair. Keep in mind that running a software company is expensive. There’s no clear answer. It really depends on the size of your ambition. So while the average software application can be anywhere between $8,000 and $20,000, this won’t include your IP attorney fees, a marketing budget, user testing or your team’s salaries. I’d strongly recommend adding those costs, and positioning your brand in a way that makes you attractive to investors.

Absolutely! The top three barriers that prevent great founders from dominating their industry is lack of infrastructure, lack of revenue streams, and lack of visibility. From day one, Chisel tackles infrastructure through our hybrid business and SDLC model. With our Dashboard tools, we help founders identify what’s needed to position their company’s for growth. We also partner with many programs that fill any gaps that may exist in your company.

Yes—Our developers code in over 15 languages. We will sign an NDA and analyze the code written from your previous developer and customize a special contract contingent on the size of the remaining work. When transfering code from a prior development team, it’s important that you understand your IP ownership rights and how transfering your code will affect you.

We take security seriously. Every single application is created with three different layers of security. We generally create two-tier security at an application’s login, password protection in the data we store in the cloud.

While insurance is not required to sign a contract with Chisel, we strongly recommend newly formed businesses to protect themselves with Software Business Insurance, Liability Insurance and a BOP or Business Owner Protection coverage. Accidents happen. While we may not be able to foresee the future, we can certainly be well prepared for it.