For founders and AI labs
December: fewer meetings, more shipped
December is the best month of the year to start a build. Fewer meetings on both sides, faster replies, and a product or a pilot finished before January. What is open this month for founders and AI labs, and how both start free.
Prashant Kumar Singh · · 3 min read
In short
- Two queues are open for December: a $3,000 fixed-price MVP sprint for founders and a ten-task pilot for AI labs.
- Both begin with a free step: a one-page teardown or a 48-hour written task review.
- December works because the calendar empties: replies arrive in hours, and a three-week sprint started in the first week is live before the year ends.
Every year the same thing happens in December. Meetings get cancelled, inboxes go quiet, and the people who are still working get more done in three weeks than they did in the previous six. It is the best month to start a build, and this post is what is open for it.
For founders
| Offer | What you get | Price | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free teardown | One page: what to fix, what to cut, what to build first, with a scope and price | Free | A few days |
| Design sprint | Clickable prototype of the core flow and a one-page scope any developer can quote from | $2,000 fixed | 5 days |
| MVP sprint | One flow designed, built, deployed and handed over, with 30 days of support | $3,000 fixed | 3 weeks |
An MVP sprint started in the first week of December is live before the year ends. The January version of you has a product with real users instead of a plan.
For AI labs and data teams
| Offer | What you get | Price | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free task review | Written review of one task, rubric or test suite: shortcuts, ambiguities, missing tests | Free | 48 hours |
| Ten-task pilot | Ten tasks on your rubric, graded by you, with a written report | By complexity | 1 week |
| Managed delivery | Volume with second review on every item and a Friday report | By complexity | Ongoing |
A pilot that starts in December has its calibration done before the January volume planning happens, which is when most programmes are scoped.
Why December, specifically
- Replies in hours. With fewer meetings on both sides, decisions that take a week in March take a day.
- Full attention. December projects are the only ones on the desk, and it shows in the work.
- A clean start to the year. A product live or a pilot graded before 1 January changes what the January plan is about.
What the next thirty days of posts cover
The same two readers, thirty new topics. For labs: hidden-test patterns that cannot be gamed, reading trajectories instead of pass rates, difficulty calibration, flaky tests, rubric trees, grader agreement, cost per accepted task, a year in review of agent benchmarks. For founders: a year-end product audit, the first five minutes, empty states, pricing pages, a design sprint day by day, accessibility fixes that lift conversion, AI feature cost control. Every post has a sourced number and a free next step, and every one has a full write-up here.
Questions people ask
- Is December a good time to build an MVP?
- Yes. Fewer meetings and faster replies mean a three-week sprint started in the first week of December is live before January, with the founder's full attention available for decisions.
- What is open for AI labs in December?
- A free written review of one task within 48 hours, then a ten-task pilot on your rubric in one week, then managed delivery at volume if the numbers hold.
- What is open for founders in December?
- A free one-page teardown, then a $2,000 design sprint or a $3,000 fixed-price MVP sprint, with a written update every week.
If you're a founder
Send the thing you want live before January. The teardown comes back within days and ends with a scope and a fixed price.
If you run an AI lab or data team
Send one task now and the review is back before the week is out, in time to plan a pilot for mid-December.
Sources